Rain, vegetable soup and blueberry coffee cake

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Once we arrived at our campsite, we set things up, I made a grocery list and we headed to Ingles. I love this grocery; it's so clean, organized and huge. We made salads from the salad bar. It's kind of late and we don't want to eat a big dinner. We opened a bottle of wine, put in a movie and enjoyed our salads. The movie was stupid: an older one: 'Jackie Brown'. Anyway the campground is beautiful. The host warned us about a black bear that has been showing up each night looking for food. Warned us to not leave any food out. It's so cool that we don't need any air condition. We read for a while and went to bed.

We slept good. It's drizzling off an on. Looks like a perfect day for cooking. We had our coffee, OJ, and whole wheat toast. I tried the blackberry jam-yum! I put the beef bones on to simmer (in chicken broth with a bay leaf). I organized the kitchen-went through all my spices to check expiration dates and throw out the old ones. I spent the next 1 1/2 hours, listening to the rain, listening to music and cutting up fresh vegetables: onion, garlic, celery, carrots, potatoes, green beans, corn. I added salt, pepper, basil, oregano, a can of crushed tomatoes and let it simmer all day (Added barley at the end). Ken worked on the leaky air conditioner and fixed the problem. He also met a few people: Bill and Lee-the camp hosts, Bill and Jackie from Columbus, GA, our neighbors next door. He is a retired Army ranger. They bought Harleys when they retired, an RV and travel around. Jackie had never been on a motorcycle before and he taught her and she loves it. She is braver than me! As I was taking a break, she came up to the door and said 'hello'. Ok, I am still in my pjs-it's one of those days; I said hello and invited her in. She said they had been wondering what that wonderful smell was- my soup. Ken and Bill came in and we chatted a while. Afterwards I worked on the bedroom, made a turkey sandwich for lunch, then started the blueberry coffee cake. The peaches aren't ripe yet, so I'll make a cobbler soon. It hasn't stopped raining all day. We finally got showers. Time to taste this soup! It was so good, we enjoyed it with a glass of Beaujolais. Afterwards, I pulled the blueberry coffee cake out of the oven-we ate it warm. Ken grabbed the umbrella and took some to our friends-still warm!! They appreciated that on this cool nonstop rainy day. We now have the fire place on, sipping wine and relaxing!!

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