CA Thanksgiving

     As one has come to anticipate, Debbie is going to celebrate the Holidays with her kids, and even though there is 3000 miles of separation, it's still going to happen.  So earlier this week, the coordination of activities began as we developed plans for Thanksgiving dinner at Ben and Joanne's. This of course in no way interferes with the Thanksgiving dinner planned at MAE's house in NY on the real Thanksgiving.  As usual, I'm going to be the winner with 2 turkey dinners.  One is going to be a smoked turkey at Ben's with all the trimmings.  The second is looking like it's going to be a fried turkey with all the trimmings in NY.  Sounds good to me!
   

The plan to smoke a turkey at Ben's resulted from the successful smoking of a rack of baby back ribs at our campsite the previous week.  Debbie and I had stopped previously at the local ribs joint here in Santee, but I was a little disappointed in the quality of the product.  I'm not a big connoisseur of smoked ribs, but I was pretty confident that I could to some ribs on the Davey Crockett grill we purchased just before leaving on this trip.  Since these turned out so well, It was time to get Ben going and do a turkey on his Daniel Boone Grill.
      Now a turkey takes a little more preparation than a rack of baby backs, but that's the fun part smoking in  a grill.  Ben wimped out on the first critical part, pulling the "I have to go to work" card from the deck.  So Joanne, Liam and Jamo had to step up as we prepared the brine for the first step of preparation.  We picked up a nice Butterball, just about 10 pounds, and dropped it off at Ben's a few days prior with instructions on defrosting it and having it ready to go for Thursday evening. Thursday evening arrived and Ben had been successful in defrosting the little gobbler.  I mixed up a batch of magic brine and we put the turkey back in the refrigerator for an overnight soaking.

     Friday morning Ben was left with instructions to wash the bird to rinse all the salt off, and dry it in preparation for the application of the rub.  Liam stepped up to the plate and got his father up about 6:00 A.M. for breakfast, and everything was set when I arrived about 9:30. After a quick rubdown with my secret rub recipe, the bird was ready to meet Daniel Boone who was all warmed up and ready to go.  Set to temperature to 240, make sure it's full of pellets, and put her in.

 Nothing to it!   Now the critical part began.  Cracking a cold beer and watching the temperature gauge.  Only 6 hours to go!

     Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Debbie was busy getting all the fixins ready and keeping me out of the pumpkin pie sitting on the counter.  I'm not sure if that gin bottle was a necessary ingredient or there just for moral support??  Either way, everything came together perfectly with input from everyone involved and we sat down to a wonderful Thanksgiving dinner.  And it's absolutely amazing to watch Jamo making sure he get in the picture also.  He just loves to get his picture taken.

Here's a few more action shots of the afternoon's activities.  Again, Jamo loves to get his picture taken!  Liam Benjamin (Jeter) has his Thanksgiving outfit on, helping us celebrate.  He really is a nice quiet baby.  You don't hear a peep out of him till he gets hungry.  He's perfectly content to sit with Grammie or Gramps, although Jamo tends to have a little problem when he's sitting with Grammie.  But Grammie makes up the time, and takes him outback to play.  

     After dinner, Ben made a fire and we enjoyed a quiet time telling stories of camping in the ADK's  We talked about everybody, so no one felt left out.  We strictly adhere to the policy of: if you're not here to defend yourself or correct the story, our version must be correct!  

       Next stop is Plattsburgh, NY and turkey at MAE's!  Of course there will be a little adventure before our arrival.  On Wednesday we'll close everything up here at the "trailer park" and make our way up to San Francisco.  Friday morning we jump on the California Zephyr for a 4 day journey by rail, across the U.S.  Can't see America at 35000 feet!  We're heading out of CA via Donner Pass and Reno, and the views should be magnificent.  We'll keep you posted.