You've gotta love traditions that call for sticking a sausage on a stick and cooking it over open flames, right?

Sometimes, however, things don't exactly go as planned. But we rolled with a few bumps in the road on a recent overnighter at Birch Bay State Park's lovely campground.

When we were hungry enough for dinner, it was still too light out, and too warm, to start the fire. So, the next best thing? Break out the trusty George Foreman Smokeless Grill. 

Uh-oh, we were dry camping, so no-go on plugging that beauty in. Not even when we fired up the generator. Hmmm, wonder why only some of the outlets are working? Guess we'll add that to the list of minor issues we need resolved on our next trip to Camping World's service department. 

Fortunately, we have a nifty propane-powered stovetop that handled the cooking, easy peasy. 

These days, I'm downright obsessed with the jalapeño and cheddar-stuffed andouille sausages from Hempler's. These puppies are fully cooked, so it's a simple matter of getting them warm enough to melt that cheese and in 10 minutes, you're good to go. 

I partnered up those sausages with some gumbo I had made earlier and green beans our cousins had grown and brought to the party. Yum! 

After dinner, we wandered down to the beach and saw the most spectacular sunset so far this summer. As the glow faded, we headed back to camp to start that fire. In other words, a perfect summer evening.