The Madness Begins

After another cold night, we awakened to a beautiful day in the “holler”.  Apparently this is the first competition in 12 years where there hasn’t been any rain!  In past years, people have had to post “No Wake” signs so the water would be pushed into their setup areas.  In anticipation of this wet weather, everyone insisted that we purchase rain boots.  This excited me more than Jim but I still went on the prowl for the perfect pair.  Now let me explain a little bit about my search for the wellies.  Hunter wellies are considered to be oldest and highest quality brands in the UK and recently have become a fashion item.  Anyway, I thought they were adorable so I tried on a pair.  Unfortunately, I am apparently a midget with husky calves.  Those wellies didn’t fit so I had to get the ones for husky calves.  They didn’t fit right either!  There are currently three boxes of wellies that need to get returned.  For those of you that are sitting on the edge of their seats, I did find the perfect pair.  I may be a midget with husky calves but I can still fit in kids shoes!!  My Hunter kids wellies are the perfect addition to any outfit.  Some of you may know the story of my grandfather and his rubbers (yeah, now imagine the horrible images that go through a kids head when grampa asks you to go get his rubbers! Blech!).  Any time they predicted rain and he wore his rubbers, which just went right over the shoes themselves, it never rained.  Apparently I have inherited his meteorological superpowers because there is no rain in sight here!!  Now back to our regularly scheduled programming…

Today is when everything for a competition really begins.  You make sure your smokers are ready to go, the meat is trimmed and prepped, etc.  We got all that ready early so we could enjoy the evening and all that they had planned for us.  After the cooks meeting, we headed to our next door neighbors, Jim & Adrian of Sweet Peppers out of New Mexico, for the Wine & Cheese party that takes place at every competition.  It’s a great way to meet even more teams that you may have missed and it lets you have one last bit of relaxation before the chaos truly begins. 

Now it’s time for the parade!!  All of the teams grabbed their banners (thanks to Danny & Kristine from Gold State Engraving in Lake Havasu City for making it) and state flags (thanks to Tom & Paul from I.A.B. 30 for letting us borrow it) paraded through the town square while throwing candy and beads to those on the route.  Ah yes, the route was about 200 yards!  It did end at the Distillery though where they loaded us on buses and brought us up to Barbeque Hill for dinner.  It has the most amazing views and you can see all of Moore County.  Dinner was great and they did allow us two drinks of Jack, which made us a little warmer!  Also, WiredBBQ.com is providing live coverage from the event and interviewed us, which was pretty cool.  In addition to wearing my wellies for the parade, I also wore my kilt.  Now there is a story to go with my kilt as well.  I ordered it February 1 and received it at the beginning of March.  However, upon further inspection, I realized that it was not my family tartan (Fitzgerald) at all, it was Fitzpatrick!!  I had to return it to Scotland so they could weave the correct one.  Needless to say, after about 9 months of waiting for it, it finally arrived last week!  It is really cute so it had to be worn with my wellies ;) 

It’s another cold night so my orange fleece zip up onesie footy pajamas are back on and will hopefully keep me warm!!  Turn in boxes are complete and now it’s time for us to turn in to bed so we can turn in the BBQ of our life tomorrow!