James Island County Park in Charleston is a great place to be for Thanksgiving. We did not know about it 2 years ago when we came through here and ended up staying a little further out at Oak Plantation RV Park. James Island is a little more expensive but it sits on a ton of land with very nice facilities right across a bridge from Charleston.
A few weeks ago when we started thinking about where we might want to be for Thanksgiving, we had decided that we would try to make it out to the coast and hopefully have some views of the ocean. Charleston is on the Atlantic but there aren’t really any oceanfront campgrounds. We had thought that campgrounds might be empty during the holidays as most people might not want to cook a turkey in a camper. Well, we were wrong about that. Apparently RVing during the holidays is a pretty popular thing. I guess it makes sense; A lot of people try to take a advantage of their time off from work to travel. At least enough of them to occupy some of the more popular campgrounds during this time of year.
We met a retired couple in an Airstream named Tom and Kathy a few sites down from us in another 25 footer. They live near Tampa, Florida and decided to come down to Charleston to spend their Thanksgiving. They are retired and spend a lot of their free time Airstreaming throughout the southeast with their 2 beautiful German Shepherds.
Tom still runs a small nursery from their 5-acre home in Florida and gave us a cool Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer inspired plant.
Our Thanksgiving day was spent doing exactly what we wanted to do. Hanging out with the family, not working, not driving.
The girls did get around to making a little Thanksgiving art project.
Ava is a pro at making hand turkeys now. Luka got a little help from Marlene. Mila insists that she is a big girl and does not need any help tracing or coloring. I’d say she is doing pretty good for a 3 year old.
You might be interested in seeing how a Thanksgiving feast might be prepared in an Airstream kitchen. There is definitely a way to do a full blown, traditional roast turkey, with all the fixings. But our biggest problem is not having the room to store leftovers so we are doing something a little unorthodox.
Here are the basic ingredients. All part of the traditional Thanksgiving meal. On the left I have ground turkey cooked with sauteed onions, carrots, peas and corn. In the middle is mashed potatoes and to the right in the blue bowl I have my cornbread stuffing.
With the cornbread stuffing acting as the pie crust, I assembled a couple of ground turkey shepherd’s pies. It is much easier to finish up in our oven and to store leftovers than roasting a turkey. Plus we can honestly say we had turkey for our Thanksgiving dinner with all the fixings 🙂
With the pies prepared, we headed out to the playground at the park for some more family time before dinner.
Luka is loving the baby swing nowadays. Check him out in his fancy little-man plaid shirt.
Here is our Thanksgiving family portrait. Marlene is trying to make up for the lack of excitement in Luka’s face.
The shepherds pie turned out great. I think I might make this in the Airstream more often.
We even busted out real plates for today’s occasion. No paper plates for us during this Thanksgiving at a full hookup site!
The light show here at James Island is a pretty big deal for Charleston. People drive from all over town to come see the lights.
Since we already drove through to see the lights yesterday, we walked around a couple of their other holiday themed attractions. One of the areas is called Winter Wonderland. They had a few propane campfires and the girls got to buy giant marshmallows and roast them by the fire.
Around the corner from Winter Wonderland is Santa’s Village. They have a climbing wall, carnival-style food and even a carousel.
Of course Santa is also here in his village ready to take gift request. Just don’t come here at 8PM because even the jolly old fella needs a little break sometimes.
over and out,
dan
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