Rita the Cook, y Mas!

Thanksgiving was so much fun at my brother's home in Birmingham Alabama. His wife, Rita, is quite the cook! We had turkey, mashed potatoes and gravy, beans, creamed corn, rolls, stuffing (southern style-- corn bread), sweet potato casserole, and macaroni and cheese (also southern style--homemade, therefore, delicious!). For dessert we did not have traditional pies which was more than ok with me. Rita had made TWO large cakes...German Chocolate and Carrot Cake with plenty of cream cheese frosting. We all ate much more than necessary but I guess that's what you do on Thanksgiving.

While in Birmingham we also played a lot of pinochle. It's a great card game my whole family loves to play. Unfortunately not very many people know how to play the game and it takes about 6 months to learn so Lincoln and I loved being in good pinochle playing company.

On Friday Rita and I went to see "Twilight". I wasn't a fan. I enjoyed the books and had an idea in my head of what everything and everyone looked like so the movie was just wrong...and I couldn't get over that. Oh well.

Lincoln, Evey and I are now in Nashville. We stayed the night here and will do a couple things in the city later on today before making our way to Knoxville. Tomorrow we will be driving the rest of the way home. The first hour of the drive will be through the Smoky Mountains. I hear it is BEAUTIFUL! We will make it to Durham by mid-afternoon. We've done a lot of driving, just over 1,200 miles. Thank goodness gas prices are right around $1.55-$1.75! If you want to check out the course you can use the link below.

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=d&saddr=36.011894,-78.966465&daddr=AL-4%2FAL-5%2FForestdale+Blvd%2FUS-78%2FVeterans+Memorial+Dr+to:Franklin+Pike%2FTN-6%2FUS-31+to:I-40+E+to:Constitution+Dr&hl=en&geocode=%3BFd4LAAIdwirS-g%3BFTKlJgIdRPfT-g%3BFRxxJQIduBQB-w%3BFdSBJQIdqBFL-w&mra=dme&mrcr=0&mrsp=0&sz=13&sll=36.011617,-78.963203&sspn=0.070678,0.153809&ie=UTF8&ll=34.741612,-80.705566&spn=9.184176,19.6875&z=6