Well, it's been almost a month since we held the 2019 BCC. And I must say, it was a pleasure hosting it this year. We had a total of 4 teams of chefs and a dozen or so judges. The fare was very internationally represented. We had a great turnout and plan on doing this again next year. We held the competition at an undisclosed location that was not revealed until a day before the event. We chose Ranger Creek Airstrip off of Highway 410, near Mount Rainier National Park. Our teams of chefs and judges started to arrive Friday evening, but the majority descended upon the competition grounds on mid-day Saturday. Just so no one got lost, we displayed our banner at the event site. The weather was true Northwest sketch. We had a basic mixture of rain, sun and wind. But all in all, it was fairly tame. Carrie and I set up the welcome tent with contestant's name tags with lanyards and tent cards with their presentation displayed. The judges were also provided name tags and lanyards so that our new folks could put faces with names. The judges were also provided a complete menu with the cooking team's names and a scoring cards. As shown above. Winners were competing for custom bamboo cutting boards with the competition logo and date on it along with the placement and NWOL logo. A big shout out to Burley Industries of Boise, Idaho for donating the custom made First Place cutting board. Also, West Coast Laser Design for providing the second and third place cutting boards along with the laser engraving on all the boards. Rain cover was necessary and a big thank you to all that brought rain shelter. Anastasia Davidoff, Gabe Engler and Jamie Engler started their prep work for their meal coming all the way from Russia! Anastasia looks very excited to start the cooking process. Gabe, Anastasia and Jamie start the ball rolling to get their meal complete in time for judging. The Davidoff-Engler Team attempt to sway the judges with a dose of White Russian shots! More 2019 NWOL BCC story to come!! Dan

Well, the other Patagonia. The one located in the Santa Rita Mountains of Southern, Arizona. What a spectacular landscape. Check it out.

Tad, Dean, Josh, and I enjoyed a week or so on the Idaho BDR. We started at Porthill, at the Canadian border, and traveled south on the many Forest Service & logging roads. Highlights for me were the Lolo Motorway and the Magruder Corridor. All in all, it's a pretty easy route to drive, only occasionally was 4wd required. The scenery however, was incredible! Josh and I left the route at Elk City, returning home. Tad and Dean pressed on farther south for a couple more days. We all got out before the big September Snowstorm that is now pounding the area. Route finding along the way can be difficult. The Idaho BDR map is a good start, but there are many different logging roads, and telling which of the four or five roads leading from an intersection is the proper route can be tough. Fortunately Dean had downloaded the free Idaho BDR track to his tablet and he did a superb job of navigating the spaghetti of logging roads! The Lolo Motorway was pretty simple, just get on the 500 road, and follow it about 100 miles from Pierce towards Lolo Pass. A note - this is extremely remote country. On the Magruder Corridor travelers are in the midst of a huge wilderness area. Comms are almost impossible without a satellite device. I'll be back, with my fly rod. :)