Sunday, November 30, 2008

Turkey Day Trip, Longer Version

Tonight's the night. I have somehow managed to survive another year of NaBloPoMo. Admittedly, it seemed a lot easier last year.

Anyhow, I said I would go into a little more detail about the recent trip to New York for the Thanksgiving holiday, so here goes.

We all got up around 4:00 AM Wednesday morning (how we pulled that off with 2 teenagers and a pre-teen, I'll never know!) and got on the road by around 5:30. We usually have to stop every couple of hours for the requisite "potty break", but even with that we arrived at our destination of Fowler, New York at around 12:30 that afternoon. For those of you who haven't the foggiest idea where Fowler is (which would be the vast majority of you), it is a tiny "don't blink or you'll miss it" town about 7 miles south of Gouverneur. As to where Gouverneur is - it is about halfway between Watertown and Potsdam, in the St. Lawrence River area (go up to the Canadian border, and hang a left).

We stayed at the home of Patti's brother, Jeff, and his wife Debbie, and their two kids, Tom and Katie. All five kids (I don't care how old the teens are, they are still 'kids') had fun there, and the adults enjoyed sitting around talking, having our drinks (Smirnoff Ice, thank you), and watching a little television (nice change of pace for us, since we haven't had cable since February!).

In the two-and-a-half years since we were up there last, Jeff and Debbie had gotten a dog named Dixie. She's a brown mix-breed that kinda looks like a cross between a golden retriever and a collie. Cute as could be and very smart. Patti's other brother, Jamie, and his wife Laurie, live next door and also acquired a dog - this one a Siberian husky named Maya. Also very adorable (but I might be a bit biased since I had a couple of of huskies growing up and just love 'em to pieces). Was fun watching the two of them playing outside.

Thanksgiving consisted of watching the Macy's parade, and munching down cheese, crackers, pepperoni, and Croghan bologna (that will need to be explained another time), plus more Smirnoff Ice (I'm seeing a pattern emerging here!). Debbie's folks came over, plus another one of Patti's brothers, Larry (a non-practicing priest who teaches at one of the area schools). We all chowed down on turkey, ham, and all the assorted goodies that go with them. And pie. Later we paid a visit to some more relatives in the area - Patti's aunt and uncle, and the cousins from that side of the family. Plus more animals: a half-witted beagle, a cat, and two rabbits. And more pie.
We get back to Jeff and Debbie's after that and caught the tail end of a Jeff Dunham show on Comedy Central, which was freakin' hilarious (this guy's a riot!)

Friday brought more hanging out, plus a visit from Patti's former babysitter (I'm not going into how long ago that might have been).

We left on Saturday morning (almost not, because the Blazer decided not to start at one point; turned out there was a short somewhere. After a jump start, things started working again - mental note to get the short checked out). We made it back to Fitchburg at 4:30 in the afternoon.

All in all, a good trip.

All in all, a good month of blogging. Then again, any month that I actually get some blogging done is a good month.

1 comment:

  1. Congrats! You did it!

    Another NaBloPoMo bites the dust.

    And Happy Thanksgiving.

    ReplyDelete