Thanksgiving Week Continues

Sorry about the lack of post yesterday.  It was so crazy I didn’t get to check emails until after midnight.  The gym was definitely not a reality for me.  I think I walked enough at museums to make up for it.  But it has been a wonderful two days filled with family, entertainment and DC museums.

On Monday, I picked Douglas up at the airport around 10.  A wonderful thing about the location of our house is that if someone calls the moment they land at Dulles, if they call us, then we can get to the airport before they get outside.  I picked him up and we headed into the District, getting to skip the toll road.

The weather was awful but we still wandered around The Mall.   I unfortunately did not pack a raincoat, justifying it that I didn’t want to deal with carrying a coat and that it wouldn’t rain too much.  I was definitely wrong, but I didn’t let that stop us!  We first went to American History, walked through every exhibit (I still think the American Flag and the cars they have are the coolest part) and then headed over to American Indian, which neither of us had been to.  I heard that the food there was wonderful and people weren’t kidding!

The food at the Mitsitam was amazing!  We decided to split the soft tacos, one with chicken mole and the other with carne with poblanos.  On the side–elote and rice.  The tacos were very good, but the elote was one of the most amazing things I’ve ever tasted!  Mexican grilled corn that was absolutely stunning!  One of the most amazing things about the cafe was how expensive it was.  We split a meal and it was $22 for lunch.  You could easily spend $100 in there if you wanted to taste more items.

Then we walked around the museum until it closed.  It was very interesting, especially for me because I am 1/8th Crow Indian.  They left out A TON of tribes, we kept looking for information on lots of different tribes but never saw anything.  I think there is more information out there than they had the space (or guest time) to go into all the detail.  No matter what, it was a cool, new museum for both of us.

After American Indian, we killed some time so Justin could come meet us in the District.  We decided to go to Old Ebbitt’s Grill for dinner, for both the ease and more than anything, how we were dressed.  We had been outside all day, in museum-going clothes and one of us (me) not having a rain coat and looking mildly like a wet dog.

It was the perfect choice.  The wait was surprisingly long for the Monday before Thanksgiving, so we went to one of the back bars for dinner.  We split 2 dozen oysters on the half shell and I absolutely savored every single slimy, briny one!  Dinner was more seafood and we just enjoyed chatting it up and welcoming Douglas to DC.

Tuesday

This day was CRAMMED with things to do, like I said, I didn’t even get to check my email!  I woke up and it was go go go.  I had to buy a turkey at Wegman’s (I didn’t want a frozen one) and get a few more things prepped.  Then Douglas and I had to go drop Justin off at work.  Afterwards, we headed back into the District again and went to the Holocaust museum.  The weather was no better, which kind of matched the mood.  I have been to the Holocaust museum probably more than any other museum in DC (at least 7 or 8 times) and it never stops affecting me.  It is so shocking, moving and just a difficult museum.  The architecture is incredible and really projects the correct feel for the museum.  We spent as much time as we could in the museum before we had to leave and go pick Justin back up from work (around 3.) because we had to head to Philadelphia.

And why did we go to Philadelphia for the evening?  What would motivate us to go to Philly for a few hours you ask?

None other than:

I have actually seen Phish more than probably any other band.  I went to my first Phish show when I was 14.  I definitely don’t fit the Phish image and I will admit I’m not nearly the fan that I used to be.  But Douglas definitely is still a huge Phish fan (should I say phan?) so to Philly we went.  It was Justin’s first Phish song.

Traffic yesterday from DC to Philly was unbelieveable.  It took 3 hours to get to Baltimore.  It took 5 hours to get to Philly.  It some times only takes 2:15 hours to get there!  3 hours with traffic.  Not 5 hours!  We were stressed we were doing all this driving to miss the show.  Luckily, things opened up after Baltimore and we may have gone a litter faster than the police in Maryland, Delaware and Pennsylvania would have liked.

But we made it.  I had a lot of fun.  A lot of people I think believe there needs to be drugs to enjoy that scene and music.  I personally don’t like it for anything other than the music.  None of us really fit into the scene there, my biggest vice was 1.5 beers but enjoyed it to its fullest.  What is so novel is having that many people (~20,000) together and everyone is so overly happy and nice it is almost refreshing.

Then we hit the road and headed home.  The drive back was so much better luckily!  It still meant we weren’t home until 2:30 though.  Sleep was limited and restless.  Does anyone else have that happen when you get so tired?  That you can’t sleep well?

But I couldn’t sleep in because I had major Thanksgiving prep work to do!  And my mother was here!  She snuck in last night while we were at Philly.  And we had some cooking to do together.

First, the bird needed to be cleaned and prepped

Which needed a nice long (12 hour) bath in water, salt and sugar.

My bird bath.  The bird is enjoying this tub time right now in the fridge.

Next was the stuffing.

Celery, Onion, Chorizo, Pork Sausage and bread crumbs with lots of seasoning and butter.  I made everyone smell it because it truly smells like Thanksgiving.

My fridge is so stuffed right now that I could barely shut the doors.

Yes, there is an extra turkey on that shelf.  We are having a boys versus girls Turkey cook-off here tomorrow.  The boys are smoking that turkey and we are brining and baking the other bird. This only means one thing.  That we will have A TON of leftovers! (I think the girls are going to win, obviously!)

I have hit the wall.  I must take a nap.  I am feeling like I will keel over.  I think the fam and I are going to either do movie night or game night.  Either way, I need a nap to avoid collapsing or being really grumpy (never very classy for the hostess to be grumpy!)

Wish me luck tomorrow and Happy Thanksgiving!

To Smile.