Fried water

I've eaten fried ice cream, but I don't remember ever drinking any fried water.

That is, not until this week. Let me explain.

For the last week and a half, I have been hound-sitting. My brother has two little dogs that he calls hounds. He took a trip and I agreed to stay at his house and take care of his dogs.

I wouldn't want to give up my RVing lifestyle, but staying in a house for a week was a nice change. I had 100+ TV channels, and I had a gas fireplace to knock the chill off in the mornings. Of course, it wasn't all wonderful. You can't believe how far it was from the living room to the bathroom. It was hard to make the trip and get back during a TV commercial.

But back to the fried water part of the story. On Monday of last week, I received an automated phone call on his landline. The recording said that because of the flooding, the city water was contaminated and residents are advised to boil their drinking water until further notice.

I assumed that this didn't apply to me because I wasn't a resident. I was a visitor. I was relieved to know that I didn't have to boil my water. Then I realized that since I was not a resident, and couldn't vote, the city officials probably didn't care whether I boiled my water or not.

I decided to boil my water. I wasn't familiar with where my brother's wife kept all of the pots and pans, and I couldn't find a big pot. I did find a big, deep skillet that had a spout on one side. The design of that skillet was perfect for cooking water and then pouring it into a pitcher. So that's what I did for three days until I got the call saying that residents no longer needed to boil their water.

Anyway, since I was cooking the water in a skillet, I assumed that technically, I was frying the water. Therefore I was drinking fried water.

The fried water was great. I had been camping on the other side of the continental divide and staying in a campground that had well water. The water on my brother's side of the mountain came from a reservoir that was high up in the mountains. There was no one living higher in the mountains than the reservoir, so the city water was pure, uncontaminated rainwater. It wasn't from a polluted river or from a deep well and loaded with dissolved minerals.

There might have been some bear poop that had washed into the reservoir, but other than that, the water was as uncontaminated as it could possibly be. And there may not have even been any bear poop in the reservoir. All of the bears may have been further down the mountain than the reservoir.

I know of three bears that were down lower. There was a big mama bear and she had two little cubs, and they were all on my brother's front porch a few days ago. I think the only thing that kept the mama bear from coming inside when the front door was opened was that she was too big to get through the door.

Of course, as you can imagine, the door didn't stay open very long. It doesn't take long to look at a bear that big when it's standing three feet in front of you.

Bottom line: My fried water was some of the best tasting water I have ever had the pleasure of drinking.