Day Twenty-one: Hammock at Alta Lakes

The air mattress patch did not work. The ground was frigid and hard. It was not a happy night in the tent.

Breakfast was granola cereal, then Robert went off to catch a fish, I think i found a three inch tape worm? in the lake and then set up my hammock. I curled up in it with a couple books, some water and a blanket and promptly went to sleep for about three hours. I awoke confused, but well slept finally. Then it started raining, apparently a daily afternoon occurrence. Robert grilled eggplant while I chopped a salad. It was tasty. Then we took another nap in the tent (we got caught there when it continued raining unexpectedly, so we made the most of it).

Our only notable occurrence of the day was our short walk around the lake. We finally bothered exploring and we were rewarded with a deer sighting and a rabbit sighting. The rabbit even stuck around to have his picture taken.

Then, dinner. Robert wanted to make something to break-in the Dutch oven he inherited, so we attempted chicken and dumplings (minus the chicken). He manned the fire, I chopped the veggies, we spiced it together and collaborated on the dumplings. In my opinion, it was the best thing we have eaten so far. We started with butter, garlic and onions, then added six cups of veggie broth. We added cream of mushroom soup to the broth to thicken it. We put in carrots and potatoes first. Then added kale, zuke and fresh mushrooms. Then we spiced the hell out of it (cumin, salt, soy sauce, and of course loads of black pepper). The dumplings were made with two cups bisquick and two-thirds cup milk and lots of spices themselves. We put coals on top of the lid to help cook and brown the dumplings. (can you tell that we want to be able to replicate the dish?) the only thing that we need to fix is that it was more gummy than soupy. It was tasty as hell, but more water needs to be added before the dumplings since the dumplings suck up a fair bit of water. You are jealous that you missed out.

Robert attempted a second patch job on the air mattress, but we put the thermorests underneath incase the patch job failed again. We were warm and only slowly lost air overnight, the mattress lasting until about two? I don't know, it was only okay because of the thermorests. At least we weren't as cold. I now officially hate air mattresses. Jerks!