ROASTING AND FREEZING

Roasting, as in turkey!  As with most all our family gatherings these days, it’s easier for the old folk to travel north to the Bay Area than it is for the kids et al to come south.  John and Meghan were hosting this year, despite Meghan being nine months pregnant!  With her being due any day, they wanted to stay in the City to be close to the hospital.  We took over the cooking duties, which Loni loves to do, especially for Thanksgiving.  We dry-brined a 22 pound bird here at home, then crammed it and a load of ice bricks into a cooler for the 400 mile trip, along with virtually all of our kitchen paraphernalia for “just in case.”  We looked like the Joads traveling with their life’s possessions.

We were joined by Meghan’s dad, Barry, and Alia’s parents, Bill and Lynn.  Cooking chores were divvied up and everyone pitched in.

The roasting went beautifully, and the bird came out, as they say, moist and tender.  Everyone contributed a favorite side dish.  The table was colorful, sporting J&M’s plates from their honeymoon trip to Turkey.  About 5,000 calories were consumed – per person.  I’m sure the baby was groaning as well.

As with all the best family get-togethers, we did a lot of sitting around and talking and just enjoying each other’s company. 

I think we all were kind of hoping that, now that Meghan had “made it” through the holiday, that the baby would decide to come in the next few days before we had to head back south.  No such luck.  She was being stubborn, or simply really enjoying hanging out right where she was.  We left early Sunday morning for the long, holiday-traffic drive back to L.A.  Actually, it wasn’t as bad as we feared, and we made decent time with only one major slowdown for about half an hour. 

We got home Sunday evening, and had to get up bright and early Monday morning to go get the rig out of storage, drive it to Home Depot to buy a Christmas tree, strap that to the scooter rack, bring it home, wash (ugh) it, load it with food and clothing and gear, and get ready for our trip to the Live Oak Camp in the Santa Ynez mountains near Solvang, CA.  This is another of our Lazy Daze Caravan Club meetings, and is one of the largest of the year.  Our sub-group within the Club – the “Past Tents,” was the host group for this meeting, thus responsible for setting up and manning the host tent (that’s us doing that, with our, um, elf hats), decorating the pavilion with holiday stuff, and generally running the show.  I had been deputized to bring the tree to set up in the pavilion, hence the hauling from L.A.

We had a good turnout, with 102 rigs taking part.  This pic shows only a fraction.  Live Oak is a “dry” camp without any water or electric hookups, thus everyone had to get through the five day meeting on solar, generator, battery, and propane.  That’s normally not a problem, but the weather wasn’t cooperating.  It ended up being the coldest weather that we have ever camped in.  The overnight low was 18 degrees!  Yikes.  In central, coastal California?  While Lazy Daze’s are probably better insulated than most, you really can’t keep the heat in very long without keeping a source going.  The first night we tried leaving the main furnace on, but that wasn’t a great solution.  First, the blower runs off the batteries, and consumes a lot of power.  Propane usage didn’t seem to be too bad.  But the worst part was that, to maintain a temperature, it would cycle on every 20 minutes or so, with a substantial “whoosh” noise that made sleep, at least for me, almost impossible that first night.  For the subsequent nights we went with our catalytic heater, the Wave 3.  This uses propane, but does not emit any dangerous gases in the process.  However, it does consume oxygen, and requires that you leave two windows open a crack to allow replenishment.  Otherwise, you don’t wake up the next morning.  We had never before used our cat at night, but other campers told us they did it regularly and that it was safe as long as you left the required ventilation.  It worked pretty well; despite the sub-freezing outdoor temps and the open windows, we kept the interior at about 56 degrees over night, which was plenty warm for sleeping.  And we woke up.  :)

One of the activities at this particular caravan is the brown-bag gift exchange.  Everyone sits at the pavilion tables with his/her bag in front.  Master story-teller Barbara B then launches into an elaborate and lengthy shaggy dog story about “Mr. and Mrs. Right.”  Whenever in the course of the story she says either the word “right” or the word “left,” each person passes the bag then in front of him to the person to the right or left, as appropriate.  The bags thus move randomly around the tables, depending on the tale.  At the end of the story “shuffle,” you presumably are left with a gift bag not your own.  This is pure cornpone, but generates a lot of laughs. 

As in the past when the Past Tents is the caravan host group, I did the morning announcements over the CB system.  To shake things up in what is an otherwise dry exercise, I hammed it up by putting on a spoof of Orson Welles’ War of the Worlds radio broadcast that terrorized much of the country back on October 30, 1938 (almost 75 years to the day).  My effort was played for laughs, not terror, and (ahem) went quite well, thank you.

We did the usual washer toss tournament, this one being the last of the year and limited to prior winners and runners-up.  That put both Loni and I in the game.  I lasted until the quarters, and she into the semis, but that’s it.

Another event of this end-of-year caravan is the craft sale.  There are some pretty talented folks among the campers, including fine wood turning, jewelry, knitted items, and a lot of knicknacks.  We usually find something to add to our Christmas pile and this year was no exception.  We even got some of Mom’s pumpkin thingies sold!

Last, but certainly not least, is the food.  We had a great potluck with only the Past Tents, several of whom are vegetarians or gluten-free types, so we had a lot of interesting dishes, certainly a cut above the usual parade of casseroles.  It’s really a treat to eat with this bunch.  Saturday night was the all-camp dessert buffet.  Ah, well.  Butterfat and calories are de rigueur between Thanksgiving and New Year’s.  Even I can put on a few pounds at these do’s.