Louisiana - July 2023

Shawna and Honny Outside the House

A few days after our trip to the Galapagos, we went to visit Shawna's mom for a week in Louisiana.  This was our first roadtrip post retirement! We stayed very busy meeting up with friends and taking care of things for Shawna's mom around the house.  Given that we were in the 4Runner, we brought more than we would otherwise - taking our workout equipment and Keith's large monitor.  The car was pretty full so we realized that we would not fit everything when we drive to CO and NM in another week so with this practice run, we decided we would need to rent a trailer for that trip!

Our walks each morning - it was hot!

We arrived on Wednesday late afternoon after driving close to 6 hours from Dallas. After unpacking the car and getting settled in, Shawna cooked dinner and then we watched a movie together.  Each morning we worked out by getting up at 5am, drinking our coffee and then walking for 1.5 hours to beat the heat! We also did a bunch of chores and while productive, we still were not able to get to everything on the list. 

Aside from visiting with Shawna's mom, we also met up with the following people:

• Hope and Craig - We met them on Thursday night to have dinner at Broken Wheel Brewery.  We shared a tuna appetizer (not the best) and the andouille crusted redfish for an entree (very tasty).

Hope and Craig at Broken Wheel

• Ginger and Michael - We drove to their house in Woodworth (near Alexandria) on Saturday and had a few beers.  We then had dinner at Tunk's Cypress Inn located on Kincade lake.  We each had a salad, shared catfish tidbits for an appetizer and snapper baked in a paper bag with crab and crawfish for an entree.  The food was tasty.  

Ginger and Michael at Tunk's

• Staci - Shawna went to LSMSA with Saci and had not seen her for 24 years! On Sunday, we met for lunch at Verona Italia Restaurante in Alexandria where we each had a side salad and split a veal entree.  Great restaurant. So great to catch up after all these years!

Staci at Verona Italia

• Brenda and Joe - We drove to Baton Rouge on Tuesday and met them for lunch at The Little Village.  We were surprised to also see Matthew (their son who Shawna also had not seen in a number of years) who joined us for lunch.  We each had a piece of their amazing bread and then Shawna and Keith shared a fish entree that was quite good.  After lunch, we went back to their house and had dessert and coffee - Brenda made a very yummy cheesecake.  While we were trying to diet, we had to have a slice!

Brenda and Joe outside their house

Friday was our anniversary and while we had limited options, we ended up having a great dinner at Legends Steakhouse in the casino.  We first walked around the casino as we had not been there in several years and then went to dinner where we shared the lamp lollypops for an appetizer followed by the pork chop for an entree and a bottle of wine.  Everything was very tasty! After dinner, Shawna played a few rounds of blackjack and turned $20 into $60 - she was shooting for $100 but Keith was getting bored so we cashed in our chips and headed back to the house!

Dinner at the casino!

Such a great trip to catch up with folks and help out Shawna's mom!!