Hope everybody had a peaceful, satisfying and/or fun Thanksgiving. We did.

Kimball did all the planning for ours. All I had to do was drive when told it was my turn.

We drove to Shreveport Wednesday afternoon and evening and until about 2:30 a.m. Thursday morning to Kimball’s brother and sister-in-law’s home in Bossier City (across the river from Shreveport.) Their two pit bulls like to tore down the bedroom door wanting to get at the intruders. Then by later in the day couldn’t get enough petting from us. At least nine-month-old Mollie. Eight-year-old Sadie mostly slept.

Adrian and Cain drove up from Baton Rouge for Thanksgiving dinner which the girls all fixed: sweet potatoes, turkey, pies – all the usual good stuff in large quantity.

Friday morning the six of us went to our favorite breakfast place, Strawn’s Eat Shop, then Cain drove Kimball, Adrian and me to Dallas to visit cousins we hadn’t seen in 20 years.

Cain shepherded us through some of the worst traffic I have ever seen: Dallas Black Friday traffic peppered with random wrecks. Then back to Shreveport.

Saturday morning Kimball and I met Cain and Adrian about 7:30 in a Wal-Mart parking lot to get introduced to their nine-month-old Aussie Poo, Merle. He was friendly enough but couldn’t have cared less about Kimball and me. He got interested briefly when Adrian wadded up a paper sack and handed it to me. He showed his obedience training when told to sit.

But when Cain reach over and kinda tweaked Merle’s tail, it was game on. Merle grabbed his leash and nipped at Cain. It was obvious they were rowdy play buddies.

We headed back to Strawn’s and they headed to Lake Charles to some kind of festival that involved pigskins and cracklins.

Kimball drove 250 miles to Ft. Smith at about dark and I took over for the final 230 miles to ElDo. It was an easy nine-hour trip.

We stopped by the office to see Davis who chose not to go with us even though everyone invited him several times.

At our house, Bella and Caddeaux met us at the door. Bella immediately wanted out after being cooped up for three days. As usual, Caddeaux wanted his food freshened up. Then he did something unusual for him – he came to me and asked to be petted. I inverted him in my arms and he purred up a storm. Bella still asks get outside at every excuse even in the middle of the night. She’s behind on checking her property.

-It’s good to be back in ElDo. See you at the Christmas parade. KL