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Thanksgiving was a bust. Connie said she was going to her son's for just a little bit. She was gone almost three hours. Little did I know that the alternative plans were for everyone to show up there, and they had so many people there, they did dinner outside on picnic tables. Meanwhile, I'm trying to wrangle dinner here. The turkey ended up overcooked and tasted like buzzard meat, the mashed potatoes didn't get made, the cranberry sauce went unopened, the bread came out of the oven looking like it had leprosy, and there's still a whole pumpkin pie out there, untouched.

So we leave Friday morning. She wanted to check out Tanger Outlet Mall in Commerce. All the 'in-crowd' stores - Haggar, Van Heusen, Aeropostale, American Eagle, that sort of thing. I figure, why not, how busy can it be at noon on a Friday, when they've been having Black Friday sales all month?

WRONG.

The lots were so jammed, they had the sheriff's department there directing traffic. People were queueing up in line to get in everywhere (gotta practice that social distancing, I suppose). They were streaming out of the stores like ants. I hooked a hard U-turn and got back on the freeway.

So, we get to Helen. We figured it would be a quiet three days there, carefree, limping along at a comfortable pace.

WRONG.

It was like a mashup of Oktoberfest and the Zombie Apocalypse. I mean, hordes of people. Everywhere. It tooks us over an hour to get through town. The crosswalks were a sea of unwashed humanity, stopping traffic everywhere. Then mercifully, we got to our cabin. It was at the top of what seemed like an endless set of stairs. I threw my pimp stick on the bed and sat down. Then Connie said, "Where's your suitcase?"

Oh, God. She was waiting in the truck when I came out to leave, and I thought she put it in the truck. She thought I was still packing and left it on the day bed. It took half an hour to come to grips with the fact that everything was still sitting at the house and I only have the clothes on my back. So the only alternative to turning around and going home, and forfeiting two nights' rental, was to make an emergency trip to Walmart fifteen miles away. I had to call the insurance company to get an authorization for emergency meds at the pharmacy, buy new socks, underwear, shirts, sweat pants, every toiletry item you can imagine. Another $250 down the latrine, or throw in the towel. Speaking of which, that cabin left some things to be desired. The pillows and shams were so flat, I ended up using a bag of clothes I bought as a pillow. The hot tub wasn't. The satellite TV dish was apparently pointing at Neptune. We didn't get back to the cabin until 8:30, so a whole day was shot. We got out on Saturday, got to see a couple of things and do some shopping, but the zombie hordes were shoulder to shoulder everywhere. But I don't move too fast anymore and have to sit down every so often, and it was killing me. I did get to The Pepper Palace, which is a most awesome shop for hot sauces, BBQ sauces, and marinades. Their hot sauces are all small batch and some are very exotic. (They have a peach habanero sauce to die for.) It's run by an old hippie and his tatted up wife with blue hair. A couple of characters. They'll throw out freebies and BOGOs at random. I was up to eight bottles and he told me to buy two more, and he'll throw in three for free. I blew $155 before the discount. LOL No worries, my brother-in-law is a hot sauce nut, too, and I'll make him a Christmas gift pack. That's Georgia wine country up there, so we did imbibe in quite a few short shots of some good stuff at tasting shops. There are vineyards and wineries everywhere. She found a blueberry muscadine wine that I have to admit was very nice on the palate, so we brought a bottle back with us. Got lunch at the Old Bavaria Inn, so Saturday went fair to partly cloudy. We got out of there early today, thinking that we'd go one full charge more. We were going to have breakfast at Hofer's German Bakery, but they're into the whole lab rat social distancing thing, and had people parked outside on benches, waiting to get in. A shame, they have a great breakfast menu, and she wanted to raid some baked goods right out of the oven. The herd had thinned down to about 5% of what it was the previous two nights, but only a few shops and attractions were open so we decided to head back. To bad we didn't stay a little longer - the cold front coming through is supposed to deposit a couple inches of snow there tomorrow evening, which will really set the Christmas scenery up there. Possibly a few flurries here, too, they think. And nasty cold for a couple days - we're talking 'bring in your brass monkey' cold. All in all, I'm just glad to be home. I need a vacation from my vacation. LOL I told her that if I'd have had one inkling of what we had to go through, Thanksgiving included, I'd have stayed home, gone fishing, had a Swanson turkey dinner Thursday night, and saved a thousand bucks. My legs are so overworked, I'm reeling around the house like a Bowery drunk, and I'm still on my first glass of wine.