Chili Can Kill You

I almost died Saturday.

Okay, so that's not so true, but did I get your attention? Awesome. Keep reading.

It's been raining in New Mexico lately. A lot. What was once a statewide drought has now turned into a flash flood warning everywhere. The town of Hatch has been flooded over, several streets around the Albuquerque area are a danger to drive when it pours down, but it does wonders for the scenery while driving around the state. What was once a desolate wasteland of a drive to Santa Fe has become actually kinda enjoyable.

Well, me and five others drove out to Jemez Springs this weekend to do some camping. Instead of staying down around the hot springs, we went to the top of the cliffs and camped there. The view was amazing, especially once sunset hit (sorry, pictures to come. Film=undeveloped).

The beer was flowing like wine. And while I could go into details of song and stories told around the campfire, the truly interesting event happened around midnight. All had gone to bed save for me and Eric. We were fairly drunk at the time, just lounging in front of the fire seeing how many pine needles we could burn, when the campfire exploded, sending embers everywhere. I jumped up and and brushed them out of my hair, slightly panicking like a little girl. Once we collected our thoughts, we looked around and saw the damage.

Everywhere around us, the ground was littered with little glowing embers, about 25 feet around. Quite a captivating sight. It was a moonless night, so it was pretty much pitch black except for these orange dots on the ground. We yelled for everyone to get up and start stomping them out before something went up in flames (rain aside, this is still New Mexico).

Once that crisis was averted, everyone went back to bed and Eric and I stayed up to drink more and think about what had happened. I had a truly Ubik moment, joking with him that right now we were being airlifted to the hospital after being covered in horrible burns, but we were both coexisting on this different dimensional plane, unaware of what was actually happening. I think I can safely say after 42 hours I was wrong, but at that time of drunken stupor, I wasn't sure.

The next morning, we found the culprit: a can of chili. Wolf brand chili (curse you, Lyman Davis!). Apparently, one of us had put the closed can near the fire, and it slowly began to work up pressure and heat until it finally exploded, taking half of the fire with it. The crazy thing, though, was that it was found 25 feet away from the campfire, having sailed over the tents and my friend's car. Inside the can, there was no trace of chili; it was perfectly clean. Not even a burn mark. Around the campfire, no chili. Freaked us out. There was nary a trace of bean nor meat anywhere.

There were, though, traces of the fire. All the chairs had holes in them from the embers, one tent got some holes, but nothing on me or Eric. I don't know, it was truly surreal, but I've rambled on far enough. Dinnertime.