Our January Trip to Louisiana.....Part 4

Part 1 of our trip is HERE.
Part 2 of our trip is HERE.
Part 3 of our trip is HERE.


So Chris got home from work and off we went to dinner to a place called The Fish River Grill.

"A Funky Junky Redneck Joint" as the menu says.  My kind of place! lol

It's a local casual dining restaurant that serves local seafood which is right up my alley.
They serve something called "Swamp Soup".
An ominous moniker for a food, but it tasted much better than it sounded.  lolz

Every diner gets a free sample cup of it with your dinner. It's basically a greens and beans soup with a hint of sausage.  I'm not a big fan of beans(except the pork and bean kind)and it has beans in it(Great Northern/Navy)but it had a great flavor.  I may have to try to make this some day...maybe the next time I visit my brother because I KNOW his wife will love this sort of thing!

Hubs got a fish dinner and I got a combo fish and oyster platter(which Hubs had to eat about 1/3 of for me).  I love this photo Lorraine took. I was squeezing my lemon on my fish when she snapped it and the lemon squirted Hubs in the eye so his smile turned into a grimace as he hurled an expletive in my direction.
Priceless!

On the way out of the restaurant I spied these colorful plastic miner hats with headlights attached.
The sign said they were crabbing hats.

Is nighttime crabbing a thing?
I spent Summers of my youth crabbing all. day. long.  We used lines of chicken backs on string to lure them in to shore.
But never at night just using lights and a net.

But it seems to be a "thing" down here and the video below is from a crabber in Virginia where I am from so it's a "thing" there too and I never knew that.



Anyway as we drove back to Lorraine and Chris' house I noticed all the Holiday lights in town........

I forgot that it was still the Christmas Season and decorations would be up. lolz
Home and a couple of hours just talking before bed.

The next morning by the time Hubs and I got up Chris was already at work, Lorraine had run a marathon, painted the house, cured cancer AND gone out to a local pastry shop for Donuts, Kolaches, and Sausage Breakfast Pastries for us.
Nom nom nom

And Lorraine had fixed us each up a present.......

A pack of Abita Mardi Gras beer, beads and a mask for Hubs.........

And a bag of red and white striped candies(Red Bird mints, Hershey kisses)a Peppermint Chap Stick and a handmade soap in the shape of a candy plus a small wooden sign to hang in my kitchen.
I LOVE peppermint Chap Stick and I used to always have one in my purse.  I used my last one up about a year ago so this one will be cherished and used......did she know I loved this?  I don't think I've ever blogged about my addiction to peppermint Chap Stick.  I guess she has omniscience as another one of her Super Powers, huh?  8-)

So after a quick photo together, since we hadn't taken one yet...........

Notice I let Lorraine stand on the fireplace hearth to be taller than me in the photo because ya know, I am soooo much taller than her in real life. *snort*

And a blurry photo of  Zoe where her eyes are glowing and she looks possessed......

No kitty photos because basically they hid from us for the two days we were there.  I hear cats tend to do that around strangers.

And back in the rental car we went and headed West to Louisiana.  We still had a 6+ hour drive to the hotel in Shreveport.
We stopped somewhere in Eastern Louisiana for lunch.  It was rainy and Hubs was in a crappy mood because I tried to use a coupon on my Burger King app AND pay with a gift card for his meal and a freebie coupon for my meal I still had from their Xmas promotion.  He gets annoyed so easily.....especially when he needs more coffee.

I just got the so yummy chicken fries, no drink or anything because I didn't want to sit there with him so I just sat in the car by myself for awhile.
Can you tell from my chicken fries selfie I am annoyed with him? lol

So back on the road with another pit stop somewhere between Baton Rouge and Alexandria, at a McDonald's with the nastiest bathroom I've seen since the Summer of 1999 on a trip down to see my family and we stopped at THE WORST BATHROOM OF ALL TIMES.  There was also a convenience store attached.

3 pennies found by the Mickey D's registers and 1 penny found in the  convenience store while Hubs waited on his coffee order.
I also saw locally made pork rinds.........

And this soda........

Delaware Punch soda.
I'm 60+ years old and I've never seen this soda before.
It's a grape fruit(not a grapefruit)punch flavor, not carbonated and not caffeinated.
I say, "What's the point of it then?". lolz

Seems it can be found in parts of Arkansas, Louisiana and around EasternTexas and was invented in 1913 by Thomas E Lyons.  Ya learn something new every day.

Just one more stop for gas and for potty time outside of Chopin LA.  The bathroom was the size of a broom closet and the door knob was in peril of falling out of the door and there was no lock but this place seemed to do a booming business mostly in fried chicken and booze sales.  Well it was a late Friday afternoon so most places do a brisk booze business at that time/day.

We got into the Best Western in Shreveport at 4 something pm.
After checking in and unloading the car we headed back out to meet our older son(who flew in from Virginia), daughter, her fiancé and a couple of his friends at a local Brewery at 5 pm.

They were running some sort of Holiday promotion and were giving out envelopes with prizes in them for every beer you ordered.
Hubs and I paid for this gathering(my daughter's idea of a pre-wedding dinner as there was no rehearsal)and we all won brewery stickers like pictured above, 50% off food items, money off your next beer, and stuff like that.
I gave the 50% food coupon I won to my daughter since we wouldn't be coming back here anytime soon. ;-)

Hubs, our eldest and the fiancé's friend enjoying their brewskis.

They also had live entertainment(a singer/guitar solo act)which was pretty good though we were sitting a little too close as conversing was difficult with the noise level.

Everybody ate and drank and had a good time.  Hubs and I left around 10 pm as we were beat and needed a good night's sleep as the wedding was the next day.


Sluggy

May 2015 Louisiana Road Trip Part 1 OR I am Almost a Country Star

"I always seem to stumble onto some weird shit."--Sluggy

Mid May of this year and we were off on another road trip to see our daughter in Louisiana.

Up and on the road bright and early on Sunday May 17th it took just about 2.5 hours to get out of PA and cross over into the South..........

Last year's trip we took I-81 all the way down into Tennessee, then down into Alabama, across Mississippi and west through Louisiana.  This year we decided to take a bit of a different route to LA as we wanted to spend some time in Kentucky this trip.

We took I-81 into Maryland and then picked up I-68 West into West Virginia.

 

 

Maryland sign as we left.
Sorry we won't be back for a couple of weeks! ;-)

Another 1.5 hours and we were in West Virginia.....

While driving down I-81 we always see many large crosses along the highway, going across I-68 we see a fair share of gigantic American flags too......

We were getting mighty hungry by the time we hit Morgantown, WV so we got off the road to find something to eat for lunch.

We saw a sign for some chain restaurant that wasn't too nasty but we missed it once we got off the exit and ended up driving for miles.
Then we drove back toward the interstate and saw this place right across from a mall so we went with it......

Schmitt's Saloon and Davisson Brothers Music Hall.
I figured Hubs could get a nice brew and we could get something fried or "bad for us" to eat.

If I only knew......

As we approached the door to the place we say this big sign posted on the door........

Attention
This event is being filmed, videotaped and/or photographed.  By being present at this event each person in attendance irrevocably consents to being filmed, videotaped and/or photographed and releases all producers and users of such fill, videotape or photograph from any liability for loss or damages.....yadda  yadda yadda.

WTF?

So we go inside and hope for the best.

Seems we stumbled upon a real life saloon and music hall(with a stage and theater lighting)venue for live bands.  Supposedly the "premiere live band venue in West Virginia".

 

 

 

A wall of posters by the bathrooms from past local and national country acts that have played this hall.

So we go in anyway and get a table across from the bar and a waitress in a denim miniskirt comes over and slaps down a couple of menus that have the heading "Event Menu" on them.
Event Menu??
The plot thickens......

The menu has about 9 items on it so we choose a couple of burgers, Hubs gets a beer and I stick to iced tea.

It's a Sunday afternoon and we have great fun looking at the small crowd in this here bar.

Hubs loved the couple at the bar......a 40ish guy trying to look 20 years younger with his wrinkled up also trying to pass for 20 skinny gal friend dressed in white pants so tight seam failure was always seconds away.  I counted that this guy drank 6 beers in the almost an hour we were there.

At about beer round #5 said gal friend actually fell off her bar stool.  Nobody batted an eye.
Just a day in the life of a bar fly I suppose.

My favorite was the one I dubbed "Rastafarian WV Granny".  Now picture this--an old, almost toothless white woman wearing glasses, dressed in an almost see through granny nightgown and bedroom slippers with ta-tas that hadn't seen a bra in decades with Rastafarian dirty blonde dreadlocks.  I think she got lost and wandering out from a nearby trailer park and was looking for the way back home.

She must have shuffled back and forth by our table 20 times in the short while we were at Schmitt's.

I thought about getting a photo of her but the flash would have tipped her off and besides I just tried NOT to make eye contact every time she shuffled by. 
These are exactly the kind of people who take a "shine" to me and decide to just come over to me, a complete stranger, and strike up a conversation like we have been pals for years.  I just didn't want to take that chance today......

As we waited on our burgers, the emcee got up on stage at the mike and said their FunFest show for today was starting and they had 3 bands on today's program.   And then he added that after the show they were going to film a music video for county singer Scott Shelby and that is why that sign was on the front door.

The emcee continued that they needed more people in the saloon so asked everyone to call or text their friends to come on down around 4pm and they could all be in the official music video for the title track of Shelby's new album, "Still Got It".

I begged Hubs to let us stay and hang around for the filming of the video but he didn't want to be driving late into the night.  But wouldn't it be cool to be able to tell people that I was in a music video for some real life country singer?  8-)))

And with that, a band began playing music and the girl singer started wailing into the mike.
I decided to take a clandestine bit of video while the crowds milled around and Hubs played on his phone.  That video is HERE.

After nobody seemed to notice and shut me down I took another short bit of video.....



This band is called "Trial by Fire".  They have a Facebook page HERE.

The guy on the right with the orange guitar got my attention with the first tune they played.  He put his guitar backwards behind his head and shredded during their first number.
Now THAT takes talent.....

HERE is another proper video of another of the songs they do.

We ate while the band played on and then we left before the other two bands took the stage and totally missed the opportunity to become famous via music video.
Oh well.....easy come easy go. lolz

Here's the website for singer Scott Shelby

And here is the music video that was filmed at Schmitt's that day after we left.  They hardly even show the audience/crowd so maybe it was a good thing we let this one go by.  I bet the next opportunity for fame and fortune are just around the corner......ya, that's it......



We got back onto the Interstate and made tracks ourselves.....tracks for Huntington, WV where we were to stop for the night.

Only problem was, the stretch of highway between Morgantown and Huntington WV wasn't conducive to me keeping food down.  Somebody should have warned me that this stretch of interstate was rather twisty and hilly.   And I'm not talking regular twisty and hilly.

I have since dubbed West Virginia, "The Land of Roller Coasters".  On that day it sure felt like I was on a gigantic roller coaster without end, holding onto a plastic bag in case my lunch wanted a repeat performance.
I did manage not to hurl but was I ever glad when we hit Morgantown and could get off the highway.

Here are a couple of photos I snapped with my free hand when the waves of nausea weren't rolling like the road.....

That's Roanoke WV, not Roanoke VA.

 Angry clouds matching my nauseous stomach rumblings......

 

And I SWEAR this is about the only FLAT stretch of road that day.......but it was twisty and curvy......sigh.....

We had a reservation for the Quality Inn on Route 6 leading into Huntington.
$89.60 for 1 night in a rundown "seen better days" Quality Inn with no amenities outside of a pretty bad free breakfast.

We stashed the luggage and went out in search of dinner as it was getting dark.  I wasn't too hungry still but Hubs was famished.

We opted for a Bob Evans tucked into the other edge of town past Marshall University rather than attempting some of the places blogger buddy Jay had recommended.   My stomach needed bland and boringly predictable food........

My grilled chicken came with a flag stuck into it so I had a little fun in the near deserted dining area......I embarrass Hubs everywhere we go.......

By the time we finished our meal and headed back to the motel it was pitch dark and our GPS "Vicki" was still having seizures--shutting down suddenly and then reviving long enough to bark out directions that made little sense before shutting down or recalculating yet again.
"Vicki" was not earning her keep on this trip.....

So we tried to find our way back up Route 6 despite a bunch of one way roads that confused Hubs even more in the dark.

A cool retro neon sign outside a bus station.

The Marshall U. sign I snapped right before Hubs took a wrong turn down a one way road....!!!

Yep, I noticed that there were headlights coming toward us from a distance and they were from ALL the driving lanes and that is how I figured out he was going the wrong way down a one way street.
Well, that and the headlights started flashing at us.

So we ducked into a driveway and waited for the traffic to pass and made a turn and went back down the road in the correct direction.

I guess we are just too old to drive in a town we aren't familiar with at night.......well, that plus I was still between cataract surgeries.....

We made it back to the room safe and sound after that and dare not go anywhere until daylight.
It sure wouldn't have been much fun to meet our end on a dark road in West Virginia.
Besides I can't squeal like a pig very well.....





Sluggy

 

April Louisiana Road Trip.....Day Two (Very Long with Many Photos)

We were up bright and early at our hotel in Bull's Gap TN.
I so enjoy saying that name....lolz

By the time Hubs got into the shower the hot water was nonexistent, poor thing.
This is why I always try to take my shower the night before when traveling....

The hotel free breakfast was pretty good.  No "meat/protein" other than Sausage gravy for putting over biscuits which I don't care for but they had oatmeal and actual hot water to pour over it so I was good to go.

Hubs mentioned at check-out about the lack of hot water in the shower and the front desk person gave him a 20% discount for the next time we stay here.
Not really on our regular route so not such a great thing. lol

Since we aren't booked ahead for lodgings except for while we are in Louisiana, we aren't on a hard time deadline.  We can go and do what we feel like each day, as long as we are making progress toward our destination in LA.
While I detest not having hotels booked and secured(control freak much?), I do enjoy the travel and sightseeing freedom that comes with "freestyling".

We decided to check out a sight nearby before we blew this part of Tennessee.

We drove into Greenville Tennessee.  This was the adopted home of President Andrew Johnson.
He was born in a log cabin in Raleigh North Carolina but his father died when he was 3 so his mother worked as a laundress to support the family.  They were my kind of folks.....early American "white trash".   His mother apprenticed him and his older brother William to a local tailor but they ran away after some time.
Eventually Andrew made his way to Greenville Tennessee and was married here at age 18 and the rest is history.

Greenville is proud of their famous son, with many MANY businesses named for him.
You can cash a check at the Andrew Johnson Bank, buy liquor at the Andrew Johnson Spirits store, and then hole up in the Andrew Johnson Inn and sleep off your drunk.

Ok, so that's not such an illustrious example of all sites AJ in Greenville.....

Hey look!
Another "Rent-to-Own" Shed business!!

 

 

After driving through town we got to where we were headed for our 1st stop of the day....wanna guess what we were going to see?

The birthplace of Davy Crockett.  You remember the song, don't you?

 

Seems to me David Crockett was the last honest politician who was known more for other accomplishments than for being a bureaucrat.

Sluggy calling the family in for dinner at a replica of Davy's boyhood home.  You can tell Hubs took this shot as he cut off part of the cabin. lol

 The cabin interior was barred off and dark but with the camera flash, all was revealed......

 The "dining area" of the one room cabin.  There was a sleeping loft you couldn't view.

The backside of the cabin with a garden area to the right.

We didn't have time to go over to the nice new museum across the way(and it might not have even been open we were up and out so early, but we did some reading on these informational boards and shot some photos while an ornery bee attempted to sting us.

Davy was a very interesting fellow with a large sense of justice.

This led him to eventually oppose Andrew Jackson and his policy of Creek Indian annihilate.  He stood alone in Congress against the President and as a result lost his seat in the next election.  I feel that was the last time of man with morals was ever in Washington D.C.

Davy ended up taking part in the Texas Revolution.

That whole Alamo thing didn't end very well for him......

An old concrete monument between the cabin and the nearby creek.

 Another monument  between the cabin and the museum, constructed in the 20th century.

This site is VERY out of the way and the signage pointing your way is easily missed.

As a result it is very quiet with no crowds(we were the only ones there on our visit).

There is a shelter with picnic tables down by the creek(a branch of the Nolichucky River) and it was very peaceful down there.  Had it been later in the day we would have brought a picnic lunch to eat at this spot.

 

On the way out of town, we stopped at a local liquor store to check it out.

While Hubs bought a few more bottles of TN whiskey, I posed for a photo with my new BFF Popcorn Sutton......

 

 

"White whiskey" my ass.....that there's moonshine!

 

We bid Davy, Andy and Popcorn adieu(for now)and found our way back onto the Interstate.

We knew we were getting close.....

Another 45 minutes and we were on the road leading into Gatlinburg TN.

The annoying ginormous billboards were one clue we were getting close.  That sign was advertising the Hattfield & McCoy Dinner Show.

WTF?!? lolz

Chocolate Monkeys?? Hmmmm.....

The road into Gatlinburg has changed ALOT since we camped in the Smokey Mountains National Park as a family back in 1997......

 

Not a very good place to park a boat, I must say!

I didn't know they had gorillas in Tennessee?

I forgot to take a shot of this monkey when we headed back out of town to the interstate.  It's positioned so that you can take a real nice big close-up shot of King Kong's ASS.....LOLZ

These were but 2 examples of big overblow schlocky "entertainment venues" on the road between Sevierville and Gatlinburg.  If you get off the main drag there is Dollywood too.

None of this was here back in the 1990's when we stayed here.

I find this all very sad that Americans can't go to a place of natural beauty without turning it into this.

Are we so easily bored by being out in nature that we need bigger and bigger rides, movies, shows to entertain us when we aren't glued to our smartphones?!?

*Sigh*

Enough of that mess.....

Not soon enough we were in the park and looking at beautiful scenery for a change......

 

We were headed to our next stop in Gatlinburg TN.

After paying a highway robbery price of  $8 to park we headed into the rain to go here......

No, we weren't here for the scenery......

 Though I did like this vintage repro poster......

Tampons for men?

Yes, please.....

No, we were here to take this picture......

.....taste Tennessee sippin' whiskey and haul off 2 BOXES of booze!

 

Since last August we have been jonsing to get back to TN for some whiskey.  And you can only find this Davy Crockett brand in Eastern Tennessee. 
Yes, Davy, we meet again......

We only relieved the Barrelhouse of 9 bottles of whiskey and a few trinkets as well.
Only 1 bottle didn't make it back as my daughter claimed it.

 Of all the alcohol we tasted these 3 were my favorites.....the Salted Caramel Whiskey, the Wildfire Cinnamon Cream Liquer and the Sassafras Moonshine.

I know a cinnamon cream whiskey sounds a bit odd and unappetizing, but trust me, it is AWESOME!
I went there thinking I'd like the PECAN flavored Whiskey but it tasted like pecan shells to me. lol

So after lugging heavy boxes to the car, we set off in the rain across the street for a late lunch at Shoney's.
They had a real nice buffet deal for $10 with some non-fried schlock so we loaded our bellies up.....trying to absorb all that alcohol we had just ingested before getting back on the highway.

On the way back down the highway from hell to the interstate we made a stop......

At a Russell Stover Store.
I had never seen one of these before.
So I go in, and it's the week before Easter, so the place is LOUSY with Easter themed chocolates.....Bunnies, chicks, crosses, that sort of thing.

And the prices?
As high as any you see in Macy's, the drugstores and even the Evil Empire.
But a vast variety of items they don't carry in those stores.

You know I am NOT about to pay regular retail for anything, even tempting chocolate if I can help it.
So I spy at the back of this HUGE building a section without all the fancy trappings and special lighting and decorations.
I walk back and it's a part of the store reserved for the reject candies.
You know, the overruns that didn't sell, the stuff going out of date(out of date chocolate? NEVER!lol), chocies in specific holiday containers from holidays past that didn't sell, etc.

And the prices?
Let's just say they were much lower than the crap being sold in the front of the store! lolz

So I picked up some of this, some of that.....

Some was BOGO, some was $6.99 a box.

I passed on the Valentine's Day hearts and Christmas overruns but I got this ginormous 3 lb. box of BLOOPERS.....

It wasn't even $12.99 as marked but only $9.99.
When is the last time you got 3 lbs. of Russell Stover chocolates for $10?

Ok, so they weren't anything to look at as they just smushed them all together in a box without those fancy wrapper cups but hey, for $10, I'll close my eyes and eat the not-purty rejects thankyouverymuch.

A few of the "presentable" boxes I gave away as presents on this trip but much of it came home with me.
Bad Sluggy, Bad!

After dropping $50+ on chocolate *Yikes!* (ok, so this was NOTHING compared to the amount of money Hubs dropped on liquor this trip)we got back on the interstate.

We took a pit stop at a rest area and lookie who I saw!

Dolly was hanging out trying to drum up business for her amusement park....

 You just never know who you are going to meet when you are traveling, do you?

Thankfully no one besides us was in the rest area then so I could get all friendly with Dolly and not feel self-conscious.

Comparing "assets".
You win Dolly!!!


After using the facilities, we drove until it got dark and we needed to stop for the night.
We found a Choice hotel right off the interstate on the highway we needed to go down the following day toward our next destination.  The front desk clerk was real nice and found us a discount too so we paid less than $50 for the night.

After we got settled in, we went across the road for a small something to eat, and when I say small, I really mean it!
We went here for dinner.

 

 Krystal.
The South's answer to White Castle.

The food behind me may look huge but trust me, it's done with mirrors or something because this is what it looks like when you get it.....

This is $14 worth of burgers, hot dogs, fries and drinks for 2.  One grown man could eat all this and have room for more. lolz
But that's fine because we had a large healthier lunch and didn't want anything much.

We got the Krystal Sampler.....it came with a Krystal cheeseburger, a chicken sandwich, a corn pup(not big enough to be a dog lol), a chili pup, a small fries and a drink.

I have to laugh because Hubs saved his chili pup for last.  You see, it came in a normal sized Styrofoam box(see it behind my burger and chicken containers?)so he was thinking he'd eat all the miniature food first and then eat the chili dog.
You should have seen the look of disappointment on his face when he opened that box!! lolz
The chili dog was about 4 inches long. and most of that was bun.

They really need to put a disclaimer on their floor to ceiling photo I posed with above, that "food is not as large as it appears".  ;-)

After finishing our miniature food we headed across the street to Baskin Robbins for some dessert.
What the heck.....it had rained all day since leaving Greenville TN, it was getting cold and we were on vacation.
We needed a treat.

Ice Cream that meets the Spidey seal of approval.

Hubs looks like a pouty little kid in this one.....his cone is twice the size of his scoop!

Some 20 something disheveled, squirrely acting guys came in and all I could think was they were going to pull weapons out of their shirts and rob and kill us and the girls working the counter.
When they didn't and the girls working the counter started working the guys(hehehe) my anxiety passed and I decided that now was a good time to try taking a selfie.....

The "Hey! you wanna piece of me?" look....

The "trying to get the camera button pushed & keep it pointed at me at the same time, so I can't worry about my expression" look....

The crazy eyed Sluggy.....

Going for the come hither look and failing.......

And I have no CLUE what this expression was all about. lolz

By the time we finished my teeth were chattering and we headed back to the motel room.
Hubs dug out his new bottle of Davy(premium none of that flavored stuff)to warm up and we called it a night.

The following day was to be jam packed with adventures as well.

Stay tuned for Day Three.....

Sluggy