Thanksgiving: What Did We Forget This Time?



The Suneson Family Thanksgiving Table Set For Three


It is around 2:30 Thanksgiving Day, we three are about to sit down for the Thanksgiving feast - but before we tuck in, the question: What did we forget?  Look closely at the photo. The answer as to what you think is missing or what you feel should be on the table will depend upon family tradition, as well as how philosophical one tends in their life perspective.  Your answers can be wide ranging from sentimental to silly.

For starters a list of what was on the Suneson Family Thanksgiving Table:

• 9 lb Turkey with rosemary from the herb garden placed under the skin and baked and basted for 2:20 at 325 degrees
• Cranberry relish with a touch of orange citrus
• Mashed potatoes
• Baked Sweet Potatoes mixed with apple slices and seasoned with cinnamon
• Asparagus touched with garlic butter
• Cornmeal Yeast Rolls
• Bread and seasoned celery stuffing (prepared in the oven - not stuffed in the bird)
• "Red Stuff", a concoction of cranberry juice and seven up (Cook Family Tradition)
• Gewurztraminer Wine
• Two Pies (Not shown). 1 Pecan (Sue makes a fine pecan pie) and 1 Pumpkin.

What would you add to the feast?

What about a fourth table setting for Inga?  Nice of you to think of her, but Inga made plans to ride up to Portland, Oregon with her good friend Alex for thanksgiving with Alex's family.  Oregon is too far to come for just Thanksgiving, but she will be home on December 11th for Christmas Break.

What about an extra place setting for Elijah?  No, you are thinking of the Seder Supper for the Jewish Passover Holiday.

Those Myer-Briggs personality types of the SJ persuasion are thinking, definitely need a flowery center piece.  Good call; actually we were thinking of cutting the zinnias for the table, but we did forget that touch (not being SJ's ourselves).

Some insist that it isn't a proper Thanksgiving unless you can see the concentric circles imprinted from the can onto the base of the cranberry sauce cylinder. 

Some would say you need a bowl of pitted black olives so you can put the olives on the tips of your fingers (when Mom isn't looking) and insert them into your mouth - the ultimate finger food.  Yes, you are getting closer in you answer.

The Cook family spread from New York, Minnesota, Texas, Arizona and out to Washington are all screaming, "You forgot the Tomato Aspic!!!"  Indeed we did.  Sue threatened to make the traditional tomato jello with bodies of celery and black olives, I would have eaten it because it was in my wedding vows and I knew what I signed up for, but Grant was a flat negatory on that item.  Somehow in all the shopping the tomato aspic never got made.  Eaten or not, it will always be remembered.  Maybe not in a good way, but remembered none-the-less.  There is no such thing as bad publicity.

Cheers.  Wish we could have shared the table with all of family and friends for which we are indeed mighty thankful.

There's nothing as fun as preparing for Thanksgiving with your bare hands

Turkey, Sweet Potatoes and Dressing are all on schedule
Seeing is Believing

Grant offers a Toast of Thankfulness -
Now put away the camera

Oregon Trail 2010 - GTT

GTT   Historians give accounts of farms, homesteads and shops across the southern United States in the first half of the 19th Century found to be abandoned by their former occupants with the cryptic inscription GTT chalked across the door or whitewashed on a wall.  The meaning was clear to all as a general forwarding address; GTT - Gone to Texas.  GTT also appeared appended after the names in the sheriff's records of  many a rascal who had skipped town for a place that was know to be rather tolerant of those harboring a disagreement with the law.  We, along with Isaac the tortoise, skipped out of Fresno and planned to be back in Texas in less than two days

With the late September sun on the rise we passed by plenty of farm activity between Fresno and Bakersfield.  Farm laborers pruning and burning after the summer's harvest, farmers discing under the the stubble in their fields and trucks hauling livestock or towing a variety of agricultural machinery.  We turned east in Bakersfield and headed over Tehachapi Pass, where the last of the citrus groves hugged the foothills and shared the fertile ground with rows of active pump jacks extracting crude oil from beneath the roots of the orange trees.  We had the makings of a "Kern County Screwdriver Cocktail" - a mix of orange juice and crude.

By mid morning we had before us the broad expanse of interstate highway rolling across the Mojave Desert.  How forbidding this expanse must have been even in the 1930's and 40's for travelers pouring into California, where even the isolated Joshua tree offered no shade to a sun dizzied wanderer.  With good pavement and a reliable V-6 powering us, our cargo and the blessed a/c across the arid rock ridges and gravelly loam of the desert plain, there was no doubt we would be all the way to Barstow before lunch and crossing the Colorado River into Arizona by early afternoon.  No sweat.  Isaac was stirring in his travel box in the rear of the cargo bed, perhaps he sensed he was in the ancient habitat of tortoise ancestors and was stirred by a call of the wild.  Of course, Isaac had only know suburban backyards since he hatched, but his impermeable scaly skin, hard shell and front legs equipped with claws designed to dig long burrows for a cool life underground during the scorching days were apparently moving him to use his God-given reptile equipment to make a home in this place.  The Mojave looked so god-forsaken to us hurried travelers hurling at 75 mph to escape the monotony of the wilderness but was home for those who were created to enjoy such places. Landscape is all a matter of perspective a wise painter once instructed his students.  For the most part, the a/c cooled interior of "The Q" kept Isaac's cold-blooded reptilian metabolism at a low rate and therefore he did not stir too frantically from his induced semi-hibernation state.

The miles rolled by, a stop for fuel and a stretch in Flagstaff - which is high enough in elevation that we are surrounded by pine trees and some late summer wildflowers.  We plan the remainder of our day, not in specifics, but in possibilities and options.  We pick several possible sites through New Mexico that could offer a night's rest, but the only real plan was to drive until we got to a good stopping point.  We came back into Gallup, New Mexico, only this time the setting sun is in my rearview mirror.  Nine days earlier we were here with the setting sun coming at us head on in the windshield.  We had now travelled full circle:

Reading the billboards advertising available rooms and meals in the far-and-few-between up-coming towns, we decide to try the "Historic El Rancho Hotel" at the east end of Gallup for dinner.  The hotel was built by a Hollywood movie mogul who needed a suitable place for the big studio actors and actresses to stay while shooting western movies in the area.  The lobby and dining room had autographed photos of Ronald Reagan, Gary Cooper, Doris Day and what must have been many other big names in their time - but whose faces and names seem rather obscure to me.  The high desert air was dropping into the 40's and so we ordered a hot meal.  Sue was intrigued by the "Famous Navajo Tea" that they offered as a hot beverage.  She asked our waitress about this "famous" house special.  Well, she informed us, "there are those who say our Navajo Tea reminds them of chamomile tea."  There is a good reason for that coincidence - the "Navajo Tea" we were served was likely chamomile tea.  Not the herbal tea medicinal plant used locally.  Our meal at the "historic hotel" (including the famous tea) was reasonably priced, so I paid our tab and bid happy trails to all of the stars and starlets as they  watched us walk into the setting sun.  We were not ready to stop quite yet, so we continued  our drive across the darkened "Land of Enchantment", settling in at Santa Rosa Lakes State Park.

It was about 11 PM when we unfurled the ground tarp, airmattresses and sleeping bags beside the vehicle.  We had perhaps missed the "civilian" campground and ended up in the equestrian section - no matter at this hour.  There was a pickup truck and trailer as the only other vehicle in the area and a lone horse in the corral across the road.  We had a full moon, radiant and silver in a cloudless sky that shown brightly in my eyes and would have delayed an easy sleep had I not been well prepared by a long day on the road (Fresno to Eastern NM) and quite ready for a detour into dreamland.  The last thing  I heard were the owls out in the moonlight bragging to all who cared to listen about their mouse hunting success.  I thought to myself, "This is good - no little mice to nibble on my toes as I slept among the sage brush, guarded by these vigilant nocturnal hunters.


We pulled off the heavy blankets after a refreshing night under the stars and the brisk air, splashed some water across our faces to wipe the sleep from our eyes and combed out a few stray hairs.  Quickly back behind the wheel, it was to be Tucumcari for breakfast.  After a rib-sticking meal with hot cakes, bacon and eggs, I called out to Eldorado, Arkansas to get an update on the pending oil well I was planning on drilling.  The drilling rig was still being repaired but the operator thought we would be ready to start drilling in about 3 days. [Enough time to unload one set of travel gear and reload with geologic well-sitting gear and get back on the road] With everything in order it was back to Dallas.  Another check with Grant at home let us know that he would probably be out jamming with the friends on his guitar when we came home.  OK by us.  By  late afternoon we were back at home, all was good and right with the whole wide world.  It was the

End of the Trail

Oregon Trail - Fresno, New Home for Wendy & Barth

We arrived from Mendocino by way of San Francisco, and dallied long enough a few points of interest that we called ahead to tell my sister Wendy not to plan on having dinner for us as we would arrive late.  When we had called ahead from Mendocino we got the sad news that Wendy's father-in-law had suddenly passed away the day before.  So we arrived, hesitant to impose or get in the way of arrangements that had to take precedence over hosting us.  But, Barth had already made arrangements to take several days off from work in order to make funeral plans in Modesto and attend to estate matters.  We were received more than graciously by Wendy and Barth, a credit to their Christian faith.

We had planned no special outings, just time to hang out for a day before we took the last 2 days to return to Texas.  We had a good time visiting and catching up on a multitude of family events.  They had only recently moved into their home in Fresno from Escalon due to Barth's new job as an industrial engineer and cost manager at dehydration onion and garlic plant in Firebaugh.  We had a guest room set up for us, though they were still in the process of unpacking from the move.  Otherwise you might believe that Wendy was decorating in brown cubist motif.  Maybe I should have taken the opportunity to buy some Fresno State swag (Class of 1981) or tour the ol' campus and perhaps taste some of the award-winning Fresno State wine from the oenology (wine making) department. 

The real obligation I had was to pick a California Desert Tortoise from Wendy & Barth's stock of 13 heads of torts.  I was given a tortoise by our neighbors in 1965 who could no longer really care for Sam.  I was far and away the best 8-year old herpetologist in town when I delightfully took Sam under my care - but immediately discerned that Sam should was actually Samantha.  A year later, the neighbors across the street found another tortoise which they could no longer keep once they turned their backyard into a built-in swimming pool.  Pokey was renamed Darin (remember the hit TV series Bewitched which ran in the mid-1960?).  We now had a breeding pair, and once we and the tortoises relocated to California's San Joaquin Valley, some years we would joyfully add hatchlings to our reptile ranch.

In 2006, on a California visit, Grant became infatuated with the herd of torts in Wendy's backyard, and since they were all males (except their mother Samantha) it was best to cull the herd.  Chomper was placed in a box with some greens and came to live with us in Texas.  Wendy and Barth's new home has a pool taking up most of the backyard, so again we were offered a tortoise as a way of freeing up some space for his brothers.  Sue was apprehensive about having two males that would act territorial, but Inga and Grant thought our side of the family should have at minimum two Desert Torts in order to avoid a bitter custody battle once Sue and I died.  I was haertily in favor of a second reptile to cruise our back 40.  Inga and Grant agreed the newcomer would be Isaac.

Chomper (Isaac's brother) tries on Inga's mortar board hat
Inga's High School Graduation 2009

After being treated to a  fabulous Chinese dinner.  We settled into bed before an early AM departure.  Bags packed, and Isaac in a cardboard box wedged between suitcases we left town passing vinyards and orchards as we drove down Highway 99.  Isaac was not pleased with his new travel arrangements, but I tried to comfort him by letting him know he was soon to be reunited with his brother Chomper.

Oregon Trail - San Francisco to Fresno



We Stop to Smell the Roses
Golden Gate Park, San Francisco

We begin another sparkling day with breakfast at the Little River Inn, finish packing the half-empty Pinot Gris and half-eaten cheese from the evening before and check out at the front desk.


As "My Pet Boy Sherman" would always ask at the beginning of the every episode of the excellent, pun-infested cartoon from my childhood, Peabody's Improbable History; "Where to today Mr. Peabody?" as the dog historian character would then set the dial on his 'Wayback Machine' and return to some earlier historical time in order to set history right.  Where to today Mr. Peabody?  We might ask.  Today Sherman we will be traveling through Novato, San Rafael, San Francisco, Los Banos and Fresno - all sites rich in memories and personal history.  Places where either I once lived or through which I have often travelled.

Mr. Peabody and his boy Sherman
setting the dial on Mr. Peabody's Wayback Machine

As the highway headed inland from the coast, we passed by Hendy Woods State Park, a favorite family campsite from the middle 1960's.  At Hendy Woods, there was a swimming hole at a wide spot in a small river.  The slow water in the summer made for a pleasantly cool dip in the rather murky water.  Upon our return from a weekend camping trip, one of my sisters was invited for a chicken dinner at Cindy Pate's house, our neighbors across the street.

   Mrs. Pate asked her after dinner, "How was the leg [of chicken]?"  She heard the question as "How was the lake?" [i.e the swimming hole at Hendy Woods]  Her reply was "Well, it was kind of mossy."  She returned home acutely aware that she had said something that did not go well with Mrs. Pate, her hostess and dinner cook.

In Novato, home from 1962 to 1968 - my formative years, I turned off the now re-routed Highway 101 and drove through town.  Many things have changed, but still a few landmarks remained to orient my nostalgia.  I briefly cruised through the old neighborhood on Cambridge Street, Rancho Elementary School and the secret Miwok Indian campsite where I spend many a joyful afternoon excavating for obsidian chips (which I still have).  Back to Highway 101, south to San Rafael and over the Golden Gate Bridge into 'The City'. 

We planned to have several hours in San Francisco, and opted to spend most of the time in Golden Gate Park.  Finding the park was a little more difficult than I anticipated.  Is this Mason Street?  Do I need to take a right on Geary Street.  That was Lombard Street - are we going the right way?  But with the use of a navigator and an old-fashioned paper road atlas, we happened upon the Park.  Though I had celebrated several of my boyhood birthdays at Steinhardt Aquarium (a favorite and familiar landmark) and even though I have not seen it since it was renovated some years back, we chose to walk through the Park and visit the Japanese Tea Garden.  A tranquil setting for a Japanese lunch of red bean sauce on rice cakes, a few skewers of meat and hot tea. 

Pagoda from Pan American Exhibition 1915
Japanese Tea Garden, Golden Gate Park

Mark chants the mantra - Remember the Alamo
Buda in Japanese Tea Garden

Chinese Pavilion in Golden Gate Park

Wanting to leave The City before traffic became really packed, we tried to disentangle ourselves from Golden Gate Park and get across the Oakland Bay Bridge by 4:00 PM.  With some luck we managed to find our way onto the proper highway and crossed into Oakland.  I believe I was honked at twice by other drivers for what I assume was my sin of leaving too much space between my front bumper and the vehicle in front of me.  If that was truly the case, I think those hip Californians need to chill-out, hang loose and drive like a Zen master - or maybe they are transplants from New York.  In Texas we post the sign "Drive Friendly" - which does not seem to sink in here either.

We had called my sister Wendy in Fresno to let her know how our fluid travel plans were shaping up and to let her know approximately when we might arrive at her new home in Fresno for a day's visit once we left San Francisco.  It was then that we learned that Barth's (my brother-in-law) father had suddenly died two days earlier.  We of course expressed our sorrow and shock and offered to rearrange any plans we had for our stop-over at there home.  We of course were warmly welcomed and we hope we provided some comfort while we were there as family.

Once out of the Bay Area and rolling south down I-5, I planned to stop for dinner at the Wool Growers Hotel on the North end of Los Banos for the most unique and fabulous dinner on our "2010 Oregon Trail".  The Wool Growers is an old, unremarkable (if not dilapidated) looking establishment on the edge of downtown.  But does this old Basque heritage cavern of a dining hall ever know how to put on a meal!  The door on the street is not one you would naturally notice unless you were looking for it and not a door you would naturally open, except for the weathered sign "Dining Entrance" screwed to the exterior.  Once you have opened the door, you are still not confident that you have found the correct entrance as you peer down a long, dim and narrow hallway toward another set of doors.  At the end of the narrow hall, there is another sign that instructs diners to go through the door on the left.  Passing through a set of double doors, you enter a large room with paneled walls, linoleum floors and four long rows of tables with benches.  

Our waitress quickly motions us down to the far end of the table in Row 1 where we are seated next to several other diners on our bench.  This is 'Family Style', cash only (no credit cards), one price - $18 bucks a head for dinner.  And the action begins; what would you like to drink?  She is always moving fast in-and-out of the kitchen, she tells us the owner never likes to have his food waiting and getting cold.  There is a carafe of Beaujolais on the table for anyone to help themselves, but they had run out of butter that night.  Otherwise the meal includes

• Lettuce Salad with terrific vinegar dressing
• Bread Basket
• Lamb Stew
• Bowl of Baked Beans
• French Fries 
• Entree Choices (choose only one): Baked Chicken, Fried Chicken, Lamb, Pork Chops, Prime Rib or Steak
• Dessert is a bowl of Vanilla Ice Cream

Old men regular customers and large families continue to come in and pull out a bench at one of the tables while we rub our bellies and wipe our chins and waddle back out to The Q.  It is late enough now that, I just give a nod to old times as we drive down Highway 99 without stopping in Madera, home town 1971 - 1981.

Barth recently went to work as an engineer for an agricultural plant in Firebaugh, but he and Wendy settled in a home along the San Joaquin River off Herdon Avenue on the north edge of Fresno.  When I would drive along Herndon Avenue going from Madera to Fresno State's campus, Herndon Avenue was lined by miles of fig orchards.  Now all the orchards are gone and in there place are subdivisions and shopping centers.  Does anybody grow figs anymore? Or do we import all of our figs from the middle east these days?

Don't be Koi
Carpe Diem - Which loosely translated means, "Seize the Carp"

Oregon Trail - Empty Nest Roadsters in Mendocino

Bride at Little River Inn
Honeymoon April, 1986


After hauling Inga's domestic sundries and haulin' ass cross country, it was time for a little vacation.

We had reservations for two nights at the Little River Inn outside the picturesque and now tourist-dominant town of Mendocino, perched atop sea cliffs.  We had stayed at the Inn one night on our honeymoon trip in April, 1986.  This time we were planning on a two night stay with no travel for a pleasant change of pace.  Our room looked out onto Van Dammes Cove.

From my field days in university geology departments, it was well known that there were fair-weather professors and academics that attracted foul-weather.  You hesitated to sign up for a field trip with a confirmed foul-weather professor.  I always considered myself a strong fair-weather field guy, so I was crest-fallen to find rain in Oregon earlier on our trip.  But I was back to my innate talent and charm with meteorological manifestations once we hit California.  In Mendocino the weather was perfect, and many of the locals thanked me profuisely. A late morning breakfast and then 3 miles back to Mendocino for a day of exploration.  We hiked along the sea arches and cliffs at the edge of town and then flitted into the shops peddling kaleidoscopes, and exotic yarn, art galleries, organic food stores and exquisite trinkets to catch and dazzle the eye. 



Typical Mendocino Home



We were mostly window shoppers and left mid-day for a stoll along the beach where Little River cuts through the cliffs and enters the Pacific.  After a while of basking on the sand in a most un-Texas like sunny sky - and I say that in a good way, no oppressive heat and thick air humidity as we have now grown accustomed.  We went back to Mendocino for lunch and a visit to the wine shop offering tastings from Breggo Vinyards of Mendocino County.  We picked up several bottles and a set of two stemware glasses for use that evening on the west-facing porch of our room.  After dinner, we retired to our porch chairs in sweaters, a bottle of Pinot Gris, some cheese from Marin County and a clear sunset over the Pacific.  Omar Kiyyam had it about right: "A loaf of bread, a jug of wine and thou." 

Lust in the Yarn Shoppe



Angel Trumpet Flower

An afternoon when the tide swept our cares away




Fishing boat in Van Dammes Cove at Dusk
View from our Room

 









The Morning View from our Little River Room
A loaf of bread, a jug of wine, and thou completes the picture



Oregon Trail - Empty Nest Roadsters in Fern Canyon

Sunday morning we awoke to continuing rain showers in Eugene.   The deal was that we would take Inga out to breakfast at one of the coffee shops and then bid farewell to our sophomore.  We drove in search of our morning meal passing abundant flowering and colorful residential gardens still in gaudy bloom.  Chai tea, pastries, quiche and orange juice hit the spot.  We returned to the apartment, finished loading and hugged Inga and off we each went on our separate adventures.  Inga planned to reconnect as friends were returning to town the week ahead of classes and we had reservations in Mendocino, on the California North Coast.  With Inga planted in her new University environment and Grant left at home to dine of prestocked frozen pizza and a pile of mac & cheese - we were the Empty Nest Roadsters (at least until we returned to Texas to cook Grant some decent food and sign his high school forms, etc.).

Our evening destination was a return to the Little River Inn, one of the stops on our honeymoon back in 1986.  The streaking sunlight across the fresh, rain washed landscape made for a quick and pleasant journey south on I-5.  It was too early in the morning to stop at Rice Hill for the ice cream (is it really ever too early for ice cream?) recommended by former Eugene denizens, Tom and Esther Cook.  We broke westward out of Grants Pass, Oregon and passed the junction that would go toward Oregon Caves National Monument - fabled in Suneson Family lore: 

     In 1967 the Suneson station wagon was enroute to visit the Oregon Caves.  I was reading the Mobil Travel Guide in the backseat when I ran across the Oregon Caves description - No one under 6 years old will be admitted.  Yikes!  What a mid-journey crisis! Sister Sheri was only 5 years old!  It was then that my parents decided we would not "stop and turn the car around", but embark on a program of deception and deceit.  Sheri, how old are you? Five.  No, honey, if any one asks at the Oregon Caves, you must say that you are 6.  Sheri, How old are you? Six.  Good!  Sheri was repeatedly drilled in the lie, so much so that she began to believe it herself.  No one else was to even think of mentioning ages so as not to arouse suspicion of the Cave's guardians.

     At the entrance to the Oregon Caves, no one asked for ID or proof of age and each child got our own ticket to join the tour.  However, once inside an older girl (age 9, maybe) began freaking out, screaming about "I feel the worms falling on me!"   The freaked out girl was escorted out a secret exit, while 5 year old Sheri stayed composed all along the tour.

I savored the memory, but did not repeat the tour.

Arriving in California we had to stop for the mandatory Agriculture Inspection at the border.  As I approached the inspector, I jumped to the point, "We are carrying no fruits, plants or vegetable's, only chocolate."
She did not wave us through, but inquired, "Did you just say chocolate?"

"Why, yes I did.  Would you like some?"  I pulled out our partially empty supply bag of Dove Dark Chocolate travelling essentials and poured some into her hand.  "How about sharing some with your coworkers?" asked Sue, and doled out a fist-full of additional treats.  I figure these state employees are paid to confiscate peoples lunches, but today we willingly surrendered dessert.  Random acts of kindness.

In Crescent City we linked up with the Redwood Highway and wound amonst the giant trees cloaked in mist and fog.  One of my absolute favorite locations is Gold Bluff Beach and Fern Canyon.  A place of elk herds, where redwoods creep to the edge of sea cliffs that are bisected by straight walled canyons carpeted in lush ferns, a place I wanted to share with my wife. With but a brief bit of indecision, I turned off the highway and drove over the single lane dirt road to Gold Bluff Beach where we would take a short hike to wade up into Fern Canyon. 



Elk herd at Gold Bluff Beach State Park




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Sue wades upstream into Fern Canyon



Denizen of the Canyon

Sue in the upper reaches of Fern Canyon

Wall of Five-Finger Ferns

We were smart and wore hiking sandals into the canyon whose gravel floor was a shallow streambed at this time of season.  Upon returning to the vehicle I set the floor heated to blow on our frozen tootsies with the ultimate remedy to be an early dinner at Lazzio's Seafood Restaurant, at the foot of C Street in Eureka; another old Suneson Family tradition.  Alas, C Street still exists, but Eureka has been transformed since my last meal there in 1975.  We found another dining establishment near the harbor and tucked into calimarri, some clam showder and scallops.

Darkness had descended as I left Highway 101 for the storied  Coastal Highway 1.  It was a severly sinuous pass from Leggett over the mountains to the edge of the Pacific.  Sorry to miss the setting Sun over the ocean horizon, but our dally in Fern Canyon was a delight not to be missed.  Tomorrow, we will watch the Sun set.