We arrived at Loyd Park on a warm, sunny Friday afternoon amid forecasts that pop-up showers were possible on Saturday and Sunday morning. Apparently, we were camped in the right place at the right time, because the heavy rains that rolled in on Saturday evening continued through to Sunday morning. At one point, we were actually concerned about flash flooding, as the rainfall was so intense that it produced a river of runoff through our campsite.

Our picture-perfect Date Night was adversely affected by a relatively minor incident that left Cliff in a funk: An improper packing of our “convEGGtor” (a stoneware accessory designed to facilitate indirect cooking in our Big Green Egg MiniMax) caused it to crack. He had planned to smoke a pork shoulder on Saturday, and the convEGGtor (OK, it’s really a unusual name, but you have to understand BGE culture) was essential to the process. We called a number of BGE dealers in the area but none of them had a 12-inch convEGGtor in stock. Next morning, we made our way back to Dallas where we purchased what was likely the only available convEGGtor in the D-FW area at Jackson’s Home & Garden, our go-to destination for all things BGE.

With Saturday’s main meal back on track, we turned our attention to our regular Saturday morning pursuits: reading The New York Times, drinking bloody Mary’s, and enjoying brunch al fresco. It wasn’t until after we awoke from our afternoon nap that saw reports of storms moving in from the West, with an expected arrival time at the precise moment we were scheduled to welcome a guest for dinner. Our friend arrived promptly and we were able to give him a tour of Cloud 9 just before the heavens opened and poured down rain. Flashes of lightning and claps of thunder forced us indoors, where we discovered that it’s possible to seat three people for dinner in our newly configured dinette, but it’s not an ideal set-up. So we reached out to Paul and Ann to determine what it would take to slightly modify our modification to accommodate guests for those times when the weather drives us indoors.

Although Sunday morning was rainy and mild, the skies cleared by mid-day as a symphony of birdsong filled the forest. Magnificent!