Happy Thanksgiving

Hi all. I took the family up to Oregon for Thanksgiving weekend to visit relatives. It took nine hours to drive up there because I forced myself to keep the speed at 55 mph. I just set the cruise control, took my shoes off and occasionally hit the overdrive button to disable the overdrive gear on hills. What an amazing reduction in fuel consumption. I have to admit that I used to take this trip at an average of 80 to 85 mph. Traveling at 55 only amounted to an increase of roughly one to one and a half hours. Ultimately, though, no matter what speed I travel at, my wife will never fail to add her two cents. When I'm flying down the road at 80mph, she's got the white knuckles gripping the door handle and silently screaming that I'm going to kill us all. And now that I'm cruising at a lovely Driving Miss Daisy clip, she's jumping up and down in the bloody seat, wondering when we're going to get there. I can't win.

We needed four-wheel-drive to get to my sister-in-law's cabin which is located at the river's edge at the end of a logging trail. That's always a fun drive for me. We don't get to use the 4WD very often here in the Bay Area. Just on trips to Oregon and the occasional trip up to the Tahoe area in the winter.

Traffic was relatively light and the trip went smoothly. I played Green Day on the car stereo to keep me awake.

On Thanksgiving day, we got to try some fly fishing on the river which is something I never tried before. I think I might get hooked on it. OK, that was a horrible pun. My apologies to all three of my readers. But I really enjoyed fly fishing, even without catching anything. It's very graceful, almost like a dance.
At one point, I swung back and hit myself in the forehead with the fly. So much for graceful.

That afternoon, we cooked not one, but two turkeys. We barbecued one and deep-fried the other. I liked the taste of the deep-fried turkey but the barbecued one seemed to turn out more moist. We also had fresh brussels sprouts from the garden and fresh mushrooms picked off the local hillsides. In addition, we smoked some fresh salmon and to top it all off, we finished with a homemade raspberry pie made with, you guessed it, raspberries picked from the garden. Quite a meal.

I took a few pictures while up there to share with you ...

This picture was taken from the back deck. Nice having a waterfall in your backyard, huh?

A snapshot of the river on a rainy afternoon. There weren't any salmon in there at this time, but I'll be back again to catch some.

This is Bert, a very large white dog. We still haven't been able to figure out how he stays so white when he's surrounded by all that mud. In his spare time Bert enjoys chasing after chickens that stray out of the coop up by the garden.

While meandering through the garden, I spotted these two salamanders fighting over an earthworm.

No trip to Oregon would be complete without a visit to the Loleta Cheese Factory on the way back home. We always stop here for the curds.

Here's hoping that your holiday was as pleasant as mine. Take care.