Scenes from the Jack, and yes, I'm home now!

Hey all! I sure didn't mean to leave you hanging. I've received a ton of calls and e-mails to see if I made it home. I did. In fact, I left Paducah before 1:00 PM on Monday and was home about 7:00 PM that evening. On the way home I called my trailer shop and scheduled a first thing Tuesday appointment for them to give the trailer a once over before we headed to Atlanta to teach the next OS vs HT class and head on to Florida to cook for two weeks. As luck would have it this week, my shop tells me I need a new rear axle. So, I've got my fingers crossed that the new axle makes it in in time for us to head south again. This, on top of a scheduled brake job on my truck plus some unscheduled additional repairs to the idler arm, etc. So, it's a $2,500 repair week. Ouch! I can't stand much more in the repair department this year. But I digress . . .

So, you know how you take pictures on your adventures and either you're expecting them to be awesome and they turn out to be bad or, just the opposite happens. Well, the Murphy's law about photos has applied itself to the ones I took in Lynchburg. I thought they would be awesome. They really aren't. Here they are just the same: This is the holy grounds in Lynchburg. It's where dinner is served on Friday evening for cooks, teams, judges and VIPs. It overlooks the hollow and let me tell you, it's a magnificent view of down below. The event buses us all up there in school buses, offers up local favorites, including Tennessee bourbon whiskey, and provides entertainment in the form of a picker or two.
This is Saturday morning about 9:30 AM in the Pellet Envy camp. The crowds were just starting to swell as the cloudy skies gave way to the sun, helping things dry out just a little.
Here are the crowds walking down the hill from the entrance to the park. They walked right at our site, turning to the right to move along the paved road on into the park and the heart of the event where the bands played.
This is a view of the crowds heading on into the park after they round that corner. You can see part of the covered structure in the distance on the left. That's where the judges work their magic. To get a good idea of how many people attend this event each year, click directly on the picture.
It was like Christmas in October at the Pellet Envy site. Here are two fine gentlemen walking away with Greased Lightning goodie bags in hand. They couldn't wait to see what treasures they had just been given by three of Lynchburg's finest cheerleaders, well four if you count Sheri.
This team represented Oregon, made obvious by the bright green canopy with the day-glow Oregon Ducks logo. Sheri was excited to see these folks because her dad moved out there several years back. We're long overdue for a trip out that way and she took this picture to show her dad that it really is possible for folks to travel that far! We're working on it Dick, we really are.
This is Team Diva Q. We didn't know it at the time, but they were trying to put one over on us, delivering the now infamous and award winning Death by Diva dessert. Danielle's daughter was bright, alert and outgoing when we met her on Friday. As you can see by this picture, she's near comatose, eyes all but rolling back into her head after sampling the awesome chocolaty creation of her mother. What a wicked good dessert. We were honored to get to try it.
This is the Stone Gang at the Lynchburg Coral. Notice that they all have their legs crossed the same way. That's no accident. This was a well oiled machine. Their instructions were to keep the distractions out of the Cool Smoke Camp as turn-in times approached. Pretty rough looking hombres. I know I would not have approached them unarmed!

Check out the web for more pics of this years Jack Daniel's event. I've seen some really great pics from the Jack this year. Try the Ulika blog site and the Do Rag Q site. Look around while you're there, as there is more than one page of pics at both places. Despite our dismal finish and the Friday rain, we had a great time at this years 20th Annual Jack Daniel's World Invitational and look forward to serving up the exact same food there next year!