Seeking An Extraordinary Life - A Travel Journal

Another uneventful day - I spend most of it catching up on email and doing a bit of shopping - but Deidre gets home early and we need to shop for turkey preparation supplies before heading out to her sister and brother-in-law's house in Arizona for Thanksgiving.

We are bringing the necessary equipment for what I'm quite sure is a uniquely American cooking approach - deepfried Thanksgiving turkey. In a fast round of the local supermarkets we pick up a long thermometer, Cajun Butter marinade (to be injected into the bird before cooking), a matching rub to be applied to the outside, and 35 pounds - that's four and a half gallons - of peanut oil.

Deidre's boss, Chris, has already lent her the necessary equipment which we'll be taking out with us. It's a sturdy metal tripod about two feet high, incorporating a large burner to which a bottle of propane is hooked up, and a metal pot big enough to incorporate the biggest turkey one can comfortably imagine. The bird will be rigged on a metal rod and platform, and lowered into the oil at 375 degrees fahrenheit to fry for about an hour.

With the car fully loaded we head out for Arizona at about 8pm, stopping for some a great dinner (amazing slow cooked pork ribs in my case, with potato salad and black-eyed peas), and by the time we are heading out of town it is pitch dark and there's little to see except the lights of the highway rolling by and the towns we pass through. We stop at near-identical service stations full of Route 66 merchandise and cowboy hats, then ride on through the night. It's pretty much like Greyhound Space.

In time we begin to turn away from the highway and onto rougher roads, and finally on a dark and dusty lane we come over a hill and see the Christmas lights we've been told to look for. We pull into a broad front yard, passing under a gateway with cast-iron team ropers above it. In front of us is a neat little one-storey house decorated for the holidays (I hadn't realised many Americans start to put their Christmas decorations up around Thanksgiving), with various outbuildings stretching off behind it. Beside it is a hulking rectangular shape also strung with coloured lights. We're going to be sleeping in one of those gargantuan trailers I've so often mocked while camping :-)

As we step out of the car the first deep breath cuts the lungs - the air is pure and icy cold. Overhead is a perfect black sky scattered with stars, unmarred by light or air pollution - we've driven right out from under civilisation's warm dirty umbrella of toxins and there's nothing between us and those sharp little needle-points of white fire. In the distance dogs bark and horses whinney from an adjacent field, answered by others further away.

We're met by Robin, a compact, darkhaired beauty, bulky in a thick jacket and hunched against the cold. She shows us around the palatial interior of the trailer - Deidre and Mark have the bedroom, I have an enormous foldout bed in the lounge area - which she's decorated herself with moose stencils and knicknacks. It's warm and comfortable and past 1am, and we gratefully retire.