The Pancake Incident

It was a beautiful Saturday morning.  A rare one in that Luke & I got to sleep in together.  Not so rare in that Lexi decided 7:45am was sleeping late enough for us. Since we were awake, I decided to be super wife and make some homemade pancakes.  Not the ones from the box, but real, bonified, homemade pancakes.  I called my mom to verify the recipe:
1 cup milk
1 cup flour
1 egg
OK.  Got it.  Simple enough.  How could anyone mess this up?   Although I had flash backs of a year ago when I tried this same recipe (and utterly failed), I figured that I just used a cup of all-purpose flour instead of self-rising.  Lesson learned.  Don't be afraid.  Just try again with the correct kind.  I can do this perfectly in IL so I can master it in CO too.
Here we go.  1 cup milk, 1 cup self-rising flour & 1 egg.  Mix together in my Pampered Chef bowl (yes, because I am a professional) and pour on the pan.
Que problem #1:

Yes, that's right. My pan is crooked.  If you've ever tried to cook runny substances on a crooked pan, you'll know where I'm going with this.  We haven't hit tragedy just yet though  The pancakes ran together a bit, but not so much that I couldn't break them apart after they were cooked.

I still have high hopes for my Saturday morning breakfast and I continue making the pancakes.  All of a sudden

Que problem #2

Smoke starts coming up from the burner and goes everywhere!  In a panic that the smoke alarm would go off, I turned on the stove fan and turned the heat down on the burner. 

Tragedy #2 averted.

My first batch of pancakes get flipped, cooked & plated. 

Que problem #3

Pancakes the thickness of crepes.  I thoroughly enjoy a good crepe every once in a while.  Chocolate, strawberries, whipped cream all wrapped up in a thin shell...perfect!  But pancakes are NOT crepes. 

I put some more flour into my mixture.  It is high alititude right?  As we all know, a little flour will solve any high altitide baking problem.

Tragedy #3 avoided (I hope)

I place my new flour packed mixture onto my crooked pan and started baking again.  OK, OK, I got this.  It seems to be working!  I cooked up the rest of the pancakes (still stinking burning them I might add) and got them ready to serve.

I took them into the bedroom (remember?  super wife=breakfast in bed for her husband)  and we took our first bite of...THE NASTIEST THINGS EVER!  Even with jelly & bananas on them(looked like crepes, might as well treat them as crepes) covering the tast they were still awful!  Luke, somehow didn't mind them, but I couldn't take more than 1 bite.  I ended up giving a little piece to Lexi (dog) and she ate it, but her face didn't look like she was enjoying them.

So...the question is...how do I make HOMEMADE pancakes in CO altitude???? If anyone has advice, I'd appreciate it!