Thanksgiving 2006 Journal

Thanksgiving Break 2006

Went to Cory and Bruce's for Thanksgiving break this year. I left Saturday morning a little after 7 am and got to Goldendale around noon. There was still enough daylight for Uncle Bruce and I to play 18 holes of golf at the Goldendale Country Club. We were almost the only people on the course and played a betting game called Bingo Bango Bongo. One point for first on, one point for closest to, one point for first in, and one point for lowest score on every hole. Bruce and I tied with 36 points each despite the fact that just in terms of score I kicked his ass. I sucked on the front nine, but shot 42 on the back nine (six pars and three double bogeys) for an 18 hole total of 91. Not bad for a guy who rarely golfs.

We had pork chops for dinner and went to bed early so we could get a good start to our road trip Sunday. This break was pretty much the Columbia bridge tour for me: we took the route through Klickitat down to the Columbia on the Washington side and crossed into Oregon at the Bridge of the Gods at Cascade Locks. That is an impressively massive truss bridge that really took me by surprise. I even got to explain to Uncle Bruce and Aunt Cory how truss bridges work while we stopped for coffee in town.

Once we arrived in Portland we dropped Regan's shoes off at the shoe repair store, got me a pull up bar, and headed to Powell's to kill some time before motoring up to Vancouver to Bruce's brother's house, where we were fed a lasagna dinner and went for a walk before turning in early.

The good thing about going to bed so early is that everybody is up by 6:30 at the latest. I had an Americano from Peet's on our way out of town and Uncle Bruce remarked, “It's 7 am: 16 ounces of mojo and there's nothing we can't do today.” Yeah, we're talking a road trip without down time. It's wonderful.

For exciting things to do we cruised through Longview where great grandparents had briefly stayed during the depression, then headed across the hills of the coast (through some towns Cory and Bruce lived in before Harrisburg) and crossed a five mile bridge to Astoria over the mouth of the Columbia. Bruce said they run a race across the bridge, which sounds pretty cool.

In Astoria we hit up a used bookstore where I got “Uncle Mike's Guide to Successful Drinking” and also went to the Maritime Museum. The main theme of the museum was that a shitload of people have died crossing the Columbia bar, and also that lots of shipping goes up and down the Columbia between the mouth and Lewiston thanks to all the dams.

One oil change and some temporary tattoos from the gift shop later we headed to Seaside and got a room at a motel. Uncle Bruce was pretty sure there was an arcade there and he was right, so I got my ass kicked at air hockey and some stupid basketball game. After losing the games at the arcade we got Cory and took a walk to the beach where the sun came out for just long enough to marvel at the power of the Pacific ocean, with waves crashing in as we walked along the emptiest Oregon Coast sand beach I'd ever seen. There were some people flying kites and some people walking around but I guess industrial tourism doesn't quite boom in late November on the Oregon Coast.

Dinner was the “Sailor's Delight” pizza (pepperoni, sausage and green peppers) at a local pizzeria and entertainment was the new Bond movie “Casino Royale.” It was pretty over-the-top, but I found it incredibly entertaining. The high tech gadgets so common in other Bond movies were replaced by fistfights and poker games, which I thought was a good change.

Tuesday morning I got up at 5:45 and hit the “fitness room” at our motel for some pullups and chest press/flys, then had the continental breakfast with Cory and Bruce while drinking lame ass hotel coffee and mocking the FOX News broadcast that was playing on the TV in the breakfast room.

However, I did end up with a real cup of coffee that morning at the Everett St Bistro when we stopped in Portland so Bruce could go to a meeting. What a guy: he even fits in billable hours when he's on vacation. After that really strong cup of coffee I spent the following hour buzzing around downtown Portland and somehow ended up back at Powell's bookstore. Cory and I went to the cooking section to look at pictures of Betty Crocker and had the idea that somebody needs to write a book looking at the change of the Betty Crocker image through time: how she fluctuates between a matron and a stone cold fox. I also found a cookbook called “Dude Food” which featured sections with names such as “Romancing the Stove.” I wish now that I had bought it.

After Bruce was done with his meeting it was back to Goldendale with a quick stop at Multnomah falls, the 600 foot waterfall in the Columbia gorge. That was impressive. We crossed the bridge at Hood River and made Goldendale in the late afternoon. Dinner was enchiladas and I nerded it up all evening working on my concrete mix design program.

Wednesday Bruce and I left for The Dalles at 7:30 to test some new homes for duct leakage by taping off the returns, hooking up a duct blower, and measuring the flow rate with a couple pressure taps and a manometer. There was some serious leak going on so we tested it many times to make sure we weren't at fault. On the way home we stopped at Fred Meyers for Thanksgiving food and drink and got back to the house just as people arrived.

Urban and Cameron drove Grandma, Grandpa, and Martha here and dropped them off, but not without staying for a pork chop dinner that I performed the grilling duties for while grooving on an Optimator. After-dinner entertainment around here usually is watching baby Levi crawl around. He's eleven months old and is very close to being able to walk. I've never been around a baby before and I have to say they're pretty entertaining, though I imagine changing diapers and not sleeping isn't quite as entertaining.

Thanksgiving Day was all about the eatin' baby. We're talkin' bacon, eggs, and scones for breakfast, lentil soup for lunch, and one big feast for the main event. Aunt Cory had sent out invitations the previous week stipulating that everybody had to write a Thanksgiving or Harvest themed poem to read at the after dinner poetry jam, and most people actually did write a poem. Once everybody was stuffed from dinner and pie the poems were drawn from the poem bowl and each person read their's. I thought that was a neat idea.

After cleanup Regan, Jen, Grant, Ian, Bruce, and I played a game of trivial pursuit. That got boring pretty fast so Grant, Bruce, Dee, and I got a one dollar buy-in poker match going. I suck at poker but lasted a long time and had a lot of fun since it was a friendly game. Also, I was up until 11:30 which was the latest I'd been up in a while, seeing as how I've been competing for world's squarest man.

The next morning I got up early to walk the dogs with Regan and Levi to have something resembling solitude. Regan gave me some advice on women. I think the family is disappointed that there is no gossip about me dating girls or anything like that due to my utter inability to attract women. Oh well, what are you going to do?

Upon return to the house I drank coffee and read poetry from the Garrison Keillor compiled book “Good Poems” for a couple hours. True to the title of the book there were many good poems and it kept me thoroughly entertained until other people showed up and about 9:30 we made a big ol' breakfast of eggs and toast to feed twelve people. After eating and cleanup Ian's family headed out and Bruce and I hit the links for some more Bingo Bango Bongo. I played all right but two OB shots really hurt my score. But then, on hole number eight, I got some serious mojo goin' again.

It's a short par four that doglegs left and I smashed a drive that turned the corner perfectly with a big draw. Once I got up there I was delighted to see that I made the green in one shot and was about ten feet from the hole! Sank the putt and scored my second Eagle in the last three round of golf! Doesn't get much better than that. I lost the betting game by three points but still had lots of fun. That Goldendale course is an interesting one to play.

Back at the house I had some lunch and read a book about playing Texas Hold 'Em, went for a run, did some pushups, walked the dogs, ate dinner, watched a movie and went to bed. I almost made it to 11:30 two nights in a row!

Up Saturday morning at 6:30 to go to town with Bruce for breakfast makings and a newspaper. I left midmorning to drive back and actually stopped at Palouse Falls on the way home. It was a slight detour but definitely worth it: It's so weird to be driving along the Palouse and suddenly there's this big waterfall. It was also worth it to mix up the drive and see some new scenery while driving back from a largely successful Thanksgiving break.