....The stars.
I was wondering, because I had not seen them since the last time I went to HerbFest in central Iowa in 2000.
But this Thanksgiving, we went to a state park with cabins over in the eastern part of the state. The park is located in the Arkansas river valley, and the country side is very nicely hilly and pretty.
Our night-time walks in the darkest dark revealed a velvet black sky, with the milky way visible, and millions of stars.
There were as many stars visible there as I can remember being able to see in Iowa, but not as many as I remember seeing up in Lake Huron, on an isolated Island with no electricity when I was little.
OH, and before I forget (again..heh...)....HEY SISTER! That cranberry sauce was SO easy to make from scratch. Thank you for reminding me that we had that conversation 2 Thanksgivings ago, and that was why you gave me an orange zester that Christmas. DUH. Well, a lot has happened in my life in the past 2 years....I forget stuff when under stress.
But anyway....it was so easy, and SO yummy, just like yours. Thanks!
ANyway...the park has 15 cabins with varying amenities. 14 of these cabins are in a designated area of the park.
The original 10 cabins were constructed out of native river valley stone by the Civilian Conservation Corps in the 1930's and 40's. They look like little elf dwellings, or hobbit holes! I will add pictures later, once we go get the camera out of the car.
All of the original cabins have fireplaces that actually are still used...unlike the cabins out at White Pines back in Illinois, where they have mostly been bricked in.
There are 4 newer cabins in the cabin area, actually called cottages, that are plain little boxes, without fireplaces, and which hold no interest for us at all. They just look like the tiny, square "Ada stone" (and frame) houses that popped up in mass quantities around OKC after the war (what some call World War 2, in my family, is called simply, "the War").
Thousands of these tiny houses still exist in and around OKC, and provide housing in some of the poorer neighborhoods these days.
These newer cabins at the park are plain square boxes built with two by fours and sheet rock (what y'all back up north call "dry wall"), and are merely faced with stone, unlike the original ones, which have those thick stone walls.
Anyway, each cabin is fully equipped with full size kitchen stove, microwave, and fridge, and some dishes, utensils, glasses, coffee cups, a coffee maker, and a selection of pots and pans. There's also satellite tv, and fancy flat screen tvs, but we didn't go there to watch tv.
Cabin 15, which we saw the inside of inadvertently, is basically a modern log home, which stands alone by the other side of the lake.
We saw the inside of that one because, when we arrived at the park in the pouring rain, our key was not in the drop box at the gate house.
Since it was a holiday, no one was working in the office, and we had been told our key would be in an envelope with our name and cabin number, and held in a box at the gate.
There WAS a key in the box, but it was for cabin 15, and we had been assigned cabin 6, and this key was loose. Not in an envelope.
Since there was no one there, we didn't know what else to do, so we drove on over to cabin 15. We looked around inside, and determined that it had just been vacated by the previous renters, and had not been cleaned. There was wet soap in the soap dish in the bathroom, dirty towels on the bathroom floor, and used, crumpled linens on the beds.
This cabin is fully equipped for handicapped access, including a hoist over the bed, a sit down shower, a lifting device to help get a person from bed to chair, and back, a wheel chair, and ramps to all areas in and around the cabin.
Something about being in there felt wrong, because we are not handicapped, and the cabin is HUGE. There was very little chance they expected us to take this cabin.
So, I suggested Dave go knock on the door of cabin 6, and see if they had the envelope with our name on it as proof that they had taken the wrong key.
Since it was freezing cold (literally...the rain was turning to ice), Dave got back in the car, and went back up in that direction, leaving me at cabin 15 to wait.
I turned on the heat, and hunted flies. For some reason that cabin was FULL of flies (another reason to be really upset if we had to stay there), and there were 4 fly swatters hanging in the kitchen as testimony that this was on ongoing issue!
When he came back, he explained what had happened. Upon his arrival at Cabin 6, he discovered that it was empty, so he went back over to the gate house.
LUCKILY, a ranger had JUST HAPPENED to show up to check on something at the office!
He was able to catch her, and our key was still in the office, because they
forgot to put it in the drop box for us!
If he had waited one more minute to go back to the gate house, he would have missed her, and we would have been stuck with someone else's dirty towels and bed linens to use that first night, because they forgot our key!!
Phew!!
Anyway, when he picked me up at #15, I shut everything off, and we got back in the car.
We stopped at the gate house again to drop off the key to 15, and went on to our cabin.
We waited a few minutes inside, looked around, and the rain started to ease up so we could unload.
The plan had been to unload (it was 11:30 am when we got to cabin 15, and was now going on noon), get the turkey in the oven, and go take a hike.
Since the weather was SO miserable, that was no longer the plan, and besides, when we took the turkey breast out of the cooler, it was still mostly FROZEN (because it was so cold outside, and the cooler had been in the trunk of the new car)....so we focused on unpacking and settling in.
In that process, we discovered that I am a much better fire starter and tender, so maintaining our fire became my job during our stay. All of my years of doing cooking demonstrations at the renaissance faire taught me LOADS about how to manage a fire effectively!
There are heaters in the cabins, but they are noisy, forced air dual a/c and heat units built into the walls. Not pleasant.....and in our tiniest of the cabins, WAY too loud.
We left the turkey in the sink to thaw for a couple more hours at room temp (it had already had 24 hours in the fridge to thaw, but that was apparently not enough!), even though you're not supposed to do that.
But that was okay. It was cold enough in the kitchen and bathroom, which were quite obviously a LONG after-afterthought in the cabin's construction, (being made of frame and tacked onto the back of the stone shelter), that thawing in the sink was just a few degrees warmer than the fridge!
We settled in, I got the fire blazing, and around 3, Dave made the bacon weave for the turkey breast, and got it into the oven for us. He then opened a us bottle of wine, and we started to really relax.
While I occasionally went into the kitchen to prepare another of our feast dishes to go into the oven, Dave read aloud to me.
The rain eventually stopped altogether, and the sun came out. The roasting turkey and bacon smelled SO good!
I made the turkey breast this way last year, too, so we already knew that it works wonders. The breast remains moist, and gathers up the smoke flavor and salt of the bacon. Yum.
I looked out of the kitchen window into the angled sunlight, and saw 5 or 6 wild turkeys rooting around in the fallen leaves between our cabin and the next one back down the road. I called to Dave, and we stepped out onto our front stoop.
We stood there, listening to the turkeys gobble to each other as they worked their way up the hill behind the cabins, and out of sight.
Later on, just before dark, we stepped outside to get some fresh air (the chimney wasn't drawing very well---I learned via trial and error to keep the fire and embers against the back wall of the fireplace), and were just in time to see the turkeys returning from their foraging up the hill.
This time, they were a couple of cabins up the road from us, and the first cluster was about 5 or 6 turkeys, like we'd seen going up. But then we heard more coming.
We heard a lot of gobbling back up in the woods...and while we stood there, no fewer than 27 turkeys came down that hill, ran down the road, and took off further down the hill toward the lake.
They look SO FUNNY when they run!!
Despite the almost complete lack of cell service at the park site, Dave was able to get a text off to my brother that said, merely, "TURKEYS!"---in reflection of the tradition my brother and I have of texting one another when we see sand hill cranes, with just the word "CRANES!"
After our WONDERFUL Thanksgiving dinner, which was ready around 7 pm (the aforementioned turkey breast wrapped in bacon, baked sweet potatoes, the orange cranberry compote [thanks again, sister!], and good old green bean casserole), we took our first walk in the dark.
I explained to Dave that in my family, we traditionally take a walk after Thanksgiving dinner, no matter the weather.
We decided to take the turkey carcass to the dumpster, and to go star gaze. It had gotten crystal clear out, and was likewise very, very cold. In the 20's, as predicted.
Fortunately, the rain had dried on the road we were walking. We had brought warm jackets, gloves, and hats, so were prepared.
We heard a pack of coyotes yipping and howling in the not too distant distance, and we identified some of our favorite constellations.
We came back to our very cozy little cabin (the fireplace and oven really warmed it up nicely), and had our pumpkin pie and a glass of port.
The fire was banked for the night, and we slept really well because it was SO dark, and SO quiet. (the nearest of those annoying sodium lamps was several cabins away along down the road, and the kitchen blind managed to block most of it's light.)
Friday was a much prettier day, with lots of sunshine and very little wind. It was brisk, but the cold was manageable with our jackets, sweatshirts, and stuff.
We discovered that the main hiking trail was closed for deer hunting access. Dammit. But we did a little hiking and exploring near the lake.
Left overs provided our meals for the day, and we had a lovely, glorious time in the park.
As we checked out on Saturday morning, we reserved again for next year. Chances are we will repeat this ritual every Thanksgiving for as long as we are able!
Our little cabin #6 is the only one like it. It has, as mentioned above, the kitchen attached on to the back, like an afterthought. The other cabins are all bigger, and the kitchens were incorporated into them without having to build on. They just ran electrical into them, and turned the smaller of the bedrooms into a kitchen and bathroom with running water.
My suspicion is that part of cabin #6 collapsed years and years ago, and so it remains only one stone room with the little frame addition tacked on where the stone walls used to be.
All of the floors are stone, too. We were REALLY GLAD we thought to take our winter time house slippers with us!
So, we are supposed to call the office today to inquire if we can change our reservation for next year to one of the larger cabins, now that the other guests have all checked out.
They use a "dibs" system. We were able to reserve our same cabin for next year, which would be FINE.....but we had to wait for the other guests to all check out if we want to try one of the larger ones next time.
If one of those guests did NOT reserve one of the larger cabins already for next year, we can call back today and change our reservation to one of the other cabins.
We narrowed it down to #7, #11, #13, or #14. We caught the cleaning girl in cabin 14 on Friday, between guests. We knocked on the door, and she let us come in and look around!
Cabins 7 and 11 are like we think ours used to be, since all of them along that part of the cabin area are alike, except ours.
13 and 14 are MUCH larger, with screened in front porches, and a view of the lake....but they charge the same for all of them.....which works out to about HALF of what we paid at White Pines for our honeymoon.
Our tiny cabin #6 was REALLY cheap, because it's so very small.
It was so much nicer than the old stand by, White Pines, because of the kitchens. White Pines cabins are one room, with a bathroom, and you have to rely on their restaurant for all of your meals, and, of course, PAY for all of your meals, too!
Being able to cook for ourselves, and have a working fire place, was SUCH a treat!
Tiny. Yes, Tiny.
It was chilly out!
The woods are full of big rocks like this
Dave cooking his favorite food!
Cabin #14...we might be able to get this one next year....fingers crossed!
Evidence of how poorly the chimney was drawing....
Yes, it really WAS that good!
Green Leaf Lake
Cozy, Warm, and Welcoming
This is ALL of the counter space!
The living room/bedroom combo
The "original" part of Cabin #6
