TB Adventure: Happy Thanksgiving!

Our first big holiday away from home...Thanksgiving, 2011. As we were approaching this day we were a little sad thinking about not being in PA in our house filled with family and friends, eating dinner and sharing a good time (as was our tradition since Tom and I met in 2004). We tossed around ideas of what to do...take a hike, go out to eat, hang out at the RV and eat in, etc. Then Tom came up with the fabulous idea of volunteering at a local soup kitchen...and so we did!

Feed The 5000 by Our Daily Bread in Seneca, SC. I'm not sure how many years they have been doing this but they had quite a well organized operation. We showed up around 8am to help prepare the meals and we could see they were well on their way and probably spent most of the night cooking some of the items and general preparation. We were able to help with miscellaneous duties as well as the big job of picking off the meat from all of the turkeys. After the food was prepared and packaged there was the job of delivering these 5000 meals to the locals in need. Tom and I were fortunate enough to deliver 84 meals to a nearby apartment complex which housed mainly senior citizens. Each person was so grateful for this tiny offering we appeared with. It was truly a great feeling to us and also a great reminder of how thankful we are for what we have. We have already talked about making this our holiday tradition and plan to find somewhere in FL to help out on Christmas day.

Cooking and prep area

meals being loaded in our Jeep for the delivery

Since the last blog we have been on several gorgeous hikes in North Carolina, Georgia and South Carolina, where we are currently staying. While this area is definitely remote, it does not lack in beauty. We are surrounded by woods, streams, lakes and rolling farmlands.

These 4 pictures are from one of our favorite hikes (which we also did in 2007) - Grandfather Mountain in North Carolina. While it is a great hike with lots of variety, it is also not for the weak at heart with many steep climbs and drop offs as well as ladders going straight up the sides of the mountain. That's why we love it so much!

Split Creek Farm - SC - a goat farm for fresh cheese, milk, soap, etc. I'm not a huge goat cheese fan but this stuff was excellent! What a neat operation they have with over 700 goats in different areas of the farm and even a pot belly pig to help clean up the area. They also had a local artist with her items on display in a little cottage.

Issaqueena Falls and Stumphouse Tunnel (an unfinished railroad tunnel) - SC

We even checked out the '55 Exchange at Clemson University for some fresh ice cream! (Established in 2005 by a generous gift from Clemson’s Class of 1955, the ’55 Exchange is a student run enterprise that was created to preserve one of our core agricultural traditions, the Clemson Ice Cream Experience)