Monday morning we had a fast moving powerful storm blow through with lightning and thunder. It had moved eastward by 8:50 AM, and that is noteworthy because our call time for our boat tour on Caddo Lake was 9:00 AM. It couldn’t have been more perfect after days of temperatures in the triple digits, the storm brought the temps down to the point that I actually got a shiver, and being on the lake right after was just gorgeous. The egrets were out in hidden bayous nipping little fish out of the water, great blue herons were swooping up after eating their fill, hungry birds were everywhere it seemed.
We were educated on the non-native, invasive plants that try to take over the lake and how they try to battle it back every year until the cold comes in winter, which then kills them off. But every year, they come back. It was just beautiful.
After the boat tour, we drove to the Caddo Lake State Park and strolled out on the piers and looked at the water lilies and the pretty yellow spatterdock (water flowers).
Then, the Husband forced us to have some “do nothing” time. I don’t have “do nothing” time. If we’re on vacation in a cool place, we MUST be doing SOMETHING. So, in defiance, I started researching who the area artist is that repurposes VW bugs into art and went down a rabbit hole of history about the area. Pictures and story in my next post. So fascinating!
Anyway, we went back to Jefferson for dinner (we made it into McGarety’s Pub without a reservation – YES! FIST PUMP!) and then had a post-dinner walk through the forest.
Sunday was all about Louisiana, because we are right.here.
Gators & Friends Adventure Theme Park has many, many alligators of all sizes you can imagine. Big ones, medium ones, little ones, even (I’m certain) invisible ones. ha! We bought some animal food (you can feed everything except the meerkats and alligators, please), so we wandered through the park (again with the heat and humidity) with our animal food. The animals rushed us, starting with the fallow deer, then the kangaroos (OMG, roos!). I then encountered the miniature horses, who lifted up their right hoof and rhythmically knocked on their fence with it to get our attention. Yes, I fed them. There were two of them who turned their heads sideways and opened their lips so I could just pour a handful of food through their teeth and straight onto their tongue. I mean, WHO TRAINED WHO? They had a donkey/zebra (can’t remember what it’s called), lots of miniature goats and big goats, and lots of donkeys. We went over to watch them feed the big alligators – what a show. There was one that actually FLEW up out of the water to catch some of the food. Then it was time to hold the baby alligator… little guy was pretty chill and relaxed.
We finished up at the gator park, and decided we needed to find some lunch. If you’re in Louisiana, obviously, we you should eat in Louisiana. So, we headed over to Shreveport to eat at Sam’s Southern Eatery. I got myself a crawfish po’ boy with green beans and I want another one stat. The Child got some of their giant shrimp and I can’t remember what the Husband got, but we all greatly enjoyed our foray into Southern food. Apparently, at Sam’s, the cook makes extra and then just dumps it all on the plate. We all had leftovers to enjoy the next couple of days.
For the Husband’s birthday this year, I decided we were going to visit the Historic City of Jefferson Texas. We started our time in Jefferson around lunchtime, at a restaurant that I had read rave reviews online about – The Riverport Bar-B-Que. We can confirm, you should not leave town without experiencing their menu.
Next up was the “Historic Jefferson Bus Tour.” We met the bus at the Historic Kennedy Bed & Breakfast. Both the bus and the B&B were owned by the same people. It was fun to go inside the B&B and look around, and get a brief history of the place, including the renovations the owners had done to make it a B&B. Then we boarded the bus and were driven around for an hour and given an overview of the city. The Husband especially enjoyed this part of our day, since he didn’t need to drive… he just sat back and relaxed and looked around.
After the bus tour, we headed out on foot to some of the places that had been mentioned in the tour to take a deeper look. Several of the places I had previously marked in our plans for the day – such as the Bigfoot Statue, the previous Rail Car Tour (now closed because the owners retired last year), Jay Gould’s Rail Car and the Jefferson General Store. The aura in the Jefferson General Store was so neat. I could easily imagine it being a place where folks would buy their required necessities (fabric, flour, groceries) and the luxury fun items (candy out of buckets and ice cream). Since they now offer pre-made clothes and no groceries, we bought candy we can’t easily find anywhere (UNO bars, anyone??) and ice-cream (because it was super hot outside).
We finally decided we were hungry enough for dinner and headed to McGarety’s restaurant for the Husband’s birthday dinner. Unfortunately, they were “reservation only, or you can sit outside” – ha ha ha! I did mention it was hot, right? So, we walked a block away and saw an Italian restaurant named “Tony’s Pizza, Pasta & More” that the bus tour guide had mentioned for their pizza. Even though there were no cars parked out front, and no one inside but the employees, we bravely wandered in. Afterward, we agreed we were pleasantly surprised – the food was delicious and plentiful.
After dinner, we tooled around for awhile, got gas, went to the Dollar General, stopped at the tiny Brookshire’s grocery store and finally went over to the Kahn Hotel, where our Historical Jefferson Ghost Walk was to start just before sunset.
As we gathered outside the Kahn Hotel and our tour guide started sharing some of the history of the Kahn Hotel, one of the elderly ladies in the group collapsed. People were running to pick her up and carry her inside the hotel where it was cooler… it was SO hot outside. She was a fairly tiny person, and everyone thought maybe she just hadn’t hydrated very well. Thankfully, the ambulance showed up pretty quickly to make sure she was OK. With that start of the ghost tour, I wondered how you proceed from that kind of situation.
There were 27 people and we just all murmured amongst each other, sipped our water, and waited to hear how things would go. Our tour guide came back out, after making sure the lady would be OK, and briefly reassured us and then continued talking about the Kahn Hotel. We then crossed the street and were invited into the historic Jefferson Hotel, where we were allowed to wander around and look into the rooms that weren’t occupied by guests. The Jefferson Hotel has themed rooms – the “Mirror Room”, the “Doll Room”, the “Sasquatch Room”, the “Pirate Room” and many others. It was very museum-like, as the hallways were filled with collectibles and such. We were all fairly speechless afterward, other than to say amongst ourselves how awesome it was that the owners allowed us to do that.
The tour guide made sure everyone had plenty of opportunities to go inside to cool down inside some of the historic buildings while she shared more history of the town. One of the places we were allowed to do that was in the upstairs meeting room at the historical Haywood House. The last place we visited on the tour was warehouse area above the Myers Antiques building. It was mostly vacant, just some random things up there while they start to remodel it.
All of the places we visited allegedly have had ghostly activity. None of us saw anything that night, but it was cool to go inside the historical places, hear ghost stories and hang out with everyone.
I had a horrible night last night. It all started when I was wrapping up the work I was doing on transferring photos from my camera’s SD card to my backup hard drive, which I had to do because while I was settling into the Stevie Nicks concert on Saturday night, my camera informed me that I was out of memory on my SD card. I KNOW! That was an emergency of epic proportions! There is no visible monitoring of space on the SD card that I can find in my camera, so… there I sat at the concert deleting videos from two years ago, hoping that I had already copied them somewhere, while the legend of Stevie Nicks sang. BUT WHAT WAS I GOING TO DO, WAIT UNTIL BILLY JOEL TOOK THE STAGE? Of course not!
Anyway, so last night, I had finished clearing the SD card and I looked down at my keyboard and spied a solitary cat hair in the crack peeking out from under one of the keys. I tried to reach it with my fingers, but it defied me, so I ran into the master bathroom and grabbed my tweezers and a couple Q-TIPS, just in case. I got back and gripped that solitary cat hair and pulled it out, and wouldn’t you know, a kitten came up with it, but left its tail behind. Aghast, I ran and grabbed an unused, subpar dental tool from the master bathroom, came back and slid that tool under the line of keys on the keyboard and was even more aghast (yet, also, more than a bit intrigued, kind of like watching the Dr. Pimple Popper show) to discover even more cat fur AND, apparently, bits of snacks and crumbs in there. WHAT IN THE WORLD?
I proceeded to slide the dental tool through a few more times, loosening all manner of items and moving them to the end of the keyboard where I was able to pull them out. Every time I thought I was done, I discovered more, because there are 105 keys on this keyboard, which means there are 105 different places cat fur and crumbs can hide. That is 73 more places than in a human adult mouth!
Then I got the idea to stand the keyboard up on end, which revealed even more stuff in there and a suspicious rattling noise that required further investigation. Because, what if there was a monkey with cymbals hiding in there, waiting to wake me up at 2 in the morning?
I glanced at the clock and realized it was already 1:30 in the morning, and I had been at this project now for 2 1/2 hours, and what was I thinking? The keyboard and all its secrets will still be there tomorrow… well, later today. Then, as I set the keyboard down, the tool I had wedged in there popped off one of the keys and I was delighted! LOOK AT HOW EASY IT IS TO CLEAN THIS NOW!! I popped 4 of the other keys off, cleaned underneath and inside of them, and then realized it was 2 in the morning, so I was safe from any cymbal crashing monkeys!
I turned off all the lights and crawled into bed and then I couldn’t sleep because my mind, in its overly-tired state, wanted to find something to worry about, either in the past or future. Because everyone knows the best time to make amends or decisions is at 2:15 AM! Then I got cold, so I rearranged my blankets for better warmth. After I snuggled in, I had to get back up to go to the bathroom. Once I got back in bed, I discovered a lump in my bedding, and I had to rearrange my bed covers again. Then I thought about an Item I used to carry in my purse, but no longer do, but couldn’t remember where I keep it now. So I got back up and I searched it down, found it, and sighed in relief.
I finally settled and fell asleep, and woke up 4 hours later, before my alarm went off, shaky and tired. Good grief.
The first thing I did this morning was to look online at keyboard cleaning vacuums (yes, such a thing does exist) and thought, no, I am not ordering a $30 miniature vacuum for my keyboard. But I can see that if I had thought about that at 2 AM, I might have. Hmph. If you think the time change affects kids in a rough way, you ought to see what it does to adults who stay up past their bedtime.
But, when I get done with this new project, I WILL HAVE A VERY CLEAN KEYBOARD!
We were given tickets about three weeks ago to attend the Billy Joel/Stevie Nicks concert that occurred last night. In preparation for the concert, I’ve been listening to music from both of them and delving into their biographies. Doesn’t everyone do that?? I came to realize that I have long enjoyed Billy Joel’s music, but really didn’t know much at all about Stevie Nicks, but knew a few of her songs. With that research done, I felt comfortable attending and observing. Yay – homework done!
Stevie Nicks performed first. She would introduce a song, a little history first, sing, and then disarmingly would say, “I need to go find another cape!” or “I need to go get another shawl!” and then disappear for a minute, come back onstage with a different shawl,and tell us about the shawl/cape she had changed into as part of her introduction to the next song she was planning to sing. It was rather like watching a show-and-tell or a child playing dress-up. She displayed warmth and delight in her sharing, and it was completely charming to me.
Billy Joel appeared on stage with little to no fanfare, and the audience went wild. Obviously, he was the fanfare, and had no need for a dramatic entrance. He, too, talked between songs and while I knew most of the script (I had watched some of his concert performances online), he did ad lib a little bit. His self-deprecating humor was endearing and witty. There also seemed to be a humility about him, as he shared the spotlight easily with others, and seemed as comfortable with playing the piano while someone else sang, as he did singing as the front man (piano man).
Of course, one of my favorite things to watch is the tear down, as it is marvelous to watch how expediently a giant venue can be transformed into a blank slate again, and we had opportunity to do that while we waited for everyone to depart the stadium. (You will never find us rushing to stand in the aisles with a bunch of butts in front of us.) When we finally arrived in the parking lot and departed, I beheld the Husband’s gift exploring alternative, lesser known routes out of a venue, and we were on the road home in short order. Given the lateness of the concert ending, I was extremely grateful for his gift, as that meant I was home and in my bed much sooner!
A couple months ago, I planned us a weekend in San Antonio. It wasn’t until early June that I realized the dates I had chosen actually fell on Father’s Day weekend. I mean, what dad doesn’t want to drive 10 hours round trip for his family to enjoy a weekend away? Ha!
On Saturday, we visited Sea World San Antonio and had lunch with the Orcas. After walking around a bit, the Child and I decided that we wanted to ride two coasters (Great White and Steel Eel). After finishing our ride on the Steel Eel, we decided to leave the park because it was way too hot and humid for humankind to be outside in that. We ended up at Lego Discovery San Antonio for a couple hours (indoors!!), and then back to our hotel for some relaxation.
Sunday found us spending time with some of our favorite people at one of our favorite restaurants (Magnolia Pancake Haus) and I felt like we could have talked forever. And then the 5 hour drive home with a pit stop at Buc-ee’s (snack of choice was a BLT this time). Henceforth, I will always share my snack of choice from Buc-ee’s because that’s really what Buc’ee’s is all about (plus the restrooms).
Last week, we checked out Hawaiian Waters, a local water park. We had a great time and got to watch the beautiful sunset. We rode all the slides once, a couple of them a few times. Sadly, I never did make it into the lazy river. I predict that we might go back … 🙂
We enjoyed a unique activity today learning about the tabernacles in the Bible, while viewing life size examples. If you’ve ever been curious, or didn’t know you were curious but now are curious, you should check and see if they’re coming to a city near you. If you do end up going, maybe try not to do it when it’s 100*F outside, though.
Jammie J's Quest 