My Thanksgiving Plate
Every year our Thanksgiving dinner is a fabulous buffet at the Clubhouse at my mom’s community. Years ago, after cooking for days, rather than spending time with her grandchildren, we decided we would try the dinner at the Club. Not only was it really good, but it offered more choices than my mom could in a single meal, even cooking for days.
Above is my plate, which included (clockwise, from the top):
Steamed vegetable medley
Prime rib with horseradish sauce
Stuffing
Turkey with gravy
Cranberry sauce
Sweet potatoes with marshmallows
Green bean casserole (I only ate the onions on top)
Squash casserole
Yellowtail snapper (in the middle)
I didn’t take a picture of my dessert plate, but I had a fruit tartlet, bread pudding and pumpkin cheesecake. All delicious.
RDU on Busiest Travel Day
Here’s a shot from 7:30 this morning on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving. It is traditionally known as the busiest travel day of the year, although this year’s predictions were that airline travel would be down about 10% from last year.
Trip to the Aquarium
Grace reaches for a shark
We finished up our trip to the beach with some time at the hotel pool and a trip to the NC Aquarium at Fort Fisher. Check out the pictures from the whole trip, or just start with the ones from the aquarium.
When we got home, I asked the kids some questions about their favorite things from the trip. I had hoped that they would spend some time and draw pictures or create multi-media projects using pictures and video, but in the end they just wrote the answers to the questions.
Favorite Activity:
Grace: the beach
Peter: playing in the waves
Favorite Meal:
Grace: calamari
Peter: Michael’s Seafood Restaurant
Favorite Thing They Saw:
Grace: devil rays
Peter: Grace going under the waves
Most Unusual Thing They Saw:
Grace: sand digger shells
Peter: heat lightning
Favorite Sea Creature:
Grace: shark
Peter: pet fish
Last Day at the Beach
As we start our last day at the beach, here are a couple of photos from yesterday’s fun. Grace, in describing her trip to the beach, said she is having lots and lots and lots of fun. Can’t get a better endorsement from a 7 year old.
A dip in the hotel pool
Peter, chinposing, waiting for dinner
And even on vacation, on the Carolina Beach boardwalk, I managed to find an abandoned building.
Here’s a link to the growing set of photos from this vacation.
Carolina Beach
Our first two days at the beach have been filled with plenty of time in the water playing in the waves, mini-golf, and lots of good food.
Hi from Carolina Beach
Here’s a link to the rest of my photos.
Marketing in the Air
On a recent trip I saw this Pittsburgh Steeler painted USAirways plane on the ground in Detroit. Since things like this don’t ever happen without press releases, it is pretty easy to find the story about this plane. As part of the marketing agreement with the Steelers, USAirways painted the plane to support operations and employees in Pittsburgh and a 60 year history in the city.
The marketing side of this is more clearly stated by Steelers Director of Marketing Tony Quatrini. “A Steelers-themed airplane is fitting because we have fans who travel from all over the country on US Airways to see our games.”
This trend of decorative paint schemes has a long history, with Southwest painting planes since the mid 1990s. Many planes honored destinations served by the airline, but there have been several Southwest planes painted as part of marketing agreements (Shamu One: Sea World and Slam Dunk One: NBA).
Here are some links:
USA Today Gallery of Decorative Planes
Aviation.com Gallery of Southwest Planes
Florida Travel Social Media Site
There is a new Florida travel social media site, www.visitflorida.com, that encourages people to sign up and share their travels, recommendations and photos of Florida. There is also a core of “regular folk” bloggers that write about specialty topics, like Arts & Culture, Boating & Fishing, Golf, and Family Travel.
New sites are created everyday in the social media space with the hopes of building communities that last. The idea of pre-seeding this with “expert” content helps it get off the ground a little quicker. If your interests are not currently covered by a social media site, check again tomorrow.
Cannery Ballroom
More Nashville at Night
