Plans for Thanksgiving?

Yes, the holidays are right around the corner. Traditionally this is the time of year to get together with close friends and family members for food, drink and good fellowship.

In our family, however, for the past umpteen years we have eschewed the travel time and expense of gathering in late November just because everybody does it. We prefer to gather for a week in February in the Colorado Rockies and ski, ski, SKI!

Our two daughters are off living with their husbands in Tampa, Florida, and Chicago, Illinois. We just visited each of them in September.

So, what are our plans for Thanksgiving? Heck, we’re going to hook up the camper trailer, jump in the car, and head out to a good golfing destination and play GOLF! I get a four-day weekend, so even if we get a day or two of bad weather it’ll be OK.

We’ve been debating where to go. The only criteria are a campground within reasonable driving distance of two or three or four golf courses that are affordable to play. Unlike, say the $400 green fees (apiece) that we’d pay at Pebble Beach. If we went to California. And if we were rich. No, for us the limit is somewhere around 10% of that number. In fact, 5% of it is even MORE attractive.

It might be different if we played scratch golf and the quality of the course mattered to our score. But as it is, we tend to “scratch” our way around any layout and enjoy ourselves even on a $15 daily fee muni.

We thought about making a long drive to Montgomery, AL, one of our favorite destinations. But that wouldn’t leave enough time for golf without taking a vacation day as well, because it takes a LONG day of driving to get there, and a LONG day to get home again. And we’ve GOT to try to play for at least three days.

So for now we’re close to settling on Central Texas, around Temple and Killeen. We’ll probably stay at the KOA in Belton and just enjoy being out of town and by ourselves. We’ll pick up a rotisserie chicken from a nearby supermarket deli for our Thanksgiving turkey. Have a little white wine, potato salad and canned green beans, and feel like we’ve feasted. We can even record some football game(s) during the day while we’re out golfing and watch them (sans commercials) after dinner.

The courses are all nearly empty on Thanksgiving Day, but very crowded on the Friday following. That’s when all the women go shopping, and the men go play golf. Saturday and Sunday are not too bad, because most people have friends or family over and don’t sneak off to play golf.

Ha! For us, what I've described above sounds like a perfect family holiday.