You can get anything you want at Alice's Restaurant ...

Maybe this post title should be Blog Slacker ...

Well it is Thanksgiving day and Arlo's song is a must hear and sing along, hence the title.

We'll get back to today a little later but first I want to ketchup, he he.

We're on out second tank of propane since this has been a colder than normal month here in Virginia. So that is about $50 for heating and cooking this month. Of course we also use a 1500W electric space heater and that helps a lot. Once the weather was getting below freezing for several nights in a row we disconnected our fresh water hose. However the hydrant froze up and we had to use a torch to get water flowing again. One of the other campers, a class A, had a similar problem.

We have not had many campers since I last posted. We did meet a nice couple from FL that were here last week before spending time with family for Thanksgiving. They live in St. Pete and we will be looking them up when we get settled at Sun-n-Fun.

We've seen snow flurries, blown and raked leaves, cleaned the comfort station, cleaned sites and all that jazz. We went to Lynchburg on one of our day's off and visited Jefferson's retreat Poplar Forest
and had a very nice tour.

Suzette in front of one of the oak's at Poplar Forest

After that it was off to find a Five Guys for lunch. Then some shopping.

We have had some problem with circuit breakers popping. Seems like 1500W space heater, toaster, microwave, hot water heater, tv, ... exceed the 30A service we have. Maybe we should get a 50A to 30A adapter. Then we would only pop the inside 30A breaker and I would not have to go outside in the cold to reset. The best thing would be to add a separate circuit to run the space heater. Humm.

Earlier I wrote about blowing leaves. Well we wanted something to do so we have been keeping the sites and culverts clean of leaves. Also the leaves near the comfort station had been blowing into the showers and the entrance way to the men's room. So between me using a backpack blower and Suzette using a rake we made a big pile away from the comfort station. The next day the picnic table that had been about 20 feet from the pile of leaves was right on the edge of the pile. Since the pile didn't move we figured that the raccoons must have moved the table so they could jump in.

We spent time working with Lauri, park interpreter, to help prepare a tank for an exhibit as well as look for an old tobacco barn. We found the barn.

We also went to several of the cemeteries that are located within the park but not part of any tour. Also a couple of the buildings that the general public doesn't get to see unless they go off trail. Well this one they can see,
Ok now lets get down to food. We have been eating quite well. Before we left Lake Anna Clif, one of the rangers, gave us some venison hamburger and a Caribou steak. Then on our last trip to Culpeper Phil, our neighbor, gave us some venison/pork sausage. Needless to say we have had some good eats. Also we had purchased a small crock pot several months ago and have been using that to prepare several meals.

Now to Thanksgiving. We had planed to cook the 8# turkey we had purchased in the dutch oven. However when we started to thaw it out we realized that it would not fit in the dutch oven we had. We devised several plans to deal with the over sized turkey. When the day finally arrived we decided that the best thing to do was a little ortho surgery. Maybe dismemberment would be a better description. well anyway we got the bird in the oven with stuffing. About 2 hours later it looked like this.

When the digital meat thermometer read 185 the bird was done.

The bird was done a little before the rest of the fixin's. My fault but Suzette recovered nicely and we sat down to a feast. Now that's good eats!

Later Lauri and Terry stopped by with pie. We had a nice visit with them.

Well I have rambled enough. On Monday we head for Florida.

More to follow.

Oh yeah to see more pictures of our Smith Mountain Lake adventures click here.