Thanksgiving is a time to spend time with friends and family, eat a whole lot, and watch some football games on television. Or for me it's a time to go home and get nagged by my mom and dad, mostly mom. It's the perennial foursome of: lose some weight, get married, get a house, be more fiscally responsible. Spending a couple of days with the folks is about as much as I can handle. I'm not going to change, at least not overnight.

That said, it was a good Thanksgiving. I drove to my parent's place after work, picking up my sister and brother (Steph's car was totalled a while ago so she is without transportation). We got to Sacramento at about 23:00 with light traffic. I know that driving Thursday would have been a long and trying affair so I prefer driving the night before.

It was a traditional Thanksgiving dinner. Turkey, mashed potatoes (we forgot to make stuffing), string beans, yams, cranberry sauce, some rather hard home- made rolls (the concept of bread machines I can handle, it's the kind of bread that people make with those machines that I have a problem with) and peach pie for dessert. I ate until I was about to explode, which is quite a bit if I think about it.

Friday we went shopping a bit. We bought a VCR for dad and looked for RAM and a Palm Pilot for Chris to no avail. Steph got me a belt and a pair of pants. I bought Steph an Elph-2 camera. Even the mall we went to, which is almost always rather empty, had quite a few people shopping. Chris and I browsed through a calendar store. Is it just me or is that a very limited focus, since almost all calendars are bought just before and after New Year's Day.

Friday night Chris had a party with his KFC friends. When he got back we left for home, once again trying to avoid traffic. That and we didn't want to stay with my parents another day. Steph had said the week before that she wanted to leave early and once I had that goal I was all for it. Mom and dad worry whenever we drive late at night, as if I don't stay at work late and do this all the time. Still, it was a foggy night and we drove through plenty of mini- fog banks, Steph and Chris urging me to slow down a couple of times when the fog was getting thick.

Saturday Chris and I went to the movies and saw "The 6th Day" and "Red Planet", both of which I'll write more about later. We were planning to watch "Men of Honor" too, but Chris lost interest after the first two movies so we walked home and then I drove him to Davis. Driving to Davis Saturday at about 20:00 I saw the backup from the returning holidayers. From Fairfield to almost Davis it was stop and go, mostly stop from the looks of it, in the direction of San Francisco. We stopped by at an Outback Steakhouse but the wait was about 35 minutes, too long for Chris. So he got a burger at McDonald's and I finished driving him to Davis.

For the return trip I was *not* going to take the I-80, so I decided to go around. I drove to Sacramento, then took the I-5 South. My intention was to use the highway that goes along the Sacramento River, but I forgot the number so I missed the exit (highway 160, next time I'll remember). In Stockton I turned off to highway 4, which runs through Antioch and Pittsburgh. The first 30 miles were mostly on a one-lane-each-way hardtop road winding through featureless terrain, tall grasses on both sides, foggy here and there, dark. Then I drove through a couple of really small towns and got on the main highway 4 near Antioch, where it's two lanes each way with a median to separate traffic. I got home in about 2.25 hours after leaving Davis. Probably could have cut it by 30-45 minutes if I had used the 160.