astra domain was triggered too early. This is usually an indicator for some code in the plugin or theme running too early. Translations should be loaded at the init action or later. Please see Debugging in WordPress for more information. (This message was added in version 6.7.0.) in /home2/travel84/public_html/wp-includes/functions.php on line 6121Saturday was St. Patrick\u2019s Day. We wanted to get the makings of a car bomb, Guinness and Baileys, but it was way too problematic, so we settled for wearing our St. Pat\u2019s Day earrings that Alex\u2019s girlfriend Amanda had given us two years before. <\/p>\n
We felt very festive! Thank you again, Amanda Kincade!<\/p>\n
We cycled madly home from the Museum, changed faster than two winks, and flew over to Erika\u2019s next door.<\/p>\n
To celebrate Erika\u2019s daughter\u2019s seventeenth birthday, \u201cthe girls\u201d were heading out to Lafayette for ear piercing and a Chinese buffet. After we got a tour of Erika\u2019s house and appreciated all the changes she\u2019s made over the prior few months, Erika collected Amanda (her daughter), Megan (her son\u2019s girlfriend, now living with them), and met us in the car. <\/p>\n
First stop was Wal-Mart for Megan and Amanda\u2019s ear piercing. While Chelsea captured it on film, I slipped off to find packing tape and trail mix for our imminent trip to South Carolina. I was back for the main event, though, watching as the earrings were punched into the ears<\/a>. We were very honored to be a part of the process!! But the day had just begun. We still had a quick stop to meet Heuetta at her son Kenney\u2019s house, where Peggy came by to say hello and goodbye, followed up by a stop at Heuetta\u2019s boyfriend\u2019s place. <\/p>\n We met up with Tim and took off for the main course of the day, dinner at Hong Kong Buffet.<\/p>\n Dinner was just what you\u2019d expect. Great food, great atmosphere, and we all ate ourselves silly. Tim provided a memorable and humorous counterpoint for the meal by spilling his dish of melted butter for the crab legs not once but twice! <\/p>\n By the second spill the waitress was ruthlessly teasing him.<\/p>\n Talk about a greasy mess\u2026I was glad I wasn\u2019t sitting next to him, because I would have managed to get some on myself somehow. I know how that<\/em> works\u2026 <\/p>\n Our days had been filled with goodbyes lately. This was no exception \u2013 we wouldn\u2019t be seeing Heuetta before we left, as she was spending Sunday in Lafayette. That was sure a tough goodbye! <\/p>\n We are going to make absolutely certain that Heuetta comes to visit us somewhere<\/em> over the years.<\/p>\n Erika, Amanda, Megan, Chelsea and I piled back into Erika\u2019s car for the trip back to Gueydan. <\/p>\n If you think the day was over yet, you\u2019d be wrong.<\/p>\n Erika\u2019s been having a tough time lately with a painful divorce. We think she\u2019s doing extremely well under the circumstances. <\/p>\n She\u2019s lost weight, she has a job, she looks healthy, her hair and skin look great, she\u2019s got a potentially nice relationship on the horizon, and she\u2019s more outgoing than we\u2019ve ever seen her.<\/p>\n That being said, she still has a need every now and then for a pick-me-up. Since we\u2019d last seen her she\u2019d gotten her first tattoo. She now wanted a small, simple butterfly on her wrist, and she wanted it now<\/em>.<\/p>\n While Chelsea looked up tattoo parlors on her Droid X, Erika talked herself into the tattoo. With directions to the tattoo parlor up on Chelsea\u2019s phone screen, we wasted no time getting there. <\/p>\n Watching the whole process of the tattoo was fascinating. The parlor was very clean and upbeat, with very professional tattoo artists. <\/p>\n Walk-ins kept the artists busy almost nonstop even though, or maybe because, this was Saturday night. <\/p>\n Erika first had to pick her design, which she did by slowly browsing hundreds of designs tacked up on the walls. Once the decision was made, she paid the fees and was put in line to be done.<\/p>\n I hung out on deliciously comfy couches watching a large muted color TV up on the wall and chatting with other folks who were waiting for friends or relatives to finish, meeting some unusual characters. <\/p>\n The girls all browsed designs, deciding what they\u2019d<\/em> have if it was their<\/em> choice.<\/p>\n To our collective delight, the guy doing Erika\u2019s tattoo allowed us all to troop in and watch the whole process. He even let Chelsea document it in photos<\/a> as long as she didn\u2019t take any photos of proprietary designs. How cool is that?<\/p>\n Neither Chelsea nor I had ever seen a tattoo done, though back in 2008 we watched Alex\u2019s then-roommate go through the process of getting a full back (top to bottom, side to side) color tattoo of the Grim Reaper, complete with scythe.<\/p>\n John would be worked on for several hours at a time, then have to heal before going back again.<\/p>\n We were totally intimidated by the obvious discomfort he felt, by the red weeping skin with its pinprick drops of blood popping out, and by the restrictions on bathing and swimming and clothing that John had while he was getting all the stages completed. <\/p>\n I\u2019m happy to report it wasn\u2019t anything like that with Erika. In less than an hour she was out the door with her delicate new butterfly tattoo sporting a thin cover of medicated salve under a slim bandage. Erika was thrilled.<\/p>\n If you think that now<\/em> we were done for the day, you\u2019d be wrong yet again. <\/p>\n Still waiting in the lineup of stops to be made was a trip to Wal-Mart in Abbeville, where Chelsea and I bought supplies for the long trip to South Carolina, followed by a long-awaited trip to a drive-through daiquiri place.<\/p>\n Though we can at long last check that off our bucket list, the daiquiri was disappointingly flat and far too syrupy-sweet. I guess we\u2019ll have to try again another time. <\/p>\n Finally back at the trailer, we were too wound up by then to sleep so we tackled our champagne project.<\/p>\n Back in 2009, when we were optimistic beyond belief, I bought a bottle of Korbel Brut champagne on sale at Costco, saving it to drink when my first book was finished. I resolutely kept it in the refrigerator through all our ups and downs.<\/p>\n As time went by we inherited two additional bottles from move jobs Chelsea went on with our neighbor Ivar. I resolutely saved those as well and stored them properly. <\/p>\n Completely unwilling to let go of my vision, I carefully packed those three bottles of champagne, heavy and breakable though they were, and brought them along with us to Gueydan, transferring the heavy box from vehicle to vehicle as needed.<\/p>\n Now we were leaving once again on a car trip and I couldn\u2019t bear the thought of lifting that heavy box any longer. I decided it was time to celebrate all our accumulated accomplishments and open the champagne.<\/p>\n I\u2019ll cut to the chase and say it wasn\u2019t what we expected. The old bottles we\u2019d inherited had gone bad long since. The only decent one remaining was our Korbel Brut from 2009. <\/p>\n What can I say? We drank it all up from our Wet Willie\u2019s plastic Mudslide cups and had fun doing it. We got a bit weepy and homesick but I figured that was okay after all we\u2019d been through.<\/p>\n Though we\u2019d had a daiquiri and finally had our bottle of champagne, we never did get our Guinness and Bailey\u2019s car bomb on St. Pat\u2019s Day. <\/p>\n Who needed it by then? There\u2019s always next year.<\/p>\n We\u2019d made arrangements to see Lynn and Hansford after church on Sunday, but Lynn was called out on a job. It was just as well for us since we had so much maneuvering to do in getting our things packed into our pesky, tiny panniers.<\/p>\n We did laundry and all manner of last minute things, cleaned the trailer, packed our day bag for the truck, and got our trip food ready.<\/p>\n In the midst of our packing and cleaning our good buddy Donny visited us from Oak Grove for an hour or two. Donny and Chelsea talk regularly by phone so they stay up on what\u2019s happening in each other\u2019s lives, but there\u2019s truly nothing quite like face time.<\/p>\n That Sunday was one of the gorgeous-weather days, and since the trailer is so small, we met outside on the back patio with Donny, his friend Rick, and Kenneth. <\/p>\n Only a few minutes into our visit a nephew of Kenneth\u2019s came by on horseback for a visit, bringing along a group of others on horseback. <\/p>\n
\n<\/p>\nDinner at Hong Kong Buffet<\/h1>\n
Butterfly Tattoos<\/h1>\n
Champagne Project<\/h1>\n
Last Day in Town<\/h1>\n