Thanksgiving reflections

Mom and I had a very different celebration of Thanksgiving this year.  We enjoyed the newness of it but missed being with family.  However, we have many wonderful and happy memories of family Thanksgivings over many years.  Celebrations at my home when we all gathered followed by years with Gummis and Honey.  We watched the families grow in numbers and size year by year We recall walks around the circle and 'through the woods,' and shoveling a foot of snow from the early dumping that blocked the driveway.  Photos in our many albums trace the development over these years. Incidentally, Mom and I ended thanksgiving going thru old albums trying to find photos of our trip to New mexico some years ago but found lots of other interesting pictures! There are some great moments from more recent celebrations of Thanksgiving - turkey on the barbie and hot tub soaks in Noose and the remarkable appearance of a turkey with all the accompaniments on Block Island in what seemed like an hour after arrival at the Blue Dory.  Memories that remain warm and vivid.

We combined a few of these ingredients this year.  We decided to travel - a usual Thanksgiving event - but not to family but to natural wonders.  We drove 630 miles through some spectacular Colorado scenery spending the first night in an inexpensive but welcoming motel in Fort Garland.  We had a delicious Mexican dinner at what looked like a road side joint but turned out a great place and a fun experience. oOher guests were in bluejeans and cowboy hats - looked as tho they should have arrived on horses, a family of five at the next table was speaking Vietnamese(we think that was the language but it may have been Navajo!), and waiters with wide, beaming and welcoming smiles that remained in place throughout dinner.  We saw the town's restored 1858 fort, Fort Garland, the next morning - adobe and such a contrast to the NE 1750s frontier wood stockades. Then we headed for a highlight - the Great Sand Dunes National Park.

The dunes are over 750 feet high at their peak but start on the western side as low ones similar to what we had seen in New Mexico - the White Sands.  The shapes, texture, and shadows kept changing and Mom said she could spend an age there just painting the different impressions.  We spent about four hours, enough to realize the changes, and viewed the dunes from several angles.  We had lunch looking at dunes in one direction and 14,000 foot peaks covered in snow in the other direction while we sat at a table in the warm sun.  Delightful!

We drove on to Salida - on a straight highway through South Park with only an occasional car or pickup traveling on the busiest travel day of the year.  Once we had a traffic jam of three cars so had to slow down from our 70 mph average speed.  In Salida we checked into a rather new Hampton. It was as nice a motel/hotel as we've stayed in.  Very helpful desk workers who guided us to an excellent rather new restaurant started by a retired chef who had a reputation somewhere in the East.  He retired to Salida, got bored, and started the restaurant. It was the extensive historic district which is full of restaurants and cutesy shops (fortunately they were all closed that night and on Thanksgiving morning when we explored the area along the Arkansas River before leaving town - if they had been open we'd never have made it home that day.).  An hour after we arrived,  we headed to the Hot Springs for a new experience - a private room/tub with 104 degree water.  We really relaxed.  We made it to the restaurant in a rather limp condition but regained some backbone with a beautifully cooked dinner and an excellent bottle of wine.

Thanksgiving morning we enjoyed a hotel breakfast with many choices including a southwestern omelet.  I then swam and we strolled the river walk, saw a Christmwas tree display - each tree a memorial to an individual or family or - less attractive - an ad for a business.  A dentist had a tree decorated with large, fake white teeth, cleaning picks, and the tooth fairy on top!

 The drive home was beautiful. Along the Arkansas River we saw a herd of ten big horn sheep.We had just been taling about them and wishing we would see some - amazing.  We had a picnic after a long climb up a mountain pass when the road leveled and ran through  rolling hills dotted with Pinon Pines.There were wonderful clouds The land made Mom feel 'at home.'  We got to Boulder in time to feed the Kellogg's 'pets" and and to cook some Turkey thighs, a surprise for Mom.  It was a plesant dinner in part inspired by Julie's Block Island quick meal and Elli's turkey on the grill.  We thought of you all in your various celebrations.  We enjoyed getting texts and messages along the way but were unable to answer in part because of no reception in canyon areas and in part because the phone was not at hand. So ends our 2011 Thankasgiving Saga - another memory to add to the collection.