THANKSGIVING

Painting by
Jennie A. Brownscombe (1850-1936)

 THANKSGIVING: In the United States, the modern Thanksgiving holiday tradition traces its origins to a 1621 celebration at Plymouth in present-day Massachusetts.  The 1621 Plymouth feast and thanksgiving was prompted by a good harvest. While initially, the Plymouth colony did not have enough food to feed half of the 102 colonists, the Wampanoag Native Americans helped the Pilgrims by providing seeds and teaching them to fish. The practice of holding an annual harvest festival like this did not become a regular affair in New England until the late 1660s.  (Online Wikipedia)

Rick raking, raking & still raking leaves!!

Thanksgiving is a really important part of the American calendar. It's a time when family and friends get together and celebrate their blessings.  'Turkey' is significant, because wild turkeys where found in abundance and were used in that first feast..
And, due to budget cuts in the Jefferson County, teachers lost two days work giving a whole week for celebrating Thanksgiving.


We took advantage of this and drove down to Colorado Springs to explore Pikes Peak.  This is a 'fourteener', a mountain over fourteen feet.  However, we didn't exert ourselves enough to hike, but took advantage of the train which chugged slowly at a 25 degree angle for an hour and half to the top!  Throughout the journey, an amusing guide commented on sights and facts of the area.  It was very pretty even though the leaves from the Aspen groves have long gone, then as we passed the timberline, there were layers of melting snow with the occasional mountain goat.  Once at the summit, we had 50 minutes to enjoy the scenery before the return journey.  At the top, on this beautiful clear day, you could see far into the distance to four states! (If your eyes were good!)  It was this scenery that prompted the words of 'America the Beautiful ' that was written by Katharine Lee Bates:

A magnificent view with the vast
Sangre de Christo Range in the far distance..

AMERICA THE BEAUTIFUL
 - Katherine Lee Bates (8 verses)

O beautiful for spacious skies,
For amber waves of grain,
For purple mountain majesties
Above the fruited plain!
America! America!
God shed his grace on thee
And crown thy good with brotherhood
From sea to shining sea!



The temperature at the summit was 16F or -8C.  The wind chill factor was about zero F or -17C, so we really didn't linger long at the look out points.  Rather, we enjoyed hot chocolate inside the summit cafe!!  The high altitude did affect us all though.  We all experienced headache, dizzyness and a bit of nausea.  I think the time at the summit was just enough.  You don't really realise what very thin air does to you..



This is absolutely freezing, the jacket was great, but the cold whipped straight through those jeans!!
Rick was smart, he had thermals on!!



Sarah braving the cold to let me take a pic! 
The views are spectacular..

This excursion took most of the afternoon, after which we found a motel to stay in and then a shopping centre.  The sales are excellent at the moment and we had fun exploring a new mall!  We then went to the movies.  Tuesday happened to be the discount day, and movies were only $5.00 each!!  Sarah & I watched 'Footloose' (very funny) while Rick saw 'Tower Heist'.

The following day we travelled about 40 minutes further south to Pueblo and Rick was able to meet up with Jeff B, a missionary companion from the time they spent together in the Canada Montreal Mission thirty years ago.  They enjoyed success together and it was great seeing them reminisce about those times.  Jeff took us out to see the Royal Gorge and it's famous suspension bridge.  It's very impressive with over a 1000ft drop to the river below.  We walked across it and then went down on a suspension train to the bottom.  This rail car descended at a 45degree angle!!  

The suspension bridge at the Royal Gorge, Colorado

We went to dinner with Jeff's family at the Texas Steakhouse and got to meet everyone! He has 8 children, what a lovely family.  We are going to meet up again with him & his wife Sue next week just before we leave.  It's amazing they live relatively close by and we didn't know all this time we have been here!!

Thursday, the fourth Thursday of the month is officially Thanksgiving. The day started with the annual 'Gobble Wobble' 5km event at Clement Park.  This was organised by our ward, but about 600 from  the community came and enjoyed a great morning!  A fun run, with brekky provided!  A wonderful event and fundraiser.

We were kindly invited by the Wehrli family to join them at their friends Linda and Mark's home in Denver for Thanksgiving dinner!  It was a relaxing day with lots of food, especially turkey!!  It reminded us a great deal of Christmas, with the abundance of good food, family and friends.. This is a special tradition of great importance, and I have heard several people say how it's their favourite holiday, even more than Christmas...

It was interesting to observe it and experience this different culture.

Thanksgiving celebrations carry on into the nearest weekend, but was also followed by 'Black Friday'.  A national day of retail sales!!  Stores opened after midnight and people queued up to grab the bargains.  It is very much like the 'after Christmas' sales in Australia!!  I saw on the news yesterday, that $52 billion was spent on Black Friday shopping, over half on clothing.  For ourselves, we found a new mall!  It was were one of Tom's friends works, the Colorado Mills, which actually had a lot of outlet stores! So we had fun mooching around there for the afternoon and came home with a few goodies.... :)

Sunset at Pueblo, Colorado

And now, we have less than two weeks left of our American Overseas Adventure.  I have begun cleaning windows, and sorting the accumulation of treasures!  I have a lengthy to-do list and am slowly ticking items off.  Our greatest challenge at the moment is finding a relatively inexpensive way of shipping our excess belongings back to Australia..  It's an expensive exercise..

The temperature has dropped, and it's expected to snow again this Thursday!!  Yayyy! We were hoping it would one last time before we leave and get back to summer.. (which I am also excited about!) I am looking forward to seeing my family again, but am not looking forward to the goodbyes that have already begun.  I will sincerely miss the good friends we have made here...