ADVENTURES IN PEPPER-LAND

Sometimes, you've just gotta do what you've gotta do!

Today I had a commitment to take care of. However, I almost didn't make it. I wanted to make it, and felt that I should, but it seemed like it might be impossible when I first got started. In the end, I chose to risk my life, and it paid off.

CAN HE MAKE IT OUT?.... ALIVE?

There I was, done feeding the bottle baby goats and ready to head to the Springfield, MO to meet up with @jonny-clearwater for a "Hots or Shots" interview. To get to the "real roads" I have to first cross a low-water bridge. Unfortunately, it has been raining for a while and we have high water, which means that there really is not a bridge at all.

Thankfully, one neighbor has just crossed it and moved a fallen tree, and another neighbor pulled up while I was waiting. Sometimes, vehicles get washed off the road my waters like this, so I let the other guy go first and told him he "could show me how it's done." It worked and we both made it out alive!

THIS WAS EXCELLENT!

This was an appointment that I just had to make! I didn't want a little water to slow me down or prevent me from attending. A group of steemians were gathered and preparations had been made. Some like @jonny-clearwater, @flowerpowerart, and @liberty-minded has travelled all the way from Florida to shoot some episodes in Missouri. Others that I had never met, let @instructor2121 and @tygergamer were also in town, and @sykochica (who I had previously met the KC meetup) were also at the house.

Normally, the interview style for "Hots or Shots" is decided by a coin flip and the interviewee ends up either taking shots of alcohol or eating food covered in a variety of hot sauces during the interview. Since I gave up drinking over nine years ago, mine was "hots" by default, but that would better suit @papa-pepper anyway, right?

Here Mr. @Jonny-clearwater is preparing the ten different hot sauces that we were going to enjoy. The one thing that I really admire him is that he takes this very seriously and he respects the pepper. Truly, hot sauce can be a dangerous beast and should be treated and understood as such.

Since we knew that my episode was going to be "hots" ahead of time, I prepared some spicy little treats before I drove up. A mixture of ground beef and cheese was stuffed into halved jalapenos and then wrapped in turkey bacon. We thought these would be a good place to start, and that the hot sauces would spice things up even more from there.

I love me some macro food photography, especially when it is as spicy as this! It makes me want to make some more right now as I type and reminisce.

Here you can see @liberty-minded getting some shots (photos that is) of the preparation too. Recently he came on board as the editor and co-producer of the "Hots or Shots" series, so I finally got to meet up with him too! We've interacted for a long time on steemit now and have some plans for the future. In fact, I interviewed @liberty-minded when I was there today, so you can expect that to be posted on steemit soon. For those of you who follow me on YouTube, I just uploaded it!

Here is a shot of the finished food preparation. Twenty tasty little treats, covered in some amazing hot sauces! At this point I was even more excited. It truly was a happy day for my people!

The house that they rented for the week was pretty nice too. It allowed us to set up a very nice setting for the interview. It was a relaxed place with room to fit everyone easily, and with so many steemians running around, it worked really well.

This is a shot from upstairs. Yes, it was a very interesting house to be sure. When they told me on the phone that the place had "Jesus stained glass windows" I did not realize that they were speaking literally, but, sure enough, that is exactly what there was.

Personally, I was really excited for this interview and looked forward to testing out some of these great hot sauces. I'm not sure what face @jonny-clearwater is wearing on the other side of the table, but it doesn't quite look as enthusiastic as I was.

This is what my tray looked like when we were finished with the interview. It was one tasty time full of delicious spicy food and thought-provoking questions.

And..... this is what the tray that @jonny-clearwater had looked like.... So I win the "CLEAN PLATE AWARD" this time! hooray, I'm a winner!

Anyway, Episode 4 of Hots or Shots was just posted earlier, and the one that I was on was Episode 14, so you've got 10 weeks to wait before you get to see my interview. It is quite a cliff-hanger, but don't worry, @jonny-clearwater should be able to keep you entertained in the meanwhile!