Chilli cook off (Part II)

When we met in Terlengua we found out about Harry's "little" mishap and realized there was a big hole on the floor of the sleeping area.  Thoughts of critters crawling in immediately filled my head!. My husband quickly patched it up with what little he could find; a few trash bags but mostly duct tape, because my father-in law being a man's man happened to have MORE THAN A FEW rolls of it! How he did not freeze thru the earlier days before our arrival is beyond me. In Terlingua at this time of year the temperature can drop well below 40 at night. Now I can understand Harry not making the repair himself; though a sturdy gentleman he is in his late 70s and has no business crawling under a trailer.

Another discomfort was the limited amount of water we had for bathing. Harry gave us the low down when we arrived on how that would work. I still laugh at his words.. He said, "you get in the shower and rinse off quickly, then you wash the important parts and rinse off again quickly". Hmm..., lightning shower. Besides the limited amount of water the blowout incident busted the water heater so our showers were even quicker! Again, thank goodness I travel with wet wipes, because they got us clean along with the limited amount of ice-cold water we had to use to rinse. The one thing I just could not do properly without using up all our water suply was washing my long hair. Yes, my husband loves my long hair and makes faces when ever I mention I am considering chopping it off (I do it every few years). Despite him having had "long hair" in his college days he has no idea what most women go thru to groom long locks. My hair immediately went up in a pony tail the minute I saw all the dust of the camp grounds and it stayed that way or in braids AND under a hat for the length of our camping weekend! I tried my best not to think about it, but the ick factor was almost unbearable!

Anyways, the chili festival is one long week of loud music, socialising with your neighbor, people driving around in 4x4 custom vehicles (you'd be surprised of the many places people can mount long horns), drinking, shopping (plenty of vendors), and eating. Not a bad place to be! If it wasn't for some campers blasting music well past 2 a.m. and the noise of generators the "camping" trip would be awesome. 

I have to say I do like to camp; but my camping trips had never consisted of being a part of a mobile village in the middle of the desert. I had always camped by a river or a lake, in warm weather and with a handful of close friends. The festival has a rowdy side to it. There are hardly kids around since the campers mostly consist of retired people and a not so young age group that find heavy drinking and the flashing of bare breasts entertaining. Don't get me wrong, I am no stick in the mud; I truly enjoyed a tequila tasting party we got invited to at a campsite next to us, but it was tasting from a dozen bottles and not chugging to get a buzz.

The best part of the festival besides the actual chili tasting is going off roading thru the desert, but despite all the fun distractions this year's cook off was something I was willing to skip. It was a memorable time that I was happy to have an excuse to PASS on this year. Having to work on a weekend finally gave me an excuse to get out of something I really didn't want to do.

I have to admit I have some good memories of our trip last year, but the bad outweighed the good after the fact. At the time I didn't want to be a whiny wife complaining about the conditions, but a year later all the discomforts rushed back in my head and I prayed that the busy season at work would give me a "get out of jail" card.  As expected (and to my luck) I did end up having to work thru the weekend of this year's cook off.  Despite my long hours at the office at least I had plenty of hot water to shower at home.