As I have gained a new family, I was invited to spend my first family Thanksgiving at Jill and Ryan’s home outside Charlotte, NC.
Now I have spent a Thanksgiving in this country before, but that was at a friend of a friend’s and to be honest, I felt like a bit of an outsider at that family affair, though it was a hugely enjoyable day, but this time it would be a weekend…
We left Atlanta around 3:30pm Wednesday afternoon and as soon as we hit I-285 it was bumper to bumper traffic, but at least it was moving decently, and for some inexplicable reason when I-85 goes past the Mall of Georgia, even though it’s down to two lanes, traffic vanishes and it’s clear sailing all the way up through South Carolina and North Carolina into Charlotte. We arrived just in time to see Lost so it took about 5 and a quarter hours to get there, Robyn says it usually takes closer to 4…
So along came Turkey Day, Frank and Ryan worked a miracle to hook up an antenna to Ryan’s satellite dish to recieve local HDTV over the air without paying extra on the satellite provider… And it worked brilliantly, so while the Turkey’s (yes two turkeys) were being prepared, we watched the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade in HD, and it was awesome!
I’d like to say I helped in the preperation of the turkeys, but alas that would be a lie, I watched and drank beer with Frank as Ryan filled up a huge stock pot full of peanut oil and deep fried the turkeys. This is the first time I had seen such a thing, but according to Frank it was the most popular way of cooking them down south, and they came out great. Nice and moist after 30 to 45 minutes at 350°F, as opposed to the dry turkey you get from blasting it in an oven for hours on end…
Well, I was stuffed after the meal and everyone eventually took a nap of some sort, we were then treated with the trail end of the Atlanta Falcons/Detroit Lions game (in HD) then the Denver Broncos/Dallas Cowboys games (also in HD) before relaxing with Survivor (yep, also in HD) and then a game of Trivial Pursuit Pop Culture 2 where I impressed with my knowledge of random pop culture, including but not limited to Charmed and Roger Corman but in the end the team of Frank and Jill won…
The following day was Black Friday, so Robyn and I went to the local Costco to buy a new flat screen TV, and then to Best Buy to get appropriate accessories, as well as window shopping in the villiage beside Jill and Ryans house. Then we just relaxed before heading home Saturday lunchtime.
All in all a great time, and now I’ll say one thing, HDTV rocks! So me + our new TV from Philips + Free HD programming from Comcast = Sweeeeeet!
Originally uploaded by FLC.