Month: May 2025

Bowie, TX – Day 16: Rust in Peace

Rust in Peace


 
No actual Roadside America picture today, but if the photos here in this post don’t technically qualify, at least for me they sure do.

For the second morning in a row I slept right through my alarm. I have it set for 6:00 AM and I woke up both days at 6:20 without hearing it. It is not like I changed the alarm sound; it is the same one I’ve been using for months, so tonight I’m going to change it to a bugler playing reville.

Kinda wish I could find what they used to play aboard the U.S.S. Midway when I served aboard it in the 70s. They didn’t actually use a bugle, the officer of the deck, at 6 AM would announce, “Reveille, now reville, drop your cocks and grab your socks.” “The smoking lamp is lit in all authorized spaces.” “Sweepers, man your brooms, fore and aft.”

Nowadays, with women serving aboard ships, I wonder how that first phrase could be modified for the female gender?

Hammond – Day 15: Four Forks and a Feeding Frenzy

Sally has been talking about wanting to go to B&J’s Seafood to get a po’boy almost since we got here. But family plans have been getting the preferential treatment so far. There was a moment earlier this week when it could have happened, but the parking lot was overflowing, and even the across-the-street lot was full.

Sweet Heat For Your Meat

It had to happen today because it was our last day in Hammond, and Louisiana. If it didn’t happen, she would have been talking about not getting to eat from there all the way back to Santa Fe, so we broke down and set out early for a meal. She got her soft-shell crab po’boy, and I got one with crawfish. Both are on the cusp of their seasons, hers waning and mine waxing. Killing time while waiting for our order, I perused the plethora of spices, rubs, and seasonings. Sweet Heat For Your Meat stood out, mainly for its package art.

The food there is great, and it is apparently true about not being able to rush greatness, as it took nearly 30 minutes to get our to-go order. At the table in the Airbnb, if you listened carefully, you could hear us actually purring quietly while polishing those sandwiches off. Trouble is now she probably won’t stop talking about how good it was all the way back to Santa Fe.

Tonight’s meal is back at Adele’s with older brother Steve and his wife Janet. For our dessert, we were tasked with picking up a couple of slices of cake from The Cocoa Bean Bakery. Their cakes are beautiful to look at and delicious to eat. Their 9″ cakes feed up to 20 because of their height. Each slice is $4.25, so you do the math on the total cost of that cake. The woman behind the counter asked if we wanted them in two different boxes, and Sally replied, “Don’t bother; we’ll put it in the center of the table, and it’ll be four forks and a feeding frenzy.”

Those po’boys were worth the wait, and the cake was worth the cost.

Hammond – Day 14: Three & A Quarter Meals, Hundred Something Miles

Breakfast: Maybe five miles to go to get my usual morning latte.

Sally and I headed to her mom Adele’s house to pick her up.

World’s Largest Ronald Reagan Statue

Lunch: From Hammond I drove Sally and her mom 20 miles east from Hammond to Covington to have lunch with a couple of old friends from their days at Lakeview Presbyterian Church in New Orleans. I was invited to join them, but was also given the option not to, seeing as I didn’t know them, I opted out. I had something way more interesting to see in Covington, the World’s Largest Ronald Reagan Statue. Less than a 1/4 mile away from Mr. Reagan was a restaurant called Lola’s where I had lunch. I dined on a 1/2 Bostonian sandwich and a bowl of Corn & Crab Bisque. It also included a small side salad of mixed greens with a balsamic vinaigrette. Iced tea to wash it down.

We returned back to Adele’s house just briefly before heading out again.

Afternoon Interlude: We drove over to Adele’s friend Charlotte’s house, maybe 5 miles away, to trade her some (a lot really) plastic food containers that we brought back from Covington for some of her fresh-baked biscotti, which is a big draw for Sally when she’s in Hammond.

We returned back to Adele’s house just briefly before heading out, sans Adele.

Dinner: From Hammond I drove Sally and me 30 miles west of Hammond to Baton Rouge to have dinner with son Stuart and family for the 7-year-old granddaughter’s birthday. The birthday girl pick for our epicurean delight was Central Buffet. Stuart’s wife Christina’s parents were there too. We reintroduced ourselves because the last and only time we had met was twenty-three years ago at their daughter’s and Sally’s son’s wedding.

We returned home to our Airbnb stuffed to the gills, but already planning tomorrow evening’s big dinner with Adele, Sally’s big brother and his wife…