Back from Louisiana Vacation
Nov. 30th, 2005 10:22 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
billeylerThe 8 days in and around Shreveport Louisiana to visit my relatives was a success!
As I had said earlier, I was a little concerned about heading to Louisiana, but it turns out the worst part of the trip was the motel we stayed at for the first 5 days. We had used the Econolodge about a mile from my mom's house in 2003, since we had an elderly dog to deal with. THIS time, it was foul with roaches, foul from evacuees, noisy from trains and planes and the freeway. On nights 6 and 7 we made the wise decision to move to one of the casino hotels on the river, Sam's Town. What a change! Felt like absolute luxury for $79 a night! Now to see if I can get a refund from hotels.com for the last two nights at the dump...I had cancellation insurance.
Highlights of the trip...
- A great TG day dinner with my family at my sister-in-law's house...not quite a full family reunion, but well-represented.
- A drive 30 miles south to very rural Louisiana to enjoy an in-law family hosted bonfire on Thanksgiving night...the weather was fine, and the sunset was gorgeous. The mosquitos were a huge worry, since they were swarming, but apparently NOT biting. We would have gotten severely lost had not one of my sister-in-laws stopped at the turnoff.
- An excellent day trip to Hot Springs Arkansas, with a side stop in Hope AR to snap some pics of Bill Clinton's boyhood home. I didn't know beforehand Hot Springs was a National Park!
- A fun day trip to Ruston Louisiana to visit my college campus. I had only been there once many years ago after graduating in 1976. There's now a pedestrian mall through the center of campus with ALL the graduating students names since the 1890s on individual bricks. We found mine! Danny was able to enjoy a milk-free pizza for the first time in over 12 years at a place called Pietown Pizza in Ruston, which we just stumbled upon.
- Shopping at the new Bossier Boardwalk, a very upscale riverfront project similar to the Santana Row in San Jose. THIS on the former site of the city dump and derelict near-river 1910-1920 housing. A lot of money was sunk into this project, so I hope it succeeds. Saw Harry Potter movie, which we enjoyed inspite of the feeling of it being severely truncated because of the size of the book. Book 5 will be a real challenge, I'm sure.
- A trip to see my old friend Dale and him playing old 8 MM films of us from 1974-1977. He even showed my wedding reception, which Danny captured as an .avi on his new digital camera! I'm not sure I'm inspired to try to get back down to my stick-figure 150 pounds I was back then.
- Pleasant times with Danny, just reminiscing, and enjoying the warmer weather. It did get up to over 80 the day before the tornado alerts (which hit much further north), but was generally in the high 60s. - - Danny and I made our one pilgrimage to the casino at Sam's Town. He TRIPLED his money at the penny machine! He parlayed his $1.00 investment into $2.97!!! I got my $1 back, that was about it!
- Touring with my brother Steve to see some of his rent houses, most of which he purchased for about $17,000 or less. You can still get fix-up houses and land for less than $10,000!
- Visiting my other brother Bruce's job at the Shreveport Sciport (kids exploratory science center), where Danny was able to play with a lot of the exhibits.
- Several evenings of playing Rummicubs with Danny and my mom. (Bruce wouldn't play).
As expected, my mother's house is still is very sad shape, and indeed the old garage roof has fallen in. It's all very sad that neither of my brothers will do anything toward making the house more livable. Danny and I spent a short amount of time fixing her drapes, but I wasn't that motivated to do much. My brother keeps his poor terrier-mix dog Annie outside all the time now, so she's starved for affection.
The contrast between the three brothers is amazing. Steve is quite the go-getter in a redneck way, and is really fun-loving and charming in a bigoted way. Bruce has big health and emotional issues, and isn't doing much with his life at all, and didn't even see his son over the holiday.
We put 1250 miles on the rental car in 8 days...400 of that just from the drive back and forth from the Dallas airport. We did get tired of driving!
Danny's already talking about our Christmas visit in 2007. Me, I'd start thinking about it MAYBE in the Fall of 2007! Yeesh!
As I had said earlier, I was a little concerned about heading to Louisiana, but it turns out the worst part of the trip was the motel we stayed at for the first 5 days. We had used the Econolodge about a mile from my mom's house in 2003, since we had an elderly dog to deal with. THIS time, it was foul with roaches, foul from evacuees, noisy from trains and planes and the freeway. On nights 6 and 7 we made the wise decision to move to one of the casino hotels on the river, Sam's Town. What a change! Felt like absolute luxury for $79 a night! Now to see if I can get a refund from hotels.com for the last two nights at the dump...I had cancellation insurance.
Highlights of the trip...
- A great TG day dinner with my family at my sister-in-law's house...not quite a full family reunion, but well-represented.
- A drive 30 miles south to very rural Louisiana to enjoy an in-law family hosted bonfire on Thanksgiving night...the weather was fine, and the sunset was gorgeous. The mosquitos were a huge worry, since they were swarming, but apparently NOT biting. We would have gotten severely lost had not one of my sister-in-laws stopped at the turnoff.
- An excellent day trip to Hot Springs Arkansas, with a side stop in Hope AR to snap some pics of Bill Clinton's boyhood home. I didn't know beforehand Hot Springs was a National Park!
- A fun day trip to Ruston Louisiana to visit my college campus. I had only been there once many years ago after graduating in 1976. There's now a pedestrian mall through the center of campus with ALL the graduating students names since the 1890s on individual bricks. We found mine! Danny was able to enjoy a milk-free pizza for the first time in over 12 years at a place called Pietown Pizza in Ruston, which we just stumbled upon.
- Shopping at the new Bossier Boardwalk, a very upscale riverfront project similar to the Santana Row in San Jose. THIS on the former site of the city dump and derelict near-river 1910-1920 housing. A lot of money was sunk into this project, so I hope it succeeds. Saw Harry Potter movie, which we enjoyed inspite of the feeling of it being severely truncated because of the size of the book. Book 5 will be a real challenge, I'm sure.
- A trip to see my old friend Dale and him playing old 8 MM films of us from 1974-1977. He even showed my wedding reception, which Danny captured as an .avi on his new digital camera! I'm not sure I'm inspired to try to get back down to my stick-figure 150 pounds I was back then.
- Pleasant times with Danny, just reminiscing, and enjoying the warmer weather. It did get up to over 80 the day before the tornado alerts (which hit much further north), but was generally in the high 60s. - - Danny and I made our one pilgrimage to the casino at Sam's Town. He TRIPLED his money at the penny machine! He parlayed his $1.00 investment into $2.97!!! I got my $1 back, that was about it!
- Touring with my brother Steve to see some of his rent houses, most of which he purchased for about $17,000 or less. You can still get fix-up houses and land for less than $10,000!
- Visiting my other brother Bruce's job at the Shreveport Sciport (kids exploratory science center), where Danny was able to play with a lot of the exhibits.
- Several evenings of playing Rummicubs with Danny and my mom. (Bruce wouldn't play).
As expected, my mother's house is still is very sad shape, and indeed the old garage roof has fallen in. It's all very sad that neither of my brothers will do anything toward making the house more livable. Danny and I spent a short amount of time fixing her drapes, but I wasn't that motivated to do much. My brother keeps his poor terrier-mix dog Annie outside all the time now, so she's starved for affection.
The contrast between the three brothers is amazing. Steve is quite the go-getter in a redneck way, and is really fun-loving and charming in a bigoted way. Bruce has big health and emotional issues, and isn't doing much with his life at all, and didn't even see his son over the holiday.
We put 1250 miles on the rental car in 8 days...400 of that just from the drive back and forth from the Dallas airport. We did get tired of driving!
Danny's already talking about our Christmas visit in 2007. Me, I'd start thinking about it MAYBE in the Fall of 2007! Yeesh!
