Cascade Pizza

October 18, 2009

This weekend was the opener for the Cascade Bull Elk Season and our district wildlife crew and some volunteers scattered to cover the Cascade Wildlife Management Units within Douglas County to check hunters. We put in some long full days logging in lots of miles on backroads visiting camps to see how hunters were doing. With all the country to cover, there is not much time to stop for lunch and there’s no stores or drive-inn’s found in the woods either. So, I usually settle on a bag with a cold sandwich and some snacks to hold me over until dinner. However, something caught my eye in the refrigerator on Sunday morning- leftover pizza. It was a huge slice of stuffed crust pizza with a good covering of cheese, pepperoni and tomato chunks. I wrapped it in heavy foil and took it with me to work. The pizza would be a treat but, I knew it would be way better if I could just heat it up before eating it.

Well, before leaving the office, I opened up the hood of my truck and tucked my pizza slices in the engine compartment where it wouldn’t budge or work loose. After several hours of driving gravel and dirt roads checking hunters I pulled up to a nice overlook and decided it was lunch time. I popped open the hood and gently grabbed the foil treasure. To my delight, the pizza was a perfect temperature and ready to gobble down with no concern over melting your mouth.

Like most cheese and pepperoni pizzas, they get a little greasy when heated up. This was no different on the engine block. Thanks to the heavy duty foil, at least I knew it wasn’t 30 weight engine oil dripping off my fingers!

Cool crisp fall mornings are part of the elk hunting heritage.

Nice view of the Indigo Wildlife Management Unit in the upper Willamette drainage

Found a good place to take a late lunch break with a view of the Cascades

Lunch is served!

Lucky hunter heading home with a nice bull elk