Friday Five

The Excuse

None needed! W00t!

The Week

Anyone who reads my blog knows that I get to go to all the exciting places. This week, it was Alexandria, LA. I’ll give you a moment to figure out where in the world it is.

On the plus side, if you’re a regular reader of my blog you know I lived in Louisiana in a past life.^[1] While I would have preferred a larger town, being in Louisiana for an entire week eating Cajun/Creole food was a dream come true. I may have gained about 10 pounds this week, and each ounce of it was delicious.

Being that I was actually in Louisiana, I was also able to sample some of the “local delicacies”, in particular boudin and cracklins. Boudin is essentially sausage made from dirty rice – very tasty. Cracklins are pieces of pig skin fried – yeah, not so much; I’m glad I tried it, but never again.

The Exercise

So I was in Louisiana….

The Restaurant

Oh gosh – which one to pick. I think I have to go with Robbie G’s. I wish I would have taken a picture of the place, but I think I can paint you a good mental image: Picture a small little restaurant along the side of a freeway in Louisiana. It’s got a good 10 or so neon beer signs in the windows, making you think it might be a bar. The sign above it is an old Pepsi sign that’s been used for another restaurant but repurposed for use here – but the investment in updating it involved a thin coat of white paint and the word’s “Robbie G’s” spray painted on it. The outside paint job looks as though it should have been redone about 7 years ago. The restroom is around back, separate from the building. Inside it’s all cheap wooden tables and chairs, with peanut shells scattered everywhere. The place feels slightly dirty, almost to the point where you think twice about actually eating the food, while knowing the food is probably going to be awesome. The wait staff is all very friendly, and calls you “honey”. That’s Robbie G’s.

It’s also exactly what I wanted to find when I found out I was going to small tow Louisiana. My only regret was that I had BBQ for lunch and was still rather full from that experience. I went for the grilled snapper, which came out very well seasoned and grilled to perfection. It was served with coleslaw (very tasty), boiled potatoes (those are hard to screw up) and corn.

If you find yourself in Alexandria, LA….

The Travel Note

Only in small airports… There was an earlier flight available out of Alexandria. The flight departed at 5:05, and I got to the airport at 4:30. Just the fact that I was able to get on the flight was a minor miracle; in a larger airport they would have laughed me out of the place. The cherry on the sundae was when the printer failed, so the agent wasn’t able to print out my boarding pass. Because she didn’t have time to fix it, she went out to the gate, printed it from there, and met me at security and gave me my boarding pass there.

The Five

Let’s see if I can do five random things about Jersey

1. The origin of my nickname is a rather boring story. When I first got to college (arriving from Jersey) I fell into a group of friends where there was another Chris. Since he was left-handed, and we were so creative, he became Lefty and I was Jersey.
2. The story of how I met Karin is just as boring. Somewhere in the mess of 10,000 people you meet when you first get to college was Karin.
3. Having said that, I knew I was going to marry her shortly after we met. We were at a party once and I looked across the room and something just clicked inside of me, “That’s the woman you’re going to marry.” About two years later…
4. Contiguous 48 states I have yet to make it to: Wyoming, West Virginia, South Carolina, Mississippi, Kentucky, Tennessee and maybe Maine. I may have been to the last one as a kid but I can’t remember.
5. I use my phone as an alarm, and I have to put it on the other side of the room just to make sure I’ll actually wake up when it goes off. On more than one occasion I’ve turned off my alarm without realizing it.

^[1] I don’t actually believe in past lives.