Gigi’s in Cameron, Louisiana
Our friend at the Wildlife Center, Sarah, highly recommended Gigi’s, and we were really really hungry when we got there, so it should have been a really good experience, and besides, Cameron is small and I didn’t see any other options.
Interior:
View out towards Gulf:
Have I mentioned, only a thousand times, how fabulous the weather is? It’s seventy-something and like zero humidity. It doesn’t even matter that we are eating outdoors; the weather is perfect.
We order.
Honestly, when did I become a squeamish woman? Certainly not my early years in Tunis, and Amman, when we had to strain the weevils out of our flour and pasta. But as I watched a fly try to get into the ketchup through the tip of the dispenser, I sort of lost my appetite. The other problem is that AdventureMan and I really try to eat sensibly; we’re not extreme, every now and then we have something fried, but the food in Louisiana is rich, we haven’t seen a lot of vegetables, and when our food arrived – so much food – I couldn’t begin to eat it all. I ate about half my shrimp and an onion ring. The shrimp was really fresh.
AdventureMan had fried shrimp and catfish. He said it was really good. He also couldn’t eat it all.
Cameron isn’t very big.
But this is really fun. A $1. ferry!
And guess which parking space we got? And when we got into the space, there were dolphins, lots and lots of dolphins, no, porpoises, and oh, they were having such a good time in the sunlight.
Dolphins are not that easy to photograph . . . .
We keep seeing these wonderful signs to tell us we are still on the right trail 🙂 This ferry ride was a Louisiana Lagniappe (a little something extra!)
The Creole Nature Trail! At Last!
We were all ready to hit this trail once before, but weather forecasts for the week we had it planned were full of thunderous storms and lots of rain, so we postponed.
This time, circumstances all came together fortuitously. AdventureMan had a conference in nearby Baton Rouge, and the temperature and humidity dropped dramatically. We had clear skies, no mosquitos, and glorious weather. As we left the Coffee Call in Baton Rouge, we were grinning from ear to ear.
You gotta love these smart phones. Better than a map for letting you know where you are and where you can turn off to get where you want to go. We wanted the Creole Nature Trail, which is a loop, Louisiana Road 27.
Shortly after we started down LA 27, we came to a US Fish and Wildlife Station, and there we met Sarah, who was a Student Conservation Associate, working for several months at the site. She had all kinds of good information, and was delighted to share with us. We laughed; she told us she was from “the other LA”, Los Angeles, and she had experienced culture shock coming to the backroads of Louisiana, but she had adjusted, learned a lot, and she loves the place.
This is their website: Southwest Louisiana National Wildlife Refuge Complex.
We started at Cameron Prairie, which had a three mile drive and a stop with a one mile boardwalk. The boardwalk was gorgeous, and beautifully kept.
As AdventureMan focused on some alligators, I enjoyed the birds, and the colors:
We don’t know what this bird might be. It was huge. Maybe a Red Shouldered Hawk.
We had the park entirely to ourselves, except for one car that came – and left! We could have spent hours, but it was after lunch time when we left, and we were hungry!
Meeting For Lunch on the Bayou Texar
We are having a streak of amazing weather, cool cool nights with lovely mornings and warm, but not steaming afternoons. Yesterday, on the way back from lunch, we saw a gathering of hundreds of pelicans on Bayou Texar, munching away on whatever was plentiful at that neck of the Bayou. I really like pelicans; refugees from another era, looking like little pterodactyls . . .
Headless Horseman at Pensacola Ballet
Today is a day to make the heart joyful. Yesterday, we had thunder and lightning, so much that my water aerobics class was cancelled and I made that drive for nothing. Even when the sun came out, hours later, there was so much water soaked into the ground, the evaporation made it feel hotter than it really was.
The best part of the whole day was knowing we were headed to the opening of the Ballet Pensacola Season last night.
Who knew when we came to Pensacola that there would be so many fun things to do? And that we would have the time to try them all? Pensacola has an Opera, a Symphony, many many parades, some kind of fest, normally featuring seafood and/or art, and sometimes also the sugar white sands, wine and/or rock bands almost every month, AND the Ballet Pensacola.
Nothing about the Ballet Pensacola is ordinary. Ballet Pensacola has a husband wife team, artistic director Richard Steinart and his wife Christine Duhon, the ballet mistress, who also does the costumes. Her costumes are often spectacular. Lance Brannon does the sets which are are often minimalist and always wonderfully creative. You know public arts are almost totally public and community supported, you know they must have a tricky budget to work with but the sets and costumes are wondrous to behold.
We were debating whether The Headless Horseman would be a good ballet for our four year old grandson. AdventureMan thought it might be scary. There is a witch, a wonderfully convincing witch. There is a guy with no head. There is a skeleton horse. I countered that he sees worse on his cartoons with Spiderman and BatMan and whoever those heroes are that “Assemble!” The Headless Horseman is a lot of fun; it even looks like the dancers are having a lot of fun with it, and of course, there is this incredible skeleton. We leave our evenings at Pensacola Ballet delighted.
One of the things we love about the ballets this team creates is that it isn’t easy to get most men to love ballet, but many of the ballets they do have appeal to men – The Matrix, Dracula – they are not dainty ballets, but strong, dramatic ballets. In addition, they are, as I said, a lot of fun. When we offer up tickets we can’t use to our son and his wife, they jump at the chance. I want to make Nutcracker an annual event, but I recognize that if I want grandchildren who will love the dance, I will be likely to take them to some of this stronger stuff. We already have an extra ticket for Ali Baba, coming up in the Spring, so our grandson can come with us.
It was still warm when we left the theatre, but this morning it is like we are living in a different place.
The air conditioner is OFF! The windows are open! Fresh clean air is flowing through the house, the sun is shining without wilting anything, and, thanks to yesterday’s rain, the entire world looks fresh and clean and welcoming! The fun times begin in Pensacola, the cooler weather has arrived!
Why Not Pensacola?
Big article in AOL news about Dan Gilbert going to Silicon Valley to pitch moving their offices to Detroit because it’s way cool.
Excuse me?
While I appreciate his loyalty to Detroit, the things he is pitching all apply to Pensacola – AND. And in Pensacola you don’t have harsh winters. And in Pensacola you are minutes from one of the most beautiful sugar-white sand beaches, uncrowded, in the world. And Pensacola is family oriented. And Pensacola has affordable housing. And Pensacola has a way-cool culture, with parades, symphony, ballet, opera, theatre and restaurants, and world class National Naval Aviation Museum. And people spend thousands of dollars to come visit Pensacola when they could be living the dream – in Pensacola.
Dan Gilbert is a powerful man – in Detroit. Now he wants to convince Silicon Valley to move to America’s Motor City where they’ll have wide open offices, inexpensive living, and access to amazing talent.
Gilbert, the chairman of Rock Ventures and the owner of Quicken Loans, owns 60 buildings in downtown Detroit that house 12,000 employees. He is also an active backer in startups and has been inviting small companies to come bloom in Detroit over the past half-decade.
Why should you move to Detroit?
“The perception doesn’t do it justice. You have a huge talent pool,” said Gilbert. “And the people are way cooler.”
Gilbert believes that the Midwest work ethic isn’t a myth. He said that, despite the rumors to the contrary, the city has an innovative city government and, thanks to his extensive purchases in Detroit, there is space to spare for new startups. He is also working hard to reduce blight around the city, ensuring that city doesn’t look like it does in the popular “desolation porn” that characterizes the city.
The result is a smaller, more compact city that allows smaller companies to gain a foothold in the tech economy.
The city is, arguably, entering a period of renaissance. Thanks to Quicken Loans and Gilbert’s work in the city, most of the blight has been converted to cheap office space. While it does still seem like a wasteland to the average graduate, we saw a city reborn when we visited in 2012 and things are improving immensely.
In short, he said, Detroit is all about opportunity.
“We have great bones,” said Gilbert.
Detroit has good bones? Pensacola has office space, room to grow, a population of workers that can be trained to fill high tech jobs, several colleges, a university, and low stress living. It’s such an easy sell.
The Real Housewives of Disney
And these are wonderful, such send-ups of the Real Housewives series, dying laughing! These are the talented comedians on Saturday Night Live:
Eight Years – Who Knew? (Blogaversary)
My annual “who knew I’d be blogging for X years?” post has turned into my any-excuse-will-do fun forage for elaborate and gorgeous cakes that I can invite you into my virtual world to sample, stop and chat, have a cup of virtual coffee, mint tea or even sweet fresh water and Iced tea (it’s a Southern thing).
The first cake pays homage to Kuwait and my blogger beginnings. Kuwait was an amazingly lively blogging scene, with some very daring bloggers, a couple of whom have since spent some time in prison for their daring.
Something elegant and exquisite for my fancier friends:
For those who love the beach as I do, love the waves and the seashells:
And for all my friends who are kids in their hearts, like us. ❤
I know my limits, and elaborate Eiffel tower cookies are outside my area of capability, but if you are painstaking and detail oriented, I have added a website where you can see, step by step, how to make these for yourself. I myself will just stand here and gobble as you head for the cakes 🙂
TomKat Studios How to Make an Eiffel Tower Cookie
I’m surprised every year that I’ve kept at this. In truth, it was so much easier in Kuwait and in Qatar and all the traveling back and forth, there was so much more material! Now, my life is more private, and while blogging is a blessing, there may come a time when I say “enough.” Let’s raise our cups to another good year 🙂
What Do You Wear When It Gets Really Hot?
The people in my group last week suffered greatly in the high temperatures and high humidity we are experiencing. I must be adapting a little; I remember being thankful for the breeze.
“What do you wear when it gets this hot?” they asked me, “like around the home?”
I laughed. I learned a thing or two in Tunis, in Amman, in Tabuk and Riyadh, in Kuwait and in Doha. At home, I dress like local women, in long loose dresses.
Or worse. I dress like their maids. In the souks you could find wonderful, 100% cotton dresss that were loose and flowing, and that is good in hot weather so the air can circulate. Some of the dresses were nicer, but the dresses I liked a lot for just being around the house doing what people do, like making sure the dishes are done and a meal prepped, doing a little quilting or reading . . . you could buy these great little dresses for about $3.00 in the souks. Not only were they practical – especially when you live in a house with a cat, and always put on “real” clothes just as you are about to run out the door so you don’t have any cat hair on you – but they came in great colors and prints, designs that made me happy to put them on.
Now, one of my all time favorite dresses, in purple and black, has bit the dust. I liked it because it had some geometrics, and the geometrics changed, and – it was purple. I have worn it for about six years now, and I have worn it out. I mended it several times when the underarm seams ripped:
But now, it has gotten all soft, so soft the material just rips easily with holes that cannot be mended.
I like this dress so much I am saving it and cutting it up so it will have another new life as a quilt 🙂
And I am thinking it is time to plan a trip back to Doha and Kuwait to replenish my hot weather dresses 🙂
Contemporary Art Bike Racks – Another Reason to Love Pensacola
These are so cool, on every corner south of Garden on Palafox. They are not only handy for our urban riders, they LOOK great, very svelte, minimal. Very cool. Woooo HOOOO on you, Pensacola!
Miscellaneous Around Anchorage
Anchorage bumper sticker:
View from our hotel room:
Live aquatic transportation:
Moose crossing signs are everywhere; hitting a moose is a lot like hitting a camel, not good for your car and not good for the moose:
We didn’t expect much from the Golden Palace on Tudor, near our hotel, and we were delighted at the quality of the meal. It was wonderful and spicy, and the flavors shone!
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