Sweet corn is at its peak right now here in Wisconsin. Not only is it really tasty but there is an abundant supply of it so it is cheap, which I think makes it taste even better.

Although my standard way of cooking it is to husk it and boil it, it is also kind of boring that way so I have started grilling it which makes it tastes so much better. It really is not that much more work, it just takes a little more patience and time.

This method works well on a cooking rack over a campfire (my favorite method), on a gas grill or on a charcoal grill.

STEP 1 (yes, I’m assuming you have already purchased the corn or picked it from your garden)
Pull back the husk on each cob about 3/4 of the way, pull out as much of the corn silk as possible, and close the husk back up. If you goof and accidentally pull the husk off all the way, use a rubber band to keep the husk on while it’s soaking. Make sure to take off the rubber band before putting the food over heat or it will be really stinky! The husk should stay on just fine as long as you’re careful and don’t fling the ear of corn around too much.

STEP 2
Put enough cold water in a tub or in the sink to cover the corn - about 3″ deep (yes I know corn floats but that’s okay). Toss the corn in the water. Sprinkle about 1/2 cup of kosher salt (a couple of handfuls - don’t bother with a measuring cup) on top and swish around.

STEP 3
Let the corn soak in the water for at least 30 minutes and up to 90 minutes, swishing it around every 15 minutes (don’t panic if you forget - it will be okay. While the corn is soaking, enjoy a cold beverage or two (I recommend a nice cold beer), then preheat the grill, start the charcoal or start the campfire.

STEP 4
Remove the corn from its salt water bath, shake off the excess water and place on the grill or cooking grate. Turn the cobs 1/4 turn every 5-7 minutes, depending on the heat of the fire getting a nice char on the outer husk.

STEP 5
Remove from heat, carefully peel back the husk (it’s really hot! - and this is where I should recommend letting the corn sit for 5-10 minutes to cool down before eating it but I can never wait that long), remove any remaining silk, slather with butter and salt, and enjoy!

Here’s the downside: It’s really messy this way. Yes, I know corn on the cob without the husk on is messy but this is even messier so it’s best to eat it outside; otherwise you’ll have lots of little black pieces of corn husk all over the table and floor. But, if that does happen, assign someone else in the family the task of sweeping them up!

On Friday August 15, 2008 Dennis Tyrrell from Arkansas found a 4.42 carat diamond stone at Crater of Diamonds State Park.

I obviously do not camp in the right places because all I ever find laying on the ground when I go camping are beer bottle caps and cigarette butts, although I admit I am not diligent like Mr Tyrrell is. He searches for diamonds three or four days a week at Crater of Diamonds and has found smaller diamonds before.

If you are not familiar with Crater of Diamonds State Park, it has the only diamond mine in North America where the general public can search for diamonds and other gems and keep anything they find.

Although Mr. Tyrrell’s diamond 4.42 carat diamond is large, the largest one found at the mine was 40 carats and was found in 1924.

Click here for the entire story about the diamond find.

Click here for more information on Crater of Diamonds State Park and then watch the funny 30 second video about the park by clicking on the play button below.

We have been camping for several years and were victims of raccoon thievery several times the first two years having unwillingly fed them a loaf of bread, a can of nuts, some plastic bottles of Coke and several bags of freshly pitted cherries.

I thought we had finally gotten smarter than the raccoons and were keeping our food out of their little paws but they proved us wrong during our camping trip to Governor Dodge State Park last week.

We had a whole chicken with us that we planned on brining and cooking over the fire last Tuesday when my husband’s parents came to visit us at the campground but it never made it to the fire.

My brother in law was keeping the chicken in his cooler until we cooked it but forgot he moved it to his beer cooler Monday night (yes, beer gets it own cooler) and forgot to secure it in his usual way of piling chairs and other heavy objects on top of it.

By the time my husband went over Tuesday morning to retrieve the chicken so we could start brining it, all that was left as evidence was the bag it had been in and several raccoon paw prints on the cooler (At least they had enough manners to close the cooler back up after taking out the chicken).

This is where I need to tell my husband I’m sorry (Sorry honey!). I impatiently sent him to look for the chicken in the cooler twice even though he informed me the first time he was pretty sure he hadn’t missed an 8 pound chicken. But I was cranky because it was 6:30 am and I was still tired because he had just spent several minutes rummaging around in our food bins looking for the salt and sugar for the brine but couldn’t find the sugar even though it was clearly visible inside the first food bin I happened to open when I had to get it out (I was trying to sleep but my husband wasn’t practicing his quiet stealth mode) My patience wasn’t exactly at an all time high so I kind of yelled at him the first time he back to our campsite without the stupid chicken.

After we realized it was a raccoon problem and not my husband’s vision problem I had to apologize and then go to plan B which was a trip to the store where the whole chicken we were going to have magically turned into 8 chicken breasts (I wanted it to turn into 8 pork chops but I was outvoted).

That same morning I wanted a blueberry bagel for breakfast. I was positive I had put them in the cooler the morning before and I knew the cooler hadn’t been opened during the night because the dutch oven I had set on top of it was still in place.

After 5 minutes of my searching my husband started looking in the woods. Sure enough, he came trotting out with the empty bagel bag. The raccoons must have been doing surveillance on our campsite, dashing out to steal my bagels during the few minutes I left the cooler closed (but not battened down with a dutch oven) while I went to the bathroom.

After having fed them (quite well), we were really careful about making sure every bit of food was completely out of their reach the next night because we figured they would certainly come back to see if they could find more more “those stupid people left out for us to take.”

They did visit the next two nights, making a lot of noise but thankfully not getting anymore of my food.

So, this is where I advise my fellow campers to never lessen up on their vigilance to keep their food secured and this is where I vow to practice what I preach!

Raccoons aren’t called bandits for nothing.

And to finish my story, after I didn’t get a blueberry bagel for breakfast everyone in our camping group decided I should take a nap and wake up a teensy bit less cranky. So that’s what I did.

Our 5 day camping trip to Governor Dodge State Park near Dodgeville, Wisconsin this week was great. The weather was almost perfect. The only downside was the nights got a little cool but that made sitting around the campfire more fun.

It was our first trip to Governor Dodge and we weren’t disappointed. The park itself is huge. It is 5 miles between the two lakes in the Park, both of which have nice beaches for swimming. The water at Cox Hollow Lake had a lot of algae on it so we swam at Twin Valley Lake which doesn’t have a concession stand but is less crowded. The kids loved playing in the sand on the beaches. It’s silky smooth and as my sister-in-law says, “is the color of cookie dough.”

Our daily routine included geo-caching (weren’t able to find a cache that is said to be a “stinky” one full of smelly things despite searching for it on two separate days. Our guess is that some animals carried it away), swimming, and a trip to the concession stand for ice cream (our favorites were blueberry cream pie, black raspberry truffle, and cotton candy).

The mosquitoes weren’t bad at all. I’m told there are quite a few bats in the area so they may be keeping the mosquito population under control. Gnats were bothersome though despite the application of massive amounts of insect repellent. We all have ankles full of itchy red bites as a “memory” of our trip.

There’s a waterfall at the park that’s a popular attraction although there wasn’t a lot of water going over it when we were there but the water that is falling over it is very cold. I just had to take a family member up on a dare and go stand underneath it. It felt like someone was pouring ice water over my head.

We camped with my brother and sister in law and three of their kids. Just like all our other camping trips, the time flew by. We didn’t have enough time to go visit a popular nearby attraction “The House On The Rock.” We’re hoping to fit that in next year when we go back.

The campsites themselves are mostly wooded and are big. Some have electric hookups and there is a dump station but there aren’t any water hookups. Plus, even though there were quite a few people staying at the campground it was really quiet and felt like we were out in the woods all by ourselves. It was great!

If you like camping where there are lots of hiking trails, geo-caches, lakes for swimming, horseback riding, and trails for biking, Governor Dodge is a great place to go. We met one family who love it there so much that they camp there 6 weeks every year.

If you do decide to camp there, reservations are highly recommended, especially for the electric campsites. People routinely book their trips to Governor Dodge up to 11 months in advance (as far in advance that is allowed) to get their favorite electric site on the weekends.

My husband and I are back home from our camping trip at Governor Dodge State Park in southwestern Wisconsin. The trip itself was great but our arrival home late Thursday night…not so much.

Our side by side refrigerator freezer died while we were gone which meant instead of coming home, unpacking, and then popping on this blog to write a little bit about our trip on Thursday night and Friday, I instead had the lovely task of plugging my nose and dumping all my previously cooled and frozen food. It will be a while before I am hungry for peas or Tilapia. Those two things smelled the worst!

The fridge must have stopped working about 5 minutes after we left home because we were only gone 5 days yet everything in the freezer had completely thawed and gotten warm.

The good news is that the store we bought it from came out right away Friday morning to fix it and the part itself was only $27. The bad news is that labor and the trip charge will probably be over $100.

The other good news is my refrigerator and freezer are really clean, but the downside of that is the only food we now have are the leftovers from camping which means our fridge contains half a container of milk, half a container of orange juice, 4 eggs, 3 slices of cheese, and 7 hot dogs. I guess we could have cheesy eggs with sliced hot dogs for lunch today…….sounds kind of yucky doesn’t it?

I never realized how many condiments I had in my fridge. I’m not sure why I thought we needed 4 kinds of hot sauce; 3 varieties of pickles; 5 types of mustard; and regular mayo, light mayo, and miracle whip.

But I digress. I’ll get back to the topic of camping in a few minutes.

It is the middle of summer which means a large variety of fruits and vegetables are in season and at their peak flavor.

That is why I recommend taking a whole watermelon on your next camping trip.

Now only are they in season, delicious and reasonably priced right now, they are a perfect camping food because they do not need to be refrigerated. Actually they should not be refrigerated.

Research is showing room temperature watermelons have more nutrients in them than those that are cooled. Information I found at WebMD said that room temperature watermelons have more antioxidants in them than cooled ones including a higher level of lycopene (a powerful antioxidant) than in any other fresh fruit or vegetable.

Also, watermelons stored at room temperature will last longer than ones that are stored in a cooler or refrigerator. It seems crazy but the same article from WebMD that I referenced in the last paragraph says the average life of a watermelon is 14-21 days but that cooled ones will start to rot after about a week.

I used to avoid taking watermelon camping because I thought it had to be kept cold and I have limited fridge space. Keeping it in a cooler with ice never worked because it ended up freezing parts of the watermelon and turning it to mush.

But now I take at least one along on every camping trip. They come in their own handy storage container (the rind); they can be tucked in almost anywhere in your camper or vehicle (just be careful to not put them someplace where they will roll out the second you open a door); and they are delicious.

Plus, who doesn’t love fresh fruit? (but, if you are like me you don’t always take it camping because some summer fruits - especially peaches and plums - bruise easily and don’t last long).

So here’s my new summer motto, “Grab a watermelon and go camping!”

I have been writing about geocaching quite a bit the last couple of weeks, plus Gary put together a great beginner video on geocaching while I was gone as well.

My first geocaching excursion was fun, with the exception of the run in I had with a cement wall where the cement wall was the definite winner and my inattention to my surroundings and not noticing a hornets nest a couple feet above my head when our group parked our bicycles resulted in an angry hornet stinging my son on his hand.

I thought my second excursion was going to go a lot smoother especially since we met up with family members who had already found the first two caches we were looking for but wanted to have my husband, who was on his first geocaching experience, and myself find them too. We were with my nieces and nephew who were so excited about showing us how to geocache that I didn’t have the heart to tell them I had already been on my first excursion the week before.

Although the kids were under strict instructions not to tell us exactly where the first cache was they made it pretty obvious by pointedly sitting on a bench and not looking at us. So my husband and I both got down on our hands and knees to look under the bench. He found the cache. I got about an inch from a yellow jacket nest (don’t know if I mentioned that I’m allergic, but I am).

My sister-in-law said “Only you would find the yellow jackets and not the cache” Yeah, I felt special.

So when we were hiking to the second “already found” cache my sister in law whispered that when we got to the area that I should look on the right side. That seemed easy enough. Then we got to the area which was by a bridge so it seemed obvious the cache was on the bridge somewhere.

Since I’m a good listener (some of the time) I immediately started searching on the right side of the bridge and found a nest of bumblebees (yep, I’m allergic to them too). I started to back away but from the obvious body language of my sister-in-law and from my niece pointedly looking over the bridge I knew that cache was close to those bees. So I kept one eye on the bees and the other searched for the cache. I found it but not before a major hint from my sister-in-law who said that the hint given on geocaching.com about the cache being camouflaged meant that it blended in with its surroundings and that it was not the camouflage of greens or tans I was thinking of.

The cache blended in very well. It was painted the same color silver as the bridge. I kind of think whoever painted the bridge did it when the cache was on it and painted right over the top of it because the paint looked pretty fresh.

I didn’t get bit either time because I was careful and because I had a good coating of insect repellent on.

We were just getting going so we biked a couple miles up the road to look for some more caches.

The next one was in the woods and before we got 30 feet in I was getting bit like crazy (so much for the insect repellent being effective - even a second coating of it didn’t help much). We found the cache but I headed back out of the woods while my nieces and nephews went on to find the next one which they got really excited about because it was a fairly big plastic container with a large variety of trinkets inside so they all took one out and put one in from the backpack they carry with a supply of them tucked inside.

While you are reading this I will be at Governor Dodge State Park geocaching. I’m hoping I will be able to report the excursions there as being injury and insect bite free. Cross your fingers for me!

Before my camping trip last week I wrote about how I was not ready and that packing was a last minute frenzy of tossing stuff into our vehicle, heading out the door, and hoping for the best. We did pretty good and only forgot a few things, namely our camera, tiki torches and hot dogs.

Thanks to modern technology, you will be reading this blog post while I am at Governor Dodge State Park in Wisconsin where I will have remembered to take the hot dogs in my fridge, plus my camera and tiki torches.

Forgetting food in my refrigerator and freezer that I have purchased for camping is something I do quite regularly but a fellow camper I was chatting with last week told me how she remembers to bring all her food. She saves the plastic shopping bags/sacks from the grocery store and puts everything she wants to take camping inside those bags and then places them in the refrigerator or freezer.

Then, when it is time to pack the camper fridge or coolers, she just opens the fridge or freezer door, grabs the plastic grocery bags and has everything she needs.

I thought, “how clever!” It’s a simple and easy solution to help make packing for camping trips faster and easier.

Now I’ll get to enjoy a fire roasted hot dog or two this week and maybe a chili cheese hot dog pudgie pie too because my hot dogs are “in the bag!”

Hi. I am back from my camping trip and want to thank Gary for the great blog posts he wrote while I was gone and also for his video on geocaching.

I am in the middle of unpacking and repacking because later today I am heading back out the door again for another camping trip, a 5 day one to Governor Dodge State Park in Wisconsin. I should be more excited about going than I am, especially considering I profess to love camping and write about it a lot in this blog, but I am tired and would like another few nights in my own bed before heading back out again instead of feeling like my house is just a supply replenishment station and a laundromat.

The trip I just got home from was fun, for the most part. I should have realized it was going to be noisy in the park when I read that campsites are being added. My favorite thing about the park we stayed at, Kohler-Andrae State Park in Wisconsin on the western shore of Lake Michigan, is the sound of the waves crashing into shore but all I heard during the day was construction vehicles.

Plus the combination of storms on the lake and hot humid days closed the beach to swimming a few days because of high levels of e-coli bacteria in the water so I couldn’t go swimming as much as I wanted to.

But, it was still fun. To me camping is like that fishing saying I see on bumper stickers, hats, and shirts, “A bad day fishing (replace fishing with camping) is better than a good day at work.”

Here are a couple of pictures from the trip. The first is of one of my nieces flying a kite; the second is “flamingo alley” at one of the campsites (that is only about half of the flamingos they had on their site - it was really cute!); and the third is of Lake Michigan at dusk on a very calm evening. The water was a really pretty turquoise and reminded me of tropical beaches such as those in the Caribbean.

Wrapping things up this week, I figured this would be a great time to post this how to video we recently did on geocaching. I love it because it combines geeky technology (gps) with treasure hunting.

Dorrie’s been posting about geocaching a bunch recently so you can get caught up on just what the heck geocaching is on her “what is geocaching” post and “my first geocache” post.

In the video I cover how to get coordinates for geocaches near you, how to get them into your GPS unit, and then how to follow your GPS to get you close to the cache.

One thing to keep in mind is that a GPS unit is really only accurate to about 30 or 40 feet so once you get really close to where the cache is supposed to be hidden, it’s time to start thinking about where you’d hide the hidden “treasure” if you were doing it.

Hope you enjoyed cool non essential technology week. Dorrie’s back next week and who knows what rockin’ cool stuff she’s got in store for you.

Let me know what you think of the video. If you like it, we just might do more. (hint, use the comments button below)