On to Baton Rouge, LA for Thanksgiving week

We left Bridgeport on Monday November 23 just before 9 am – Acey’s mileage 68,388.7, Thor’s 76.003.

We stopped overnight at the New Rockdale RV Park in Mansfield, LA. (Just south of Shreveport) We did not even unhook Thor – a first!  We arrived around 3pm and since we had full hookups, we did a couple loads of laundry and added Louisiana to our map!

On Tuesday morning, we headed out at 9:00 for Farr Park RV Campground in Baton Rouge. Acey’s mileage 68,688.8 and Thor remained at 76,003! We crossed over the Mississippi River.

We arrived at the campground about 1pm and made lunch. We went shopping for the rest of the foods we were to prepare for Thanksgiving. Found a 20 pound frozen turkey at Albertsons; if we bought $30 of groceries, the turkey would only be 17 cents a pound! What a bargain!

Wednesday morning, we rode our bikes along the Mississippi River levee trail for about 6 miles, and saw the bridge we crossed yesterday.

After lunch, we met Chuck for some brews at Rally Cap Brewing.

Then we went to Cissy’s to make the cranberry pudding for the Thanksgiving feast. For dinner, we had a bowl of gumbo Cissy had made. Chuck had bought this long gator toy with many squeakers in it for Kona a few years ago – she still loves it!

Though Kona is very fond of Chuck, she snuggled up to Jim with no qualms!

Thursday morning, we rode our bikes along the Levee Trail for about 8 miles – replacing our traditional Thanksgiving morning walk this year. In the past, we had participated in the 5-mile Belle Meade Boulevard Bolt on Thanksgiving morning. That was replaced by our (approximately 2 ½ mile each way) “Popover to Grampie’s” walk – from our home on Hallows Drive to Dad’s home at the Lakeshore Harpeth Meadows. We would walk to his place, make popovers for breakfast, walk back again and get the turkey cooking. Here are a couple of photos from a previous Popover to Grampie’s!

 Midday we headed back to Cissy’s to make Thanksgiving dinner with Chuck and his friends. No Thanksgiving popovers this year. Cissy and Kona were great hosts for our “memorial service” for the turkey. Some states allow only 6 people for Thanksgiving but as many as 30 for a funeral. In lieu of flowers, bring a dish…

Thanks to Bennett for some great photos of our fixings! We unwrapped the turkey and rinsed it.

We prepared the herb seasoned stuffing …

And stuffed the turkey…

We like to use a turkey cooking bag – always results in a moist turkey!

Jim boiled and mashed the sweet potatoes (and white potatoes too – no photo) and the rutabaga.

He fixed 4 rutabaga – here’s a raw one – they were smaller than the ones we usually get.!

The turkey came out just right!

Linda made gravy with the drippings.

Lots of turkey for the crowd!

And whole berry jellied cranberry sauce

Vince came with his famous garlic and artichoke balls. Quite tasty indeed!

Bennet brought some almond lace cookies, cornbread dressing, creamed spinach, and some tasty brews.

Chuck brought a green bean casserole that missed the photo op – sorry Chuck!

Cissy made rice dressing, her Grandma’s cornbread dressing, a spinach salad, oatmeal raisin cookies, and a ham! Oh – and a pumpkin pie too!

Josh & Haley brought a yummy pecan pie and some home brew (and Mary of course!)

Mary tried out Chuck’s sandals.

While the turkey was cooking, some of us went to check out the neighbor’s shiny new corvette.

Lots of beer was consumed – Bennett brought a very tasty Founder’s Maple Mackinac Fudge Stout; we had to correct him on the pronunciation – the final c is silent – or more like a “w”

Everything made for a delicious meal!!

Friday we had a Safelite technician come by to repair 2 places on Acey’s windshield that were damaged by road debris.

In the afternoon, as the rains came in,  we went back to Cissy’s one last time – to make turkey soup!

It rained of and on Saturday – Chuck came over for pancakes and we went to Mandeville for lunch at Old Rail Brewery and also visited Chafunkta Brewing. We came back to Acey to chat and had more turkey soup for dinner. It rained all night Saturday night – but fortunately let up by Sunday morning to allow us to pack up and get on the road. We are heading to Florida tomorrow!