The NO CHIKEN COOKING TEAM

About 800 miles, 6 days, 5 nights and a couple of beers and we're back home!

We left out Tuesday afternoon, along with Morris and Susie, and made it to Midland/Odessa in time to have supper with Gary and Lonetta. Wednesday morning we topped off our water tanks, filled up with fuel and made it to Terlingua around 2:00 in the afternoon.

I will update this space soon with more details, but for now let me simply say that Susie placed 25th, Kelly placed 21st (for the 2nd year in a row) and KIM WAS 7th!!

After a little celebrating we listened to the Texas Tech Red Raiders kick the shit out of the U.T. Longhorns! An almost perfect day!

Click HERE to see MOST of the Terlingua pictures.

Well folks, we did it! After a few years of cooking chili, Kim and I finally learned how to cook good chili. As a result of many miles of driving and lots of cooking we are both qualified to cook at TICC! For the un-initiated, that means we each earned enough points to cook in the international championship!

We DID NOT do this alone. Amy and Connie, this is ya'lls victory as well. The two of you were not the only ones to help, but ya'll were always there to offer a helping hand when we wanted to give up.

Guy Bates - you came thru to help me get my last point on the next to last day and I hope to be able to pass that down to some other cook some day.

And a few words about my amazing wife - we went to Hobbs on the last weekend so I might get my 1 needed point. Kim only had 5 points before then, so she had little hope of qualifying. She won a 2nd on Saturday and a 1st on Sunday - waiting as long as possible to pull it off!\

This year we picked up a couple of newbies along the chili trail. Morris and Susie Bryan travelled to a few cookoffs with us and did some others on their own. They have proven to be serious chili contenders, as well as fine BBQ cooks. I heard that Susie was even able to kick Tim's ass at 42, so she can't be all bad!

So on to the new chili year:

One month till Terlingua, and we are exhausted and out of money; time to stay close to home and get ready for the trip down to Big Bend, right? HELL NO, we opened the new chili year at Amarillo! Kim got 4th, Kelly got 5th and Susie was 9th. Morris had a good chili, but the judges didn't see it that way - sometimes the judges have a tough time finding the right cup!

10 minutes after leaving the cookoff it started raining - hopefully a good omen for the upcoming chili year!

We just got in from the Breast Cancer Awareness BBQ and Chili Cookoff. Kim was 11th Place Chili and Morris & Susie got 8th Place Brisket.

51 chili cooks were a little more than we could handle, but we'll get 'em next time!

The good news is the cookoff raised about $22,000 for a very good cause.

Next stop TERLINGUA! Wish us luck.