Thanksgiving with the Thompsons and Willards

Monday night after a very brief student government meeting, I set off going east on I-70 to start my drive back to South Dakota. I-70 was less than delightful as it was covered in snow and the 3rd lane that cars were driving in may or may not have been the driver-side shoulder. There was a CDOT plow spraying chemicals on the road, but as far as I was concerned, he was essentially a slow moving obstacle which I needed to avoid. Luckily, a couple miles east of the Eisenhower/Johnson tunnel, the road cleared up and I was able to go faster than approximately 30 miles/hour. Normally I start my drive early in the morning, but this time my dad suggested I break the drive into 2 days. However, in the future maybe I'll just do it in one day when it was snowing earlier in the day. I stopped in Sterling, Colorado for the night and then I only had 11 hours of driving the next day instead of 15. I think my mom appreciated the 4 hours sooner that I got home though as the house was still a mess and relatives were arriving in a few hours.

For the past 10 years (minus a year or two when they couldn't make it up, and last year when my parents, brother, and I went to see my grandparents) my aunt and uncle from Missouri have come up for Thanksgiving. On and off throughout the years, another aunt, uncle, and 2 cousins have come, but that has not happened for a few years as they have been busy with other activities.

Well, this year is no different. Tuesday evening, after stopping in Sioux Falls to eat dinner, my aunt and uncle arrived with two dogs in tow. See, the reason for this whole Thanksgiving get-together is pheasant hunting. The dogs change throughout the year, some years there is more hunting talent than other years, but there is always at least a couple dogs. This year Turbo (ours) and Domino (theirs) were the only dogs hunting. Our other two dogs- Sonic who is gun-shy and Dusky who likes to bark too much too be a hunting dog- stayed at home and kept Bonheur (pronounced Bone-er) the puppy (theirs) company. Sonic, Turbo, Domino, and Bonheur are all French Broques. Dusky is the lone German Shepard.

My dad and my uncle go hunting while my brother, my mom, my aunt, and I stay at home. Occassionally my brother goes out to hunt on our land with my dad and uncle.

Wednesday the 4 of us (my aunt, my brother, my mom, and I) went into Sioux Falls and my aunt went grocery shopping while my brother had an appointment while I accompanied my mom to the place where she works. After dropping my aunt and brother off, Bonheur was sitting in my mom's lap and my mom said "She smells like fish oil" and after a couple minutes we decided that she must have rolled in something. After my mom went to work and we picked up my aunt and brother, we headed home where Bonheur got to take a bath so that she was more enjoyable to hold. Considering that I was the one who got to give Bonheur a bath, I greatly appreciated her bath-taking skills. Our three dogs (Sonic, Turbo, and Dusky) HATE baths. They will leap out of the bathtub and splash around as much as possible. By the time you are finished giving them a bath, the bathroom is soaked along with the person giving the bath. Bonheur however calmly stands there as you pour water all over her and coat her in shampoo and then rinse her off. She even stood nicely as I dried her off.

Today (Thursday/Thanksgiving Day) "the men" went hunting again. There was no snow and it was approximately 50 degrees today, which is much nicer than a lot of Novembers in South Dakota. While out hunting, Domino decided that he would visit with a skunk and got sprayed. So, he got a bath this evening. Domino is also a very well-behaved bath taker. I think I found the bath more torturous than he did, as I was covered up to my elbows in tomato juice which I then began to think I was allergic to once my arms started itching like crazy.

During the day, we cooked "Goliath Jr." who ONLY weighed 22 pounds. Two years ago we cooked "Goliath" who weighed 40 pounds and was a beast to wrestle in and out of the oven, to say the least. After Domino's bath, we had our more-or-less traditional Thanksgiving dinner (we had a goose one year and ham a couple other years, so we're not exactly the leading example of traditional Thanksgiving). Yesterday we had apple pie, today we had pumpkin and chocolate pecan pies, and hopefully at some point I will be able to talk my mom into helping me make a chocolate pudding pie, so by the time I go back to Colorado, I should have gotten my pie filling for awhile.

Tomorrow my aunt and I are off to the Empire Mall in Sioux Falls for Black Friday while my parents work. I'm not sure what my brother and uncle are doing. There was talk that they could go hunting on our land tomorrow. Otherwise I'm guessing my uncle and the dogs will enjoy a day off. Then my dad and uncle are hunting again Saturday and Sunday. Monday my aunt and uncle are headed back to Missouri. I'm either headed back Sunday afternoon or really early Monday morning.

Sunday evening I was in the dorms and the white board was announcing a Thanksgiving dinner for those living in the residence hall who were not going home for Thanksgiving.

Last Friday I handed in paperwork to move back into the dorms. Last April I was all keen on moving out of the dorms. I came in July to find an apartment and was all excited about not having to live in the dorms, and how there would not be any false fire alarms in the middle of the night, and I could eat whatever I wanted whenever I wanted. Realistically, that is not what happened.

Living in the dorms is way more social than living in an apartment by yourself. You get so used to the noise in the dorms, that it's a little difficult to get used to so much quiet so much of the time. When you're in a lonely mood or you really want to go do something but you don't want to go alone, it's really nice to be able to walk a few doors down the hall and ask someone. If they can't go, you go another few doors. It is much faster than calling/texting half of your phonebook and then getting frustrated because they didn't respond in the first 5 minutes.

My apartment might not have any false fire alarms, but it does have strange noises at 1AM, people talking/playing guitar/watching TV next door, and cops and fire trucks driving past with sirens on.

I might be able to eat whatever I want whenever I want. I eat breakfast. After that it's a matter of chance whether I eat lunch or dinner. If I do eat either of those meals, their nutritional content is as varied as night and day. Sometimes a bag of popcorn sounds like a perfectly acceptable meal and other days I end up with 3 or 4 food groups on my plate. My food-time-schedule still revolves around "I'm hungry now" not "Maybe an hour from now I'll want to eat baked chicken".

I never thought I would say this, but I am actually looking forward to living in a dorm full of guys next semester, with fire alarms going off at 4AM, and cafeteria food.

So, before enthusiastically moving out of the dorms when your one-year contract is up, I suggest seriously considering whether you actually have the motivation to make 2 or 3 meals a day. Also consider how social you are and how motivated your friends are to come see you / how motivated you are to go see them.

Until next time, enjoy your Thanksgiving leftovers, try not to spend too much money shopping on Black Friday, and hope for some snow to fall in Leadville so that Ski Cooper can open.

PS: For those of you who are loyal readers and are wondering why I came home two weeks ago and then came home again now, I came how two weeks ago with the idea that maybe I would be working at this point. Ski Cooper doesn't have their necessary foot of snow though, so they are not open yet, so I came home now since I am SURE Ski Cooper will be open by Christmas. If they aren't open by then, lets just say me and everyone else from CMC trying to do their internship there, is doomed.

PPS: Saturday for Ski Cooper training we went over the Ski Cooper Ski School handbook, watched a video about ACL injuries, and our bosses talked to us. Sunday we did not have training because it's rather difficult to have on-snow training without any snow.