Vacation

Can I Call It A Vacation?

I’ve now been home now for a little for a little over forty hours and I’m already locked into a full home stop mode.

This means that content output here will be back to just sporadic. Which is a shame, because I looked back and the last time I missed a day posting here was December 27th of last year, or thirty-seven days ago. Tomorrow’s SORT post will make it a little under 40 days of posts in a row. Haven’t seen those kind of numbers in quite a while, maybe a dozen years ago?

As to the title of this post, on this last trip, I didn’t know how to tag it. When were were actually driving from point A to B, I used “Road Trip”. When were stationary somewhere, I was tagging them “Vacation.”

So, phycology majors, homework for next week is a 2-page essay on, “If you’re retired, isn’t everyday a vacation?”

Road Trip Day 5 – Paris to Amarillo

A 400-mile, 7 hour driving day that included an actual Dunkin’ store, a Cracker Barrel lunch, a mildly disappointing Buc-ees visit, an almost hotel mix-up and four bits of Roadside America.

Back in May of 2023 on Donna’s and my trip to the Napier’s Hometown we were in the Holiday Inn Express across the street from the Dunkin’ in the travel center. When I went in, I walked back out, because there was only one person behind the counter and too many people in line. This time it was me and Sally staying across the street in a Home2 Suites and I stayed because there were two employees behind the counter and no one in there but me. Turns out I probably should have left, they didn’t get the order right, regular means 3 cream – 3 sugar and all I got was 1 of each.

Cracker Barrel didn’t disappoint even though they didn’t have the Pot Roast dinner I wanted; the Sunday Special was chicken pot pie that put Swanson’s to shame. Sally’s trout was also excellent, but I had to take her word for it because she refused to share, (truth be told, she did offer and I declined.)

Turns out this Buc-ees did not have a car wash (aww..) and there were none of the free circle stickers either (crap!), but the rest was terribly weird as advertised.

I almost did the same thing I did once before on a previous trip with an overnight stay in a Holiday Inn property. While trying to follow the somewhat confusing frontage road situations in Texas I pulled into a Holiday Inn, and before I would have embarrassed myself, I checked the reservation on my phone and realized I was in the Holiday Inn lot and I needed to be on the other side of I-40 Business in the Holiday Inn Express.

We stopped at the Texas Best Smokehouse Travel Center in Henrietta, TX to photograph the Dinosaur Parade there. Next was a Quanah Parker Trail Arrow in the town of Quanah, TX. I was here before with Donna and even though I can find no reference to it the blog, I can say with all assurance that we were here on a previous trip because I remember visiting the museum that is in the same parking lot.

After checking in to the hotel, taking an hour to settle in, we went for a semi-long walk around the hotel area, we hopped in the car and grabbed a couple more Roadside America sites near Amarillo that I had never been to before, the giant Tex Randall Statue in Canyon, TX 20 miles south and the Giant Legs of Amarillo on the way back to the hotel.

Hammond – Day 12

Last day here, tomorrow it’s ‘On the Road Again.’ It has been fun, but it is time to head back to Santa Fe in the state of New, as allowed by a little talked about clause in the same Executive Order that renames the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America.

Today there was an only children lunch out with the birthday girl in Hammond and a late coffee/snack meeting of the grandchildren/cousins in Mandeville leaving yours truly to fend for himself for lunch. When I broached the subject with Sally about my desire to eat the Waffle House once while we were here, she kind of grimaced and said, “We’ll see.” Back in Aiken Donna and would walk to a close by Waffle Hut every other Sunday or so. We would take the Sunday paper 1 to there to split a waffle and a double order of scattered and smoothed hashbrowns. This was my chance.

They must still like me though, even if my food dining choices are eh, as I was invited back for the Hammond 2.0 event in late April so I can drive Miss Salley back to an appointment with her (& Adele’s) Dermatologist.

Hammond – Day 11

My long 2 day nightmare was over, this morning PJs coffee was open so I could get my usual 16oz Decaf Caramel Latte.

Today is actually Sally’s mom Adele’s 98th birthday, which is the reason we are all in Hammond. Tonight’s celebration meal was cooked by Sally’s daughter Claire and was attended by all 3 of her children, her oldest Steve, middle child Susie and the baby Sally. One of Susie’s daughters Allie, Chef Claire and the hangers ons of Steve’s wife Janet and the no relation narrator me.

Adele goes to a local gym called Spoga, which I keep referring to as Spago, three times a week and on her 90th birthday they had promised to get her own parking spot right up front. Well, early this week they surprised her with her sign early.

This morning Sally and I were in Academy Sports to shop the sale racks and on entering we saw these bicycles right up front and kidding said that we should buy one for the birthday girl. If you think your city goes over the top for a holiday or festival, they ain’t got nothing on south Louisiana baby.

Hammond – Day 10

The morning was spent inside, except for my brief outdoor walk around to get the first two photos below. We walked for lunch at Lee’s Drive In, a Hammond institution, because it was just two blocks north of the Airbnb. By the time we left for there at noon the street was almost entirely free of snow. Sally had the chicken topped salad and had a patty melt. And because her mom will probably never read this blog, we split an app of Fried Pickles which were the best I’d ever had.

After that we visited with the Birthday Girl at her house and the roads were pretty much all clear, except for the last 50 yards before turning into her Cul de sac where the trees prevented the sun from doing its radiant energy thing. There was a little bit of sliding there. Talking of New Orleans memories and telling tall stories of past exploits with the granddaughter/daughter Claire.

When Sally and me returned to the Airbnb, had a small dinner, we were both still a little full from lunch, and then watched a movie that had Justin Timberlake in it. Just because when the Airbnb’s host dropped by (see explanation below the photos) she told us that Mr. Timberlake stayed here while filming the movie The Open Road. Unlike last night’s Hallmark Christmas movie with a couple of movie stars in it, this was more like a badly written, poorly filmed and edited one with a bunch of movie stars in it. Closed Captioning might have helped, but I couldn’t figure how to get it on the Fire TV we have. I told Sally that for Friday night one of us picks a movie that they have seen and enjoyed enough to watch a second time. That way, worst case scenario, at least one of us will enjoy the show.

AirBnB

AirBnB
Fleur de Lis

Fleur de Lis
Spiral Staircase

Spiral Staircase
Hydra

Hydra

1) Outside of our Airbnb. 2) Closeup of the fence surrounding the place. 3) The spiral staircase to the 3rd floor loft with bed & bath number three. 4) Hydra.

The last one needs a little ‘splaining. The heat pump worked fine until the hard freezing temps and snow arrived. The night before last when the temps plummeted to single digits it couldn’t keep up and inside the Airbnb it was 53°. The heating contractor come out to fix it right away, so the host gave us a space heater. With it we got the interior up to 61 before bed, but we of course turn the heater off to be safe. This morning it was 51° inside. Our host works at Neil Corporation that trains salon owners and she knew we were still cold, so today she brought over another space heater and this contraption, used for something hair related or what they use to keep hamburgers warm in the cafeteria.

Hammond – Day 9

Ahhh, it snowed here.

The highlight of my day was I did a load of laundry. I have not left the house at all; I took the above picture thru the front window. Wait, that’s maybe not technically correct depending on whether you consider standing on the back porch to take the video below as outside. Sally at least went out a couple times to sweep a path off the front steps and the 2 stairs down. The second time she broomed the snow off the Tucson, so we can maybe take a drive to her mom’s place tomorrow afternoon.

Lot of TV. At lunchtime we watched Nate Bargatze’s stand up Your Friend. At dinner we tuned into the local news and their meteorologist mentioned that this 6″ snow accumulation broke the long-standing record of 1895 for New Orleans. We then tuned into the local ABC affiliate to watch the national news with David Muir and he wasn’t there, it was more expanded local coverage of the Storm of the Century. We had shot of people walking in the snowfall, kids riding in small john boats down the sides of the levees and reporting from the only place that was still open during Snowmagedden, and if you are from the south, you already know who that was, Waffle House. Tonight, for our evening’s entertainment I picked a movie from Netflix, which based on its trailer was a mix-up comedy of errors, called A Family Affair, Starring Nicole Kidman and Zac Efron. Turned out it was a Netflix production that is sort of a Hallmark movie with named stars. It had no theatrical release and about the 3/4 mark it fully morphed into a Hallmark Christmas movie.

Its a Winter Wonderland

Hammond – Day 7

Today dawned cold and breezy so the walk for the morning latte was accomplished walking briskly and cutting diagonally across empty parking lots. I think my plan of getting recognized in PJ’s is not really going to work, this morning one of the two baristas, who was in there on my first two visits early this week, didn’t show anything.

But coincidently, I did get recognized, sort of, in the local grocery story after three visits. Sally and I went out to the local Piggly Wiggly to get some milk for her mom and for us to pick some supplies for hunkering down on Tuesday when the Snowmageddon (2-4 inches) hits here in Hammond on Tuesday. When we got to the cashier, she said, “The kids are back.” Just by chance she was the cashier on our last two visits and remembered the pair of together. I think if we ever go back to the Pig during this visit we should seek her out and get in line even if it is longer than every over one.

We took a visit to Sally’s daughter’s Airbnb on the outskirts of Hammond and it is a wonder. It is well off the main road on a dirt road back in the woods. Appropriately the name of the home is Hobbit House. It would several paragraphs to describe it, so hit this link.

After the house tour, we (Me, Sally, Claire the daughter, and Mom/grandmom Adele) headed south into the Louisiana bayou to a place called Middendorf’s Manchac for lunch. I got the Middendorf’s Special, which is several thin fried catfish fillets piled on a pile of french fries accompanied by two hush puppies and a bowl of cole slaw. I challenged myself to finish this off, and I would have had the hush puppies been any good. I took one bite and it was dry and probably double fried. I’m still digesting it as I write this about 8 hours later.