Why are Thanksgiving weekends such an adventure? I've NEVER had a dull&predictable Thanksgiving, ever. I've spent it in some far flung places with some peculiar people, but this year may take the prize for the edgiest adventure.

Thanksgiving day was the 14th wedding anniversary of some friends, so I gifted them with some of their favorite rumballs when I went there for dinner. We didn't QUITE break the temperature record, but came durn close to, with 60 degrees and sunny, so I spent most of the day doing yard work between cookie & rumball making. Meal conversation was more interestingly specific due to a French astrophysicist room-mate of the 20something daughter where we amused each other by trying to explain the American &/or Cleveland versions of things were were talking about. I'm not sure our footnoted conversation was entirely illuminating.

Black Friday - The temperature took a huge nosedive and the wind kicked up. I gathered my warm clothes and packed up the instruments, cookies and self to catch the last ferry to South Bass, with friends coming from southern Ohio. Get to Sandusky area, and the water level at the western end of the lake is the lowest I've ever seen it in over 55 years of lake gawking. The Huron river was mudflats - where I'm used to seeing herons around the edges, there was muck, muck and more muck. At the dock, the ferry is not there, the gates are closed -not running anymore. Too windy, too wild water, and fear of how shallow it is to begin with.

We caravan to the airport where we're told yes, they're able to fly us over, we just have to wait for a couple other flights. It's only 6 min or so of a flight from Port Clinton to South Bass/Put in Bay. In the waiting room, I get introduced to the Episcopal pastor "Mother Mary." I asked if she wanted something for an offertory song from a visiting musician. "Actually, we need a musician for the whole service" was her response. This did indeed happen, after a Saturday morning consultation on what hymns/songs were appropriate, that we both knew. The alternative, when they don't have a musician (a veryyyy small congregation) was to rely on "Justin" - it took a couple rounds of who-does-what conversation before I grokked that "Justin Case" is their tape recording of service music and hymns that they use when musician-less! Justin got the day off.

At the airport in Port Clinton, I was so caught up in talking to Mother Mary, that when the time came for us to board the wee 6 seater plane, I left my purse in the waiting room. Tucking all the suitcases, instrument cases, boxes of cookies and bags of booze and us into that wee plane was downright exciting as the wind cranked up & the pilot looked young enough to get carded at the bar. It was going dusk and we were going to be the last flight of the day. "Hold on it's going to be a bumpy ride" goes down in my catalog of VAST UNDERSTATEMENTS. I've never been so rattled about in a plane! I didn't have enough time to get actually scared, because a couple minutes into the flight I realized I didn't have my purse on me and started fuming at my own carelessness - the precious purse with phone, wallet, all ID, insurance cards, DEBIT CARD (eeek!) my rescue inhaler... all in the waiting room until who-knew-when.

We got extra encouragement to hang on as he banked into the crosswind for the landing and I suspect we did over 220 degrees of tilting till we got down below the tree line and - the landing runway was the smoothest part of the whole trip!

I enjoyed Chuck's whole extended family we caroused with through the weekend. I played and sang in the kitchen during food prep and clean up, with some sing alongs, which was a big surprise to Chuck ("I never knew my nephew had such a good voice!") and my playing at church caused a couple of "don't usually go" folks to be part of the congregation which was amusing. A family member brought my purse over on the Saturday morning ferry. Hung out in the ONE open island bar where the other end had the red & grey saturation of folks watching the INTENSE rivalry of an Ohio State-Michigan game.

By Sunday, the wind had settled down enough to take the ferry back and stand on the car deck watching an extraordinarily large flock of seagulls form above the ferry wake. Didn't cook, didn't buy a thing but some food & drink, didn't actually watch the football - a genuinely nice Thanksgiving weekend, with two different families & didn't feel like I was playing hooky from my usual Sunday music ministry duties. Grand, just grand.


Joanne, Back in Cleveland and not feeding the fishes in Lake Erie.