06/23/2026
Big Daddys Crew rocks! Beryl UT
Our story begins last Thursday we got a call to go feed 150 firefighters. Sawmill fire 121 miles away. We need to be there at 5:30 am Friday to serve breakfast and hand out lunch. Sandy and i head out at 5:30pm Thursday to take truck to site. Our map program takes us out thru Beaver and Milford and onto bumpy dirt road. It took us 4 hours to get there and beat the heck out of the food truck.
Arrived 9:30pm. Got truck in position and headed back to Monroe after 10pm. We mapped ourselves home thru Enoch, much faster only 2 hours 45 minutes. We made it back by 1am.
Laid down for 45 minutes and got up to start loading to leave by 2:30 am. While we were taking food truck to Fire camp site we had our crew come in and start prepping for Friday breakfast and lunch. Taking this job on such short notice means shopping at the local stores for almost everything.4 baskets of groceries. So, we loaded up and left for fire camp, 2:30am Friday morning. Arrived there by 5:30am to feed them by 6:30am. The drive is almost half on pavement and half on dirt road ( Lund Highway). Serve breakfast and give them their lunches and back to Monroe to get dinner for Friday night. The dinner count went to 240 firefighters. Arrived back in Monroe by 11:30 am and our crew had started breakfast and lunch for Saturday morning 240 for each meal. Shopping again for 3 different meals. An 8 basket day. We loaded up van for dinner and were on the road by 2:30pm. Arrived at camp by 6pm, dinner at 7pm. Crew finishing up in Monroe for Saturday. We served dinner and finished up heading home after 9pm. While driving home on the dirt road we blew a tire on the van. Out in the middle of BFE! We had never changed tire on the van so everybody has their phone out figuring how to lower tire and where the jack was. Lucky for us a pickup truck with young man and wife, and kids came by and he did the whole thing for us. Thank you. Back on the road, we get back to Monroe 1:15am Saturday. Unload dinner and load up breakfast and lunch for 240 .Leave by 2:30 am arrive by 5:30am ready for breakfast by 6:30 am. Served breakfast and arrived back in Monroe by 11:30am. Crew already putting together breakfast and lunch for Sunday. Sundays count bumped up to 330 firefighters for breakfast and lunch. Shopping all over again. Loaded the van up and gone by 3pm. Served dinner and headed out by around 9pm. On the dirt road there is one set of railroad tracks we cross over. We get to those tracks and a train is parked blocking the road. We had to wait 45-60 minutes until train started up and left. Back in Monroe by 1:30am. Unload, and load breakfast for 330 each meal, breakfast and lunch. Left Monroe by 2:45am arrived at camp by 6am. This was our last meals . They called in the Big caterers. We were done, Man we were done! Had to bring food truck and crew home, long drive. Arrived back in Monroe after 12 noon. Sandy and I finally going to get some sleep.Thanks to our crew, Joann Ballow, Gordon Ballow, Calene Anderson, Angela Payne, Deanna Stoker, Sydney Payne, Justice Jones, Sandra Castles and Ken Castles. Special thanks to Patty and Dave Jensen who met us in Cedar City Friday with groceries from Chef store in St. George.
