You always hear about snow in the middle of the summer in Yellowstone National Park. Today, John and I go to experience the mid-summer snow fall.

Because of the snow, we decided to stay inside and not travel around. Especially since we are seeing a lot of California and southern state license plates who probably don’t know how to deal with driving in snow.

I cooked most of the day. The day started out with making homemade hashbrowns. Since I’m out of potatoes, I drove to the store which has a small variety of essential grocery items and bought 3 russet potatoes for $0.59 each. I’ve seen Brenda make hashbrowns at Dad’s house. So, I tried to remember everything and make them like Brenda. My process was to shred, rinse with water, dry on paper towels, cook the has in the microwave, and finally fry in oil on the stove until crispy.

The hashbrowns turned out pretty good, but I added too much oil and it seemed like the oil was one side not the other. I have 1 potato left and may try again later this week.

I made the hashbrowns first before the scrambled eggs and bacon. Since the stove is small, I can’t cook all at once. Next time, I might try cooking the hashbrowns last.

After this, I pulled out the crock pot to make creamy chicken and wild rice soup minus the celery since we are out of celery. We had the soup for supper.

For lunch, I made chili.

I wanted to do something special for the folks who run the campground, shower area, and laundry facility. They do an excellent job of ensuring everything is clean, ran smoothly, and are great people to talk with. I also wanted to see how high-altitude baking would impact cupcakes. We already tried making brownies. With brownies, we learned that the eggs need to be scrambled first and should be mixed with the oil and water. Otherwise, the eggs don’t mix in well and you end up with eggs pieces in the brownies. When mixed well, the fudge brownies are extremely fudgy and good.

The box directions for cupcakes said to make 36 vs. 24 cupcakes. I only filled the cupcakes 1/2 full and the cupcakes were overflowing. When the heating element in the toaster oven turned on, you could see the cupcakes rise…. Half full turned out to be too much. In the end, I ended up with 30 cupcakes that were extremely light and airy. I gave 15 cupcakes to the Campground Staff and John and I will eat the rest. 2 of the 30 cupcakes were sacrificed while baking because I needed to make sure they were done.

One keynote about with the cupcakes. All the cupcakes were baked in the toaster oven the mom gave us. So, we could only bake 6 cupcakes at a time. It took about 2 hours to make all the cupcakes because only 6 cupcakes at a time could be baked. Still, the time was well spent that ended up with a good tasting cup cake.

Since the temperature only hit 40 F today, both of the cats spent the day snuggled in spots staying warm. The space heaters inside the trailer did a reasonably good job at keeping the trailer between 65 F and 70 F. Tonight, the low is upper 20s and more snow. So, the trailer will be a little cooler tonight but tolerable especially with extra blankets. Tomorrow’s weather is supposed to be sunny and mid 50s. The warmer weather will be nice. By Friday, we are to be in the upper 60s during the day. Yeah!!

When checking into the campground they give you a Yellowstone Bingo Card. You don’t win anything but it’s fun to play. John and I both won blackout bingo.