Thanksgiving

My Thanksgiving with dad was early... we celebrated on Saturday with a gathering of his friends out at Tin Town.

I took this photo for you on the way out:

It reminds me of my trip across the prairies (well, some of them, at least) with J. He commented how it reminded him of early art lessons in perspective, where they talked about how the lines on a straight road converge to a point at the horizon. He had never really fully understood, living in a place with hills and twisty roads. There was always something blocking the horizon.

Not here. Manitoba is *flat*. At least this part is. It was the bottom of Lake Agassiz back at the end of the last ice age. When J saw Manitoba, he said "the horizon can be drawn with a roller!" (Roller = ruler pronounced with a Philadelphia accent. It took me a bit to understand roller. ;) ) Yep, the horizon pretty much can be.

On the drive out, though, I found myself focussing on the distant road, and came to a conclusion. The road doesn't *quite* shrink to a point... the horizon gets in the way, due to the curvature of the earth. Either that, or I need new glasses. ;)

Here's some more photos I took at the actual Thanskgiving dinner.

My dad:


Dad's dog, Nicky:


Near the end of dinner:


Dinner was salmon (store-bought, I imagine), venison, goose (not store-bought), wild rice, mashed turnips, cooked carrots, pickles and buns, with pumpkin pie and orange cake for dessert. The cabin they started washing dishes in didn't have lights, so they had to switch to another cabin part way through. None of the cabins (shacks, really, although they're getting nicer than they were) there have electricity.

Wishbone competition:

Dad and I came in first and second in the wishbone competition, and both won calendars as a result. :) Dad got the bigger piece on the last wishbone, but the guy hosting the dinner changed the rules (probably since I was new), saying that in the last round, the smaller side won. Dad and I got the same prizes we would have anyway, since there were just the calendars for the top two.

I think the wishbones were from ducks and geese they had shot the previous year. There were two distinct sizes of wishbones, and neither looked anything like turkey or chicken wishbones. They were *tough* wishbones too! Hard on the hands breaking them!

The competition was fun... it was a direct-elimination with pairs breaking wishbones.

I headed home fairly shortly thereafter, since it takes over an hour to drive back to Winnipeg, and I didn't want to be driving tired. I saw one deer on the way, but thankfully it bounded *away* from the road when I approached.