Thursday, November 22

Hood River, OR

Did not wake up til 4:49a!!  What??!!  And that is with Sierra on the queen size bed.  I don’t think any of the three of us moved all night we were so tired…  I could tell she felt our stress in the car yesterday.

We tried to go back to sleep for awhile but Sierra has as good an internal clock as anyone and hers said PEE.  EAT.  Bob took her to pee and I fed her before I got in the shower.  Bob showered while I gave her a quick pee/poop walk (TMI? yeah, sorry about that).  Not Raining.

By 7a we were in the car on the way to Safeway (open 24 hours even on Thanksgiving which I think is just WRONG but happy to take advantage) since we decided to make breakfast.  And we found one coffee place that would be open this morning at 7a.  Safeway was first stop to get fresh herbs (fail on my part; intended to bring some of our fresh sage, oregano and parsley but in the rush on Tuesday to leave I completely forgot.  Because it wasn’t on the LIST), eggs, English muffins and Canadian bacon.  But.  We also got a 6-pack of Oregon wines (2 Chardonnay and 4 Pinot Noir), chocolate cake for Bob, body lotion (again, me. Fail.) And wood.  We went through our whole allotment for yesterday last night so knew we would blow through today’s pretty quickly.  The store was pretty empty and every single aisle had piles of re-stocking items in it;  yesterday had to be a nightmare in there.

We found 10 Speed Coffee on 13th Street.  The barista talked Bob (non-coffee drinker or carer 99% of the time) into an Americano when Bob ordered “just a small, black coffee.”  The guy said “Want to try something better? Like an Americano?”  If I had suggested that Bob would have made a face and there would be no need to hear a reply.  But for this guy he said “Sure.”  I had (cue the stars and stripes and violins) a large almond milk latte.   The Bay Area thinks we are so coffee avant-garde and we are so not.  People line up at Blue Bottle because of the pour over etc etc.  But every independent or small chain in CO, OR, ID that we have been to in the past year and a half has all the different brewing options available plus alternative milks besides soy. Ok end of that rant.  GREAT coffee.  Bob loved his Americano “That was a great cup of coffee.”  Giving thanks on Thanksgiving for 10 Speed being open.  Which, by the way, would be a regular haunt if near us.  They had a chalkboard menu of delicious-sounding sandwiches, salads and apps plus 5 local beers on tap.  Free wifi, couches, tables and chairs……

Got back to our lovely room (the view from main room below)

See that row of houses on the top ridge across the river?  We are going to find those.  I covet them I think.

Bob made a fire and I dry brined our 12 lb turkey.  Bob made grilled Canadian bacon, fried eggs and English muffins for breakfast. I made fresh cranberry sauce (with orange segments, orange rind, jalapeños and a little brown sugar), compound butter for the bird (chopped shallots, fresh sage, parsley, oregano, salt and pepper) and chopped up a pile of fresh herbs for Bob’s dressing.  Bob made us a Rembow (so so so good!) while we were doing all this and watching the Texans-Lions game.  At halftime, he *had* to go back to the store (ask my brothers about this) and Sierra and I took a walk.  He came back with Tostitos, salsa, water crackers (we brought pepper jack) and salami.  LOL.  He does make me laugh.  We prepped the turkey with the compound butter under the skin and all over the outside:

(I forgot to take a photo before we put it in the oven so this is after about 20 minutes when we put the foil on).  It is resting on pile of celery, onion and carrots.  Since we had to have some wine for the bottom of the pan, we opened the A to Z Chardonnay we bought to try.  Meh, would not get again.  Nibbled on chips and fresh hot salsa throughout the afternoon while we both our respective dishes and watched football.  The A to Z Chardonnay went into the bottom of the turkey pan and we tried another one, Two Vines, that we both liked so only part of that went into the gravy.

We sat down to our little Thanksgiving feast at about 4:45:

Not a very good photo (it tasted oh so much better than it looks; I blame the  green tablecloth)…  On the plate: turkey and dressing (Bob: bread crumbs, Tuscan sausage, onion, celery, jalapeño, chicken broth, butter, fresh herb).  On the table: cranberry jelly (B: canned…..); cranberry relish (Sharon: fresh cranberries, orange segments plus juice, orange rind, 2 T brown sugar, 3 T minced jalapeño); Brussels sprouts (S: leaves of the Brussels sprouts, chopped Canadian bacon, minced shallots, garlic, olive oil, salt and pepper); mashed potatoes (B: potatoes, sour cream, butter, Parmesan cheese, salt and pepper); oven roasted Sweet potato fries (S: sweet potatoes, olive oil, salt and pepper); and gravy (B: chicken broth from home plus neck and giblets, roux, mushrooms).

YUM!!!!

Did I mention no dishwasher???  Actually, we had cleaned as we cooked so only the dishes on the table and the last flurry of pans which only took me about 1/2 hour.  Fortuitously, we had forgotten the roasting pan so cooked the turkey in double throwaway aluminum pans 🙂

Bob had some ice cream and we crashed early to read .. about 2 pages in my case.  Awesome, perfect day!!!

This was on all day long: