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bbq vacation Dana “Big Papa” Hillis BBQ From Florida lighthousepointe@ hotmail.com We took our annual summer vacation and headed north to the great state of Tennessee. Of course we had to stop and do a little competetion or two along the way. Our first stop brought us to Flamingo Lakes RV Resort where Ken Lloyd and the Flamingo clan al- ways make you feel at home. We recently bought an RV and were heading out for our 2nd big RV trip. David Haskett and the SCA were hosting a double steak contest and the park was sold out of spaces and a big crowd of teams showed up to cook. We were at our usual spot and were joined by the Captain Jack crew, the Wolfe Brothers and the Carter Queties. We had a chance to hang out with Brian and Dana Cole- man and truly enjoyed seeing a lot of the BBQ family cooking steaks. There was a cardboard boat race and seeing the work these parents and kids do to build and race around the lake in a boat made of cardboard and duct tape is truly incredible. The contest was a double and included the ancillary event that is fun to be a part of. If I was a judge this would be a can’t miss event for me knowing that so many great cooks were going to turn in some amazing food. Tona Pendray is leading the SCA in points and we have sampled a lot of her turn ins along the way and they are worthy of her winnings. The Steak Princess is well on her way to being a fantastic chef and we have been lucky to try her entries along with a great sample of what a SCA steak should taste like. We got to join a gang of great folks to invade Captain Jack’s Smokehouse and even got to do a Time Check with the Captain and Mrs Sandi. When 15 to 20 profes- sional steak and BBQ cooks show up at your restaurant at one time and all walk away happy you know that is a 5 star place to eat. Thank you Jack for always making us feel at home. We left Jacksonville heading for McMinnville Ten- nessee for the "Hillis/Mayfield 5 - 5th year family re- union. We get to set up behind my cousins house and sit on a swing and take in the freshest air and beauti- ful mornings a person could ever enjoy. This year saw another huge crowd of family and friends join us for some fantastic food, story telling, corn hole tourna- ment and singing. We had to build another food table to hold all the fixins and it was truly amazing how much food we had. Over 150 people showed up and enjoyed a great day of food and fun. Rich and Wendy and Bonnie and Suvane made the trip up from Florida and my cousin Mark Bottoms came from Texas and a special thanks to the Captain and the whole gang who always work hard to make this event special. My Aunt Joyce always works way to hard to help feed us all and my cousin Treva always brings great food and sends me home with some old fashioned canned goodies which are a real treat. Its a good thing we built an- other serving table because we filled it up! Anita, Anthony, Wendy, Rich and Janet and I headed to Pigeon Forge to our annual log cabin stay with a stop in Cumberland Caverns along the way. Rich and Wendy had never been in the Cave and we all managed to trek thru the massive tour and had no injuries and GREAT VACATION BarbecueNews.com - 14 SEPTEMBER 2019