It has begun. Thought I would begin with a truly auspicious
beginning. The vacation of 2015 honoring
forty years of marriage. Whew. I think I need another cup of coffee.
OK.
The coffee is dripping in its tiny, little, in-room, one-cup-at-a-time
coffee pot way. Chris just rolled over
and asked what time it was (ah, some things are just like at home). We are in
Sulphur, Louisiana, amidst about a hundred refineries and within spitting
distance of interstate 10, which, by the way, we have as yet managed to
avoid.
The vacation part of our day began after
dinner on the grounds at church. Hey, as
I tell the visitors, you gotta eat. At one
point after lunch I told Cory to watch Mama Chris’ reaction. Then I said to Chris, “OK. Let’s go.”
You could see the conflict come over her. Oh, she wanted to go all right, but there was
still food on the table that had to be packed up, and the tables had to be cleaned
off, and the dishes had to be washed, and the trash had to be taken out, and the
air conditioner had to be turned off, and the doors had to be locked, and we
had to be the last ones out. Tired
yet? It must be tough to have that gift
of hospitality. And she’s got it bad (or
wouldn’t that be “good”?).
We stopped by the house to load up
and repeat the whole hospitality process there.
Chris is a stickler about coming home to a clean house. It really didn’t take all that long,
though. We were back on the road by one,
headed for that dreaded ferry line. That’s
always one of the biggest unknowns when your trip takes you in directions
eastward. But in this case we hit the
jackpot. The only holdup was allowing the
last few cars to finish unloading so we could get on. The whole process took less than half an
inning (Hey, the Astros were playing.
Gotta support my team. Who knows
how long before I can check on them again).
Oh, let me translate that into non-baseball terms … maybe a ten minute
wait.
Once we hit Bolivar it became a race
against a storm, one which we lost. The
race, not the storm. It caught up with
us, so we sailed our way through and onto some back roads on our way to … well,
as it turned out, Port Arthur was the next actual city we hit. I think I’ve been there before. Seems there were some Vaughan clan that lived
there. Don’t remember it, though. We made our way over a lot of bridges. A few draw bridges and one really huge one in
Port Arthur. Since we were headed to the
only place on our trip that really required an arrival time (Chris’ sister in
Louisiana), we hit the bridge instead of taking the side trip to Sabine
Pass. (Well, we drove over the bridge,
not actually “hit it”). My Dad was born
in Sabine Pass, and I’m pretty sure it was the site of a Civil War battle, so
it would have been a pilgrimage as well as a good side adventure. We decided to make that one a day trip sometime
in the future.
We found her sister’s house with
little difficulty. Siri knew Louisiana
fairly well, but her Cajun was not that great.
(Hmm. I wonder how many people
way off in the future who will be reading this will understand the iPhone-ish
attempt humor? Wait. The real question is, I wonder if anyone will
be reading this in the future? And if
they do, will they care?). Vonnie’s
house was literally right on the beach.
It had been washed away two or three times already through the years,
but the one there now was really nice.
We sat under the house and watched the waves and the little bunnies playing
in the field next door. Now come on, you’re
dying to say it. Go ahead … aww.
From Cameron, Louisiana, we set our
sights, and our Siri, on our next general goal … the beginning of the Natchez
Trail, which strangely enough is located in Natchez, Mississippi. The Visit at Vonnie’s took a while, though,
so it became quickly apparent that we needed to find a stopping place for the
night. The next major town? Lake Charles, and its booming suburb,
Sulphur. A quick check of the AAA tour
book showed an acceptable hotel or two there, so we on to Sulphur. Didn’t take long before we entered the industrial
capitol of the area. Oil plants
everywhere, and as we neared our destination (faithfully following Siri’s
Louisiana advice) the smell became more and more distinctive. No, it wasn’t the smell of sulphur. It was just as distinctive, though. Burning rubber. That was it.
And sure enough, there to our left was a massive Firestone plant. Gotta love these Siri-led tours of the back
streets. We did find a hotel, though,
and even had time for a nice, romantic supper.
Take-out from the Jack-in-the-Box next door. Now before you get all over me, we did try the
Cracker Barrel first, but the wait was 45 minutes. Besides, Jack in the Box was where we ate our
first meal as a married couple those 40 years ago. Three tacos for 99 cents back in the
day. Now you just get two, but they are
just as greasy. And just as tasty.
Hotel Report: We stayed at Holiday
Inn Express. Our rating: maybe two starfish. The bed was really comfortable, so I’ll give
them that. Chris was asleep by 9
p.m. The clerk made a big deal about how
we get a free breakfast and free wifi.
Someone needs to tell that boy that in the rest of the world, those are
expected amenities nowadays. Two big
issues smashed there rating, though. For
one thing, we had to run the AC down to 66 degrees before we could get the
stuffy feeling out of the air. And there
was no option for the fan to run all the time.
Chris likes to have that droning noise to drown out the perpetual
ringing in her ears. Problem number two
was one that we have never encountered at any hotel we have ever stayed in,
anywhere. There was no shower
curtain. Sad thing is, I didn’t notice
it until I was actually stepping into the tub.
I had to get dressed again and head down to the front desk. He did come right up and hang one for us, but
no shower curtain? Really? For what we paid we should get a shower
curtain as a free gift. Wait. Maybe that’s why there wasn’t one. The last occupants may have felt the same. Well, time to go evaluate the breakfast. And the pool.
We might go do some water exercises in the pool. Or not.
Psalms
27:1 says, “The Lord is my light and my salvation — whom
shall I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life — of
whom shall I be afraid?”
Father, thank you for joining
us. Unlock some interesting things for
us today. Amen.
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