Taking the Turkey on a Roadtrip

Many women I know would say, "yep - I've traveled with my husband, too" - ba-dum-bum. But no, I just mean taking Thanksgiving on the road. This year - lo, with child - Sweet Husband and I packed up the car and the dogs and headed from Kentucky to Texas. Ooooh, boy: 8 months pregnant, people. If there's a bathroom between here and there, I've been in it. But the last Big Trip Before D-Day (delivery) went well. Well, except for a Starbucks crisis.

I hate being so stereotypical of a certain generation, but ya'll, there are NO STARBUCKS on the route we took between southern Kentucky, down to northern Nashville, and over to Little Rock. NONE. I was shocked and appalled and goaded into making it my personal mission to find one.

Texarkana. It was Texarkana before I got my half-caf, nonfat grande Gingerbread latte with whip. Just typing that makes me drool. The Gingerbread latte is a slam-dunk.

The other entertainment Arkansas offered on the long drive through was a radio station's name. Yep. "You're listening to OINK, The Pig - where our music is never a boar..." I'm not even kidding. It was real. Unless it was a Starbucks famine-induced hallucination...

We had a great time with Sweet Husband's family: my sister and mother in law threw me a great baby shower; we went swimming with "Grandma" at her senior center pool (dang, is that a nice facility!!), where there are 20-foot slides. Sweet Husband went down them and came up sputtering and bewildered - apparently they're faster than they look! (The life guard actually quietly told him that sometimes the old folks like to go down the slides, but shoot out so quickly that they get disoriented in the water, don't know which way is up, start swimming the wrong way, and have to be helped out by the lifeguard...) Sweet Husband and I were living jungle gyms for our adorable nephews - we now have four; there will be five boys within three years apart soon when Jack is born, and a brave, lone niece is slated to join the gang in January. "Where's Ewisabef? Ewisabef, I'm gonna gobble you up!" Love it. I got to hold new baby boy Davey, which reminded me how satisfying it is to get a smile from a baby. I know, I know, it's pretty arbitrary - will they smile or scream when you hold them? - but a baby smiling at you is like a You Must Be A Good Person badge. We decorated for Christmas. We saw loads of Sweet Husband's extended family. We visited a fantastic Cuban-American restaurant in Dallas, Free Cuba. Gorgeous food, and I'm still dreaming about it at night. Personal chef! Hey, you, personal chef! Go make me that again!

What? Oh. I don't? Dang.

On the way out of town, I got a newspaper - I like skimming newspapers on roadtrips - and discovered that beloved Pioneer Woman was going to be in Dallas. The day after we left.

NOOOOOOOOOOO. Poor buddy Emily has a similar story. It's okay, Emily. We'll just drive to her house someday. I'm sure she won't mind. Let's just go.

So that was turkey on the road...oh, and a fantastic, idyllic touch football game occurred in the backyard after dinner, with the guys roaring and yelling and scrambling and throwing the ball over the fence into the neighbor's yard.

Okay, that only happened once. But it was hilarious.

How was your Thanksgiving? Did you have turkey on the road? Are you one of those rebellious we-have-lasagna-on-turkey-day families? Did you get up crazy early, or even stay up all night, for Black Friday? Is your tree up?

I hope it was a blessed time, a peaceful time with family or friends. With or without "OINK, The Pig!"