My Thanksgiving Beach Trip

Since I didn't answer any of the last comments, I'll start with that. I didn't mean pics and details of the shower, I meant of the trip. I should have taken a picture of the shower but never remembered to pack my camera in my shower bag. It's a nice park bathhouse. The shower stalls have an outer curtain opening into a space with a built-in bench and some hooks for your stuff and then there is another curtain that opens into the spacious getting wet area. It's all brightly white painted cinder blocks and has wonderful water pressure. Oh, and for Lone Grey Squirrel, it was the musical episode "Once More, with Feeling." And here are my pics:
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Mom had the bed made up for me and all it needed was my sleeping pony to make it perfect:

There was a little table and two chairs to the right of the bed, one of which I used for a luggage rack:

The bed was a bunk with a single on top. This is the foot of the bed and pretty much the rest of the tiny cabin:

Mom was so sweet and funny and wanted to drive me in her car to my cabin on the first night. She asked me twice. This is a picture of the distance from her front porch to the cabin:

The large bulding behind the tiny cabin is the office/gameroom/church/laundromat/library/vending area and has some bathrooms. This is Mom and me in front of her place. My Step-Dad made that pelican post with the giant ropes. I love it:

This is Belle the horse. I went in Mom's backyard to take a picture of the goats, horse and pony back there and this horse came RIGHT up to me. I'm terrified of horses but I actually touched her head.

It was strange that I didn't see any deer on this trip but I saw a fox and I have never ever seen a fox in real life. We also saw something cross the road in front of us on the island but we couldn't agree on what it was. I thought it was a jackrabbit and Mom thought it was a coyote. Maybe it was just a very weird cat. I commandered the golf cart on Thursday afternoon (my Step-Dad left to go fishing with his son and stay for a few days) and kept it until I left. Here it is parked in front of the tiny cabin:

The actual Thanksgiving part was on Thursday at 1:00. They have a screened-in building with three rows of picnic tables and a fireplace for these group events. Mom made an apple walnut cake and squash casserole. Earlier on Thursday while she was finishing up, a lady named Edna stopped by to chat. She said she was taking collards. I will love her forever. Collards are not a Texas thing, so I had not thought of them, but after she said they would be there, I decided not to eat much of anything else. This is part of the spread at the place:

The turkeys were on another table. There was fried turkey and several flavored barbecued turkeys. This is my Step-Dad cutting up a turkey. Mom is just over his shoulder wearing red:

I had one section of fried turkey wing, about two tablespoons of mac and cheese, two tablespoons of Mom's squash casserole and three large helpings of collards. They were beyond awesome. I wish I had some right now. I went out to sit on the golf cart after I ate, to smoke a cigarette and saw this thing flying over someone's camper:

I certainly wasn't expecting to see a Canadian flag and sort of felt like Jazz was admonishing me for smoking. But I got over it. That's when my Step-Dad left and Mom and I went to visit very old friends. I met my friend Janice in 4th grade. Her big sister Linda met my brother in 8th grade and they fell in love, so we all knew each other. And one of my brother's older best friends dated her older sister. They are married now and have a really nice cottage on a canal on the island. Their parents were there and lots of other relatives that I got to meet for the first time. It was a nice visit but Mom and I started to feel like we were intruding on a family thing so we didn't stay too long. On Friday, my bestest best friend came down from Durham.

Mom dropped us off at a bar to watch the end of the Duke game while she ran a few errands. We watched the end of the game and played a lot of fun songs on the juke box. Some guy bought us a round of drinks and some guy (maybe the same?) made us roses out of cocktail napkins:

It really looked a lot nicer, but this was after it spent the night in my purse. We had all meant to go see the Christmas flotilla of boats on the intracoastal waterway, but we lost track of time so we went to a restaurant and had some great seafood. Then we hit Buddies, a bar on the beach by the cottage I rented last June. I don't know how long we stayed there, but then we went back to Mom's for a while and then took the cart down to sleep in the tiny cabin. Mom made us breakfast on Saturday morning and then Lo had to take off to visit some relatives. I got ready and Mom took me to the airport and it seemed like I had just gotten there the day before. Time really does fly when you're having fun and I had a LOT of fun.