We were supposed to go to this a month ago. But it didn’t happen.

It was a Dutch Oven Workshop at a nearby state park. We woke up early on a saturday morning, actually put on work-out clothes and did a workout (as opposed to putting on work-out clothes and then heading to a breakfast joint for bacon and white gravy), boiled up some hot coffee for our thermos, and hit the road.

Literally 2.5 miles into the drive, R asked me to hand over the thermos for a quick drink. I laughingly said, “Maybe you should watch the road. Remember what happened the other night?” and then, feeling guilty, I gave in and gave him the lid for sip. He took his eyes off the two lane country road and..

BALUMP.

The tire popped.

I sat there sitting in the nearest driveway telling myself to schedule a massage asap or there was going to be a warrant out for little miss carolyn.

You see, a few nights prior we had visited some friends for dessert and on the way to their house another incident happened. A “I’m glad no children were riding their bikes along the sidewalk” type of one.

A right-hand turn into their neighborhood caused R’s head to slightly face me. In doing so, the freckles on my legs caught his attention. And if any of you know R, you are quick to realize that he cannot do more than two things at once. So why not test this theory while driving a one ton piece of machinery, shall we?

He saw the freckles and proceeded to lean over to point out each of them with this right index finger. He repeated “freckle, freckle, freckle, freckle”.

And I looked up at the same instant our car hit the curb, and then hit the grass next to the curb, and then the sidewalk next to the grass next to the curb.

R was still pointing out freckles. It wasn’t until I screamed that he jerked the car back onto the road.

Now our already dirty, no-muffler-because-it-still-runs-fine-and-we-don’t-like-spending-that-extra-money-on-that-car car makes a weird scraping sound anytime we make a left hand turn. Great.

Thank you melanin.

So our flat tire happened on the way to the first class and they offered to move us to the second one the following month.

And here we are. Only two other couples attended: one from South Africa, the other from Texas. We slipped into the back and I spied the menu on the board.

Ahhhhh yeaaaaah. (Side note: Does anyone else remember the show were two guys would rub their bums in chocolate pudding while saying Ahhhh yeaaaaah? Or am I the only one who gets that visual every time.)

Well, anyway, if pudding had been on the menu, I probably would’ve had to reenact that skit for the class, so let us all bow our heads in thanksgiving that it was not.

Each couple paired off to do a dish. R was stuck with me even though when asked if we all wanted to stay with our spouses, he responded without glancing “Is she watching me as I answer? Then, fine.”

‘Preciatecha, R.

(Remember? That was the first Arkansas slang I heard when we moved down here. ‘Preciatecha. Another since moving to a smaller town: “So-and-so is a mess.” I’ve discovered this can be used as an insult or affectionately. With the wide range of uses, you can imagine how often it’s thrown out there and for some reason it takes all that I have to swallow a low guttural growl each time it’s said. I know what you’re thinking….. I’m a mess.)

R and I tackled the Charley Bread which was a basic corn bread recipe with a can of creamed corn added.

Hello!

Mama hasn’t been fed this good in a looong time! And by long, I mean since about 8 that morning. Each meal seems like eons since the last…and my mouth was beginning to water, especially every time they opened the peach cobbler lid to check on it.

R checked on our bread and it was coming along nicely. We used the stacking method of heating the dutch oven which threw the time to cook it off. So it ended coming out around the same time as dessert.  No one complained.

And then we all sat down for our picnic in the woods. R and I chatted it up with the park ranger, because he graduated from K-State too! What a small world.

It was a good class, I’d take another one. We ending up buying a dutch oven from them and we’re so excited to put it to use.

If anyone has any tips or recipes, I’d love to have them!