Words cannot express how thankful I am for the time, effort, and money y'all spent to come to the Gathering last week. I talked with each one of you there and know how much you sacrificed in order to be there. Some drove over 11 hours and the Turtle came all the way from some island off the cost of San Francisco. I could tell a story of the sacrificies each of you made.
Y'all don't know how much work Tee put into getting donations of money and equipment from our sponsors. Those sponsors really, really went all out to help us. I'm going to list the ones I remember and hopefully Tee will add the ones I forget. Will each of you please send them an email thanking them for what they did for us.
RecTec
Grill Grates
PBC
Slawsa
Amazn Smoker
CookinPellets.com
I apologize for forgetting the others. Please send Julie at Slawsa any recipes or uses you may have for her Slaswa. She has an outstanding product and working exceedingly hard to get that company going and needs all our help we can give her.
If you want some outstanding meat order from Snake River Farms. The brisket the Turtle sent us was some of the best meat, if not the best I've ever eaten. IR2Dum, a true Texan and great American, said it is the best brisket he has ever eaten. The brisket was about $6.75 a pound and the shipping was just about the same amount: $75 for the meat and $75 for the shipping. That sounds like a lot, heck it is, but if you were having a special function it would be worth it. Brad, my son in law, says he has ordered from them over the years in his jobs at different restaurants and has always been pleased. They are based in WA state.
As I was discussing the events of the Gathering with my wife I told her it was such a great group of people and the only thing anyone ever said about anyone who wasn't there was we wish they had been able to attend and hopefully they would next year.
Well, that's enough rambling from me. Just understand....I really appreciate each of you---those who were there as well as those who could not make it. It's a privilege to be associate with all of you.
P.S. It got to be a semi-miserable time for the Turtle toward the last day or so because he is not used to being that nice to a group of people for that long and the underside of his shell was starting to flake from the strain.
Dee