Thanksgiving '07

Every Thanksgiving, I drive 20 miles up to San Francisco for an early dinner with my friends, Kathryn and Maurice, and their extended family, and then drive 60 miles down to my cousin's house in Los Gatos for a later dinner with my own family. Every year, I get lost on the way to my cousin's.

This year, I got to my friends' house in the afternoon, relaxed with a glass of champagne and made it a point to restrain myself from porking out when dinner was served. I brought a camera this year, which I normally don't do, but I'm not very good with it, particularly after drinking and I'm a lightweight. Soo... most of the snaps are unusable, and the best one of the bunch was me turning the camera around to capture myself and Maurice.

I currently have a housemate with whom I have a pretty good rapport, so I invited him to my cousin's. On the way down to Los Gatos, I stopped at home and picked him up. He was baking chocolate chip pecan cookies... yum! He packed his cookies while I downloaded a map of the area around my cousin's and then Steve took the wheel while I studied my maps.

As we got onto 101 I told him to look for 85 South. Except when 85 came up, we were yapping about something and missed it! So we took the next exit and looped back... except there is no 85 exit coming the other way. We wandered around Mountain View (I think) for awhile before stopping to ask for directions, found 85 and made the transition to 17 just fine.

As we sped down 17, Steve said "isn't that our exit?" and I said "uh, I don't think so," but of course it was. Another turnaround at the next exit and as we came off the proper exit, Steve was driving down the street and I said "ummm, I think I came this way last year - we need to go the other way!" By this time, he's not believing anything I say and stops to look at the map because we're close enough it shows the streets we're on, and is surprised to discover that I was actually right that time!

We walked in the door just as everyone was finishing dinner, right about the same time I'd walked in the year before. But I was there, it was warm and nothing more could go wrong! One of my cousins just had a baby this year and as I reached into my purse to grab my camera... I realized I'd forgotten my camera up at Kathryn and Maurice's!