Louisiana

5/26/12 I am naming this post "Louisiana" because we recently spent several days there visiting cruise friends, Jim & Jan Sylvester in Denham Springs, near Baton Rouge. But yesterday we left Louisiana and drove to Natchez, where we have been enjoying the hospitality of the Visitor's Center (excellent), and exploring this historic town. I will report on that in my next post a few days from now. We are here to obtain information about the Natchez Trace. Tomorrow we will probably start driving it, since that will be the end of the holiday weekend and we will have a better chance of having less competition to get a spot in the free campgrounds along the way. In Denham Springs we parked behind the WalMart on Range Ave. which turned out to be a great place because there was a little pond near the edge of the parking lot and there were at least 7 turtles in there, swimming around and sunning themselves on the concrete support beam. It felt like we were at a wildlife refuge. Not much traffic back there either so it was a quiet place to stay. Jim & Jan drove over on Thursday evening for Happy Hour and dinner and we were delighted to see them again. We fixed clam linguine, which is always a big hit.

The next day we drove over to their house to see it, since they have moved since the last time we were here. Their home is a lovely brick structure in a nice community. They have 2 dogs and 3 cats. The 2 little dogs gave us a warm welcome, with the female wearing a little green dress. Later Jim put them in their "box" so they wouldn't snuggle up to Elaine, who has allergies to pets. Here is a picture of them there:

Later we went to a Mexican place for lunch and had a delicious meal:

This post is short because I just wanted to let you know where we were, what our plans are (driving the Natchez Trace to Nashville), and that we are doing fine. Now I will work on the blog about Dubai, which I promised you while we were traveling recently. Additionally, I have gone back and added a few pictures to the previous posts from the ship, so if you are interested, please re-visit those posts.