Thanksgiving Day

We started our day out with Thanksgiving breakfast with my daughter and her boyfriend. Cinnamon rolls, pancakes, eggs, sausage: it was a feast, which my wife prepared. (I helped some but don't deserve any brownie points.)
Some conversation, a little TV, a nap, and we were ready to fulfill our Thanksgiving duty: eat more.
For lunch, my wife and I went to World Buffet on the south side of Madison. World Buffet specializes in Chinese food but today they had traditional Thanksgiving dishes "and" Chinese food. My wife was very happy eating Turkey, stuffing, and pumpkin pie. And I was very happy eating crabmeat salad, Lo Mein noodles, pork buns, Crab Rangoon, Mussles, and General Tso's chicken.
I read an amusing article about General Tso's chicken a couple of weeks ago. An American reporter visiting in China asked some local people about this dish. They were amazed. They weren't aware that one of their famous Chinese generals had a dish named after him and they had never tried it.
We were invited by relatives to spend Thanksgiving in Kenosha, but I have on call duty this week so I have to stay close to Madison.
In America, the day after Thanksgiving is traditionally a big sale day at our stores. Stores offer reduced prices on general items and then have some big items that they really discount. An example of a big item would be computers. But then for the big items, there are only 15 or 20 in the whole store. So, it's common for people here to stand in line at 5:30am outside the store so that they can save money on a big item.
We've prepared for tomorrow by going through all the newspaper ads, marking items we want, and planning out our plan of attack.
Weather today is sunny but cold, 38 degrees right now. There is a snow storm south of us.
Happy Thanksgiving to all our friends, relatives, and readers.

Thanksgiving Day traffic on I-94 just north of the Hwy 151 exit. Not much traffic but a lot of people are still eating turkey. 

Thanksgiving Day in Madison. You can see that the trees have lost their leaves but we don't have any snow and there are still patches of green grass. 

This is a prairie dog near Devil's Tower in Wyoming. Some prairie dogs in South Dakota are all white instead of brown. 

Entrance to Kevin Kostner's casino, the Midnight Star. 

Super Size Me

This is a documentary by Morgan Spurlock. For the purpose of the documentary, Morgan ate nothing but McDonalds food for 30 days. As anyone could guess, his health went downhill, he gained weight, and generally felt miserable. Although a little long at times and somewhat preachy, it was entertaining. Some of the statistics were surprising.

NOTE: this film is not for young children: swearing, graphic footage of a surgery, and a few other scenes which I wouldn't show to a child.

Crazy Horse in South Dakota. 

Wall Drug used to be very small. Now it's like a mini-mall. 

Vacation in South Dakota

In October, Wendy and I went to South Dakota for vacation. Highlights: the Corn Palace, Wall Drug Store, Deadwood, Devil's Tower, Mt Rushmore, Crazy Horse, and the Badlands.
It's been about 30 years since I've been in Wall Drug. Back then it was a one room gift store with things like rubber tipped arrows and buffalo burgers. Well, the buffalo burgers are still there but the rubber tipped arrows are gone. And Wall Drug is more like a mini-mall. We enjoyed it. I bought some books on American Indians and a biography of Buffalo Bill. And we got our free bumper sticker.
Deadwood was interesting. It had a lot of small Casinos (they claim there are 80 casinos). One of the most interesting casinos was the Midnight Star, which is owned by Kevin Kostner. In the upstairs bar, some of Kevin Kostner's movie costumes were displayed. And of course, there were many places in South Dakota which advertised various items and places related to the movie "Dances with Wolves."
I had one of the best steaks I've ever had at Big Al's.
The Badlands was beautiful in an eerie, desolate way. I will post more photos.
We looked into flying out there but it was very expensive. So, we drove. Before going out there, we bought a portable DVD player. I brought some DVDs from home and borrowed some from the neighbors. I had over 75 hours of movies I could have watched. I would drive for a couple of hours. Watch a movie. And then drive some more. It really broke up the drive. And the portable DVD player worked flawlessly.
I love living in Madison, but it was interesting to go out to South Dakota where there is less people and less traffic.
Driving our minivan across the open prairie gave us a very small glimpse of what it must have been like for our pioneer ancestors as they journeyed West.

Wendy in the Badlands of South Dakota. 

New Site

This is something I'm trying out. Watch for postings and photos.