Post thanksgiving update...

Well, we made it through Thanksgiving without any serious altercations. THAT's suprising. I grew up in an incredibly altercation-oriented family. This was one of the biggest family gatherings I've been to in a long while. One of my Dad's sisters was there with 3 of her children and her husband. Her kids had, I think, six kids. One of my aunt's sons wasn't able to make it. Four of my five siblings were there and no telling how many kids they have. It's like trying to count 75 bait fish in a live well in six foot seas. They just keep moving around too much. When I'm counting cattle I just count their feet and devide by four. That doesn't work with nieces and nephews. I know I'm leaving someone out, but all in all, there were over 30 of us, I think.

This weather lately has been very warm. I actually had to buy ice for my cooler. I like to not have to do that. The fact that the dog likes to lie on it when we're riding probably warms it up, too.

My truck has been giving me moderate fits. A couple of days before Thanksgiving it died on the way to town. I finally tracked the problem to the distributer cap. The points were corroded and I scraped them off and went on my way. Since I've bought a new one. Today on my way up to my folks house the top radiator hose blew out. Killed the engine with water and split in a place too far from the end to just cut it off and jam it back on. Dang. It just so happened that I was in the middle of a terribly congested intersection when this happened. As I'm pushing my truck backward the way I'd come, some guy stopped and asked if I was having trouble and in my irritated state I retorted: "No trouble, I just like to see if I can get away with pushing my truck backward into oncoming traffic." He gave me a lift to the autoparts store anyway.

Talk to y'all later! Think SNOW!

Crazy Pre-Thanksgiving...

Well, I'm in North Carolina now and things are already out of control. I've been at my folks house all afternoon and there are only ten of us here so far. It's already pretty dang loud. Tomorrow there will be thirty-five or so of us here. THAT sounds fun. Fortunately I'm camping about 30 miles south in the Pisgah nat'l forest and it's really quiet this time of the year. There are only a couple of the many campsites occupied and one of them's me. I'm really glad to have a place to go home to. It's after dark right now and it's still pretty, uh, what's the word, riotous.

On the way up here I stopped by to see my friend in Franklin, NC, and I'll swing by there on my way back. He loaned me a chair (as I forgot mine). We played Texas Hold-'Em at the restaurant where my friend works and I did fairly well. We played 'till about 4 am and it was heck driving up here the next day hung over and dog tired.

The first two days I camped I woke up to a fine dusting of snow which was such a welcome change from the dog days of Apalachicola. I've got an excellent supply of red oak, white oak and hickory to burn. The temp's cold enough at night to freeze a layer on the dog's water by 9pm. I LOVE it.

By the way, my cell phone wouldn't work as soon as I got out of my area code and the people at Trac-fone couldn't fix it remotely. They'll be sending me a new one which I'm not excited about reprogramming. I hope to have it back by the monday after Thanksgiving.

That's all for now!!