Monday December 4, 2006

We left the city of New Orleans around 9 a.m. We had a great time visiting with Tom and Sue, and I loved the French Quarter and of course Uptown. I would love to live there for 6 months or so…not summertime of course. The weather is again very odd for this time of year…it was freezing overnight and that rarely happens here.

We headed west on I10 then swing south to go to Avery Island, home of the Tabasco sauce plant. We stopped for lunch in a grocery store parking lot in New Iberia. Grandpa ate the leftover shrimp poboy, I ate the remaining chunk of the mufuletta sandwich and I made Paulie my special roast beef on white. It is very slow going on state road 90. This is the future I49 corridor, which should make the trip a lot easier. I thought Chicagoans drove nuts, these Cajun peoples are far, far worse! I think they drive like their music…fast and choppy and gets on one’s nerves. When we arrive at Avery, we paid our $1 entrance fee at the guards post across the bridge onto the island. We park and go in for the two cent tour. We actually got to see them bottling Japanese label Tabasco. It was interesting, but Paul and I wondered later if it was really worth the extra two hours of driving. We now know a whole bunch of useless facts about Tabasco sauce. We bought a jar of Tabasco Chili mix, a bottle of Tabasco A1 Steak Sauce for Zack and I finally broke down and bought myself a t-shirt. We took state route 14 heading west again to get to Lake Charles. This was a terrible road, very bumpy and congested for quite a few miles. Then it was turns and more turns. I made a few phone calls, first to set up an appointment with the fools at the Scooter store and then to the cruise line. I have called several times to see if my bringing the scooter would pose a problem. NCL told me that they couldn’t help, since we had booked with Vacations to Go, so I had to call them. Thank goodness it is all taken care of. Details. It’s always the details that kill ya. We decided to pass on the state park as it was 12 miles out of town so we called the Isle of Capri casino and got a spot in their RV parking area for ten bucks. Just electric but that’s all we really need. By the time we roll in it’s after five. There was an accident on this huge bridge over Lake Charles…a load of lumber was blocking the east bound lanes. What a mess. We finally pull into our reserved spot and let me tell ya…there is NO room for anything in these spaces. We are jammed in between a half million dollar Country Coach to the left and a nice 5th wheel rig to the right.

Both grandpa and I are hungry so we tell Paulie to step it up and we head over to the casino for some dinner. Of course, they have the all you can stuff yourself with buffet which is total waste of money for us, a sports type bar of place that has 15 buck hamburgers and then the top of the line steak house. Hmmmm…we finally find the sandwich market and Paulie and I split a cheeseburger. Grandpa settles for the most dried out looking piece of pizza I have ever seen. Both Paul and I try to talk him out of it to no avail. Stubborn old coot. By the way, he is not able to chew the crust…

I head back to the rig while the boys go throw some money away. I find very little to watch on TV…reruns and junk….Thank goodness for PBS….IL Divo in concert, am I lucky or what!!!!! Oooo, Ooooo that Spanish guy is sure a hunk.

I am really tired tonight. We should be in Livingston tomorrow. So far a very enjoyable trip overall.

Later…dee