Thanksgiving 2009

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Many, many miles Jean and I traveled this Thanksgiving holiday. The only miles that were in Henry County were Thursday morning and Saturday afternoon, but we had such an incredible time that I had to write about it. Jean left Paris at 3:55 Thursday morning, and arrived at Timbercreek, where I was, at 8:25. We unloaded her truck into the condo, then piled into my truck for a 2 hour trip to Brownstown, Illinois, where we had a feast. Turkey, ham, dressing, mashed potatoes, gravy, sinfully rich sweet potatoes, green bean casserole, turnips, dumplings, corn pudding, baked beans, pineapple salad, cranberry salad, Ramen noodle salad, tossed salad, homemade yeast rolls, Snicker Doodle cookies, pumpkin pie, apple pie, blueberry pie, sweet cream pie, pumpkin bread, apple bread, and assorted candies. Brownstown is about 120 miles from Timbercreek, and it was a beautiful ride, almost the whole way. Even downtown St. Louis looked pretty nice with hardly any traffic. Then we came by Denise's house, in Granite City, Illinois. Denise is my bus driver at work and she read my blog on riches, was moved by it, and asked to put it in her church bulletin. She wrote an opening paragraph to my story that just blew me away, so I wanted her and Jean to meet. We left there and rode back to the condo, for some much needed rest.

Friday morning was spent preparing another great meal. We had two lady friends for a lunch fit for a king. Kentuckian ham, green bean casserole, confetti potatoes, slaw, cooked apples, homemade bran muffins, pumpkin bread, apple bread, and three candies. After a short nap, we headed for Alton, Illinois to visit a 90 year old lady who Jean and I know quite well. We left her house and drove to a park that had 2.5 MILLION Christmas lights strung throughout the trees, and had many Christmas displays set up. After the Christmas display, we drove the 60 miles back to Timbercreek.

We love this country of ours.....we hope to spend many, many, more hours traveling in the good ol' USA. There are lots of things we have not seen yet, but there are also many areas that we have already checked off our list. With time, more beautiful and historic sites will be enjoyed!