Celebrating Thanksgiving at Valley of Fire

In August of 1986, Theron's mother died and Grandpa Schaefermeyer did not want to celebrate Thanksgiving at home.  We all packed up our trailers and headed to Zion National Park.  Since then, our family has celebrated Thanksgiving in various places and doing unconventional things.  There have been a few times that we have gathered around the table for dinner, but for the most part, we love to travel at this time of year.

It was Adrian and Todd's turn to do Thanksgiving with us so we decided to travel to Nevada to Valley of Fire State Park.  We loaded up the fifth wheel and away we went.  Theron and I went early to get a campsite and we scored a good one.  We awoke each morning to look out over the desert and the red rock canyons.  The sky was blue each day and the weather was just right (50s at best).

The Paschals came later in the week after the boys were out of school and Todd was able to take off work.  They arrived late Wednesday night to find our trailer alight with pink flamingos - hey we're camping.

The next day, Thanksgiving 2013, the boys climbed the rocks, Todd rode his new bike, we warmed up the previously cooked food fare, enjoyed a day of fun and visiting.


The remainder of the week we traveled up to see the sites.  Todd, Cameron and Taylor tried to find a canyon trail to ride on and ended up turning back because they were carrying their bikes more than riding them.

We traveled over to Hoover Dam and spent the day touring -- we took the tour that went down into the dam and look out a tunnel in the sidewall - that was an experience.  We decided we weren't too far from Las Vegas and the boys had never been there - poor deprived children that they are.  So, Grandpa Schaefermeyer exposed them to Las Vegas -- the fountains at Bellagio, the advertising signs on the trucks and the lights of the strip.

We are certainly glad we have a bigger trailer now - everyone is getting bigger and we really needed the fireplace at night to keep us warm.

Back home, Marc and Brittney kept up another Thanksgiving tradition - the hats.  That first Thanksgiving that we traveled, our kids were young and we needed to keep them busy for 5 hours of travel.  I bought some construction paper and brought the stapler.  All the way there, we made Indian hats and some Pilgrim hats.  I'm going to find those pictures one day and get them printed into a family history blog.  I remember all of us sitting by the rocks at a picnic table wearing our Thanksgiving hats - grandpa, Elynn and Norman, Carol and John and Kendall's family.  It's a great memory.

Our hats weren't as professional looking as these, but look at the expression on Tyce's face - he's one of the big kids!