After their parade performance, the kids in the band were treated to a Thanksgiving dinner cruise and dance. A small dance floor and several hundred exuberant children made for a different statements of thanks.

In Chicago, chaperoning the kids marching band which was invited to the McDonalds Thanksgiving Day Parade. Which is kind of cool and disorienting, just like the inside of the Bean.

One lone cup, a leftover from the last home game of the season.

The boss and I took advantage of an empty campus and headed downtown for lunch. Walking back on a beautiful afternoon, we wondered why we don’t head out for lunch more often.

Then we both returned to our office where a year’s worth of work awaited us and we remembered.

Cruising by at 55, I saw a line of Nissan 300ZX cars. How I saw them sitting in the lot of Z-1 Motorsports, I have no idea … but you can’t just pass that up.

Just south of Hamilton, Georgia, I came across a clear cut, one of many in the area. Sights like this sadden me, but then I head home to my house made of wood and sit on our wood-framed couch. I don’t know how to solve this problem.

That’s Mr. Wallace Kendrick (W-Ken) Askew, a retied attorney from Pine Mountain, Georgia, who regaled us with tales of the town at the Historical Society.

I’m down in Harris County for two days, scouting out places and people for the 2016 edition of the Woodall Weekend Workshop. This is the furthest we have ever wandered from Athens, so the logistics get more complicated.

Usually the students will scout for stories in the weeks leading up to the event. This time around, our eleventh, I will need to source stories for them – Harris County is about several hours away from Athens. Above is Mr. Fleet Estess, a 12th generation county resident. He was a joy to talk with and gave me a lot of great ideas (and piqued my interest in the Pine Mountain Valley Project, launched by President Franklin Roosevelt in the 1940s). More scenes below.

Those last two images are from Franklin D. Roosevelt State Park, the latter is where the president liked to have picnics. So much so that he had a stone grill built, visible off to the right there.