A couple nights ago, I was at a loss for what to make for dinner. I came up with this:



Home-made corndogs. Now as a general rule,  I am anti-corndog. Emma isn't allowed to order them when we eat out, because the commercial ones are just disgusting and contain who knows what.

But these are OK, I think. I serve cornbread on a regular basis, and hot dogs on occasion (as long as I can pick out the brand I like, without all the chemicals).  So... cornbread from scratch, with hotdog pieces baked in. I can do that.

These earned me an amazed look and a hug that nearly knocked me over.

"You made corndogs? You made CORNDOGS? You MADE corndogs? You're the best mom ever!"



The first four corndogs disappeared in short order, and the rest are in the freezer to be pulled out as needed. Perhaps as bribes to get the resident pre-teen to clean her room....

Yes, more cast iron.  It's officially an obsession.  :-)

This is a Griswold #9 griddle, made sometime between 1925 and 1940.  It has a cooking surface diameter of 10.5 inches.  This pan was thrown in for FREE when I bought a dutch oven at an antique store here in town.  (I don't know how I came away with two more pieces of iron... I just went in to look, honest...)



It's in GREAT condition.  There was a bit of rust on the bottom side, which easily cleaned up with some vinegar and steel wool.  It left a very small amount of pitting, but as you can see from the photo above, it's barely noticeable.

The cooking surface is completely unblemished.  Look at how smooth it is!



I've never owned a griddle before, and I love it.  It's great for things that need to be flipped, since there aren't any sides to obstruct access with a spatula.  All I want to do is cook pancakes now!

I had to go to Prineville, Oregon, this week for work, and along the way my co-worker and I stopped off at the Painted Hills Unit of the John Day Fossil Beds National Monument to take our lunch break.

It was stunning.



The bands of color in the hills are created by the different rock/soil types, and were just amazing.

There were also some beautiful wildflowers; this is a wild onion, Allium sp.



I don't have much to say in this post, because the pictures say it all.



There's a geocache here too, and I'm glad I planned it out right to make this my 600th find. I like to get special caches on the milestones, and this one definitely fits.



Oregon is such an amazingly beautiful and varied state.