Got Ribs?

August is a special month around here. Em, Brian,and I...and the majority of our friends have signed up to spend 30 hours in a volunteer work.  Brian works Mon-Fri, so this means the majority of his volunteer time happens on the weekends - 5 hours on Sat, and at least 3 on Sunday, and by the end of Aug. he'll hit at least 30 hours.  The kids have been troopers, partly because we always try to keep it fun. We take breaks, and I'd like to take a minute to thank Dad for the Starbucks gift cards he sends to keep our breaks even funner!

Well, this past weekend we were working Morgan Territory, which runs right up along the base of the backside of Mt Diablo.  I had planned a special lunch break for us.  It was Clayton's Annual Rib Cook Off.  This takes place behind one of the oldest saloons around (which I didn't know at the time that it was at the saloon: ), had a great, live country band playing out on the Saloon's patio so there was fine music playing, the amazing smell of ribs in the air, and a slab of ribs with our name on it!

Oops, I forgot that Friday we did a 5 hour day too. Brian had Friday off, so we did a long day. For dinner that night we packed some sandwiches and Yahtzee and went to Mitchell Canyon for the evening.

 Myles doesn't eat much, but raw peppers and sourdough bread are staples that he always likes.

 That's pretty much her standard face. I have no idea what "dumb" thing I had said to get that look.

 Believe it or not, a large part of CA is horse country. I know you locals know that, but growing up in WA I just thought of CA as beach, cities, and palm trees....not horses. These guys rode up as we were leaving and the kids got to spend some time with the horses. The darker horse is the mama, tan one is her son.  If you look close you'll notice the riders both have on spurs....so cool.

Ok, on to Saturday -

 Lots of bbq'ing going on, they cooked till 3, then were judged, then ate, and sold some of it to the crowd.  We were there at 12:30, so we got our ribs from a booth that was just selling food.

 

 The kids won some stuff at this booth.

 You could hear the band playing from anywhere in downtown Clayton (but downtown is small), there they are, tucked into the saloon's back patio.

 And here we are with our slab. Now, Myles and I don't eat ribs, so Em, Soph, and Brian went to town on this thing.

 Brave man to take that on with no bib in a white shirt!

They all said it was the best ribs they'd had. 
It was a fun day, and a great weekend!