We were so full of the Thanksgiving spirit we had to put on two full-on dinners. Gina’s Mom and Dad came down for a Wednesday night dinner and then we had a bigger dinner on Saturday with my parents and sisters and a few friends.
For some reason I didn’t take a photo of everyone around the table at the second dinner, but I did get a before and after shot of the succulent turkey I prepared using the Alton Brown brining and roasting technique.
Abby’s school held a massively politically incorrect Indian pow-wow in honor of Thanksgiving. They sang a song about smoking peace pipes and then they said a Christian prayer. Abby was real cute in her head dress and vest, though.
For the second week in a row, and the third time in a month, we took Ol’ Leaky out for some camping action. It rained. Ol’ Leaky, as you might expect, leaked. It wasn’t too bad though. The rain was quite heavy but it didn’t last long. We stayed dry and warm and caught the leaks with a towel and a bucket.
We went to Lake Ouachita State Park on the eastern end of Lake Ouachita, Arkansas’ largest lake. I’d never been to the lake before, so we got to see a new-to-us area. The campground itself was excellent, complete with electric, water and sewer, though we didn’t use the sewer.
Despite the hot and dry summer, the fall foliage has been pretty fantastic. I found these at Pinnacle Mountain State Park.
We set sail in Ol’ Leaky again over the weekend. We tested its water tightness last time (she failed) and we decided to test her cold tightness this time. We headed up to Greers Ferry Lake near Heber Springs and camped at the Dam Site Campground. It was my first trip ever to the lake and the campground was excellent. We got a spot on a bluff overlooking the lake. It was our first kinda cold snap of the fall and temperatures were forecast for the high 20s. It didn’t get that cold but we probably found the bottom of our cold tolerance in the pop-up. The space heater ran all night and the electric blanket and double sleeping bag arrangement kept us just warm enough. Ol Leaky made a good star trails subject. The red-orange light on the trees is from the campfire on the other side of the camper.
My Dad and I went out on our now-traditional hike on the last morning before daylight saving time ends. Only this year the end of DST wasn’t on the weekend of Halloween. I like seeing the sunrise so close to the end of DST because it comes so late in the morning, making it much more likely that I will be able to drag myself out of bed in time to see it. Like last year, we headed up to Petit Jean State Park to catch the dawn breaking from Stout’s Point. Granted, I haven’t seen a lot of sunrises, but this was probably the most spectacular I’ve ever witnessed.
In checking Post Irony’s metadata, I found that in the last two days the blog has been visited based on the search terms “me & the dukes of hazard” and “hee haw set on display.” It’s not even funny.
Gramps and Abby carved two tiny pumpkins for the front porch.
This is Ol’ Leaky. We bought this thing in July for $1,500 and thought we either got a good deal or something was wrong with it. What was wrong was the roof leaked like a sieve. It had a big air conditioner on top and the roof sagged noticeably. After doing some research on the Internets I found out that this particular model requires special braces from the manufacturer when installing one of those aftermarket air units. It had no special braces. So I removed the air conditioner and sold it on Craigslist. Then I installed a roof vent and patched up some other stray holes and replaced the weather proofing on the roof seams. The seat and bed cushions had also been wet in the past so they were pretty stinky. We tossed out the big bed cushions and washed the upholstery and replaced the foam in the bench seats, which helped with the smell.
