I knew nothing at all about Shreveport, LA before I began planning this trip; I only chose it to stop in because it’s a convenient distance from DFW. I got my first clue to Shreveport’s “personality” when I was looking up hotels there and noticed how many of them are also casinos.
Since gambling wasn’t part of the cultural enrichment I’d planned for the kids, I settled on a nice comfortable-looking Best Western:
The thing that stands out most about our stay there was how incredibly friendly the whole staff was. Well, that and the in-house café. See the red double-doors off the lobby?
Those doors open into a little Creole place called Guillaumes’ (pronounced (gee-yaums) where the food is prepared with great love and skill from scratch–and will set your head on fire if you’re not careful what you order. Poor Elizabeth ordered the child’s mac and cheese, which certainly sounds safe, but she couldn’t eat it because of all the cayenne pepper in the sauce.
Having delicate taste buds myself, I was careful to question the waiter closely about each dish, and greatly enjoyed my choices. I suspect that the chef took some of the heat out of them for me though; the waiter made a passing comment to that effect when he brought out my chicken pasta alfredo.
The waiter, Terry, was wonderful by the way. He was there when we went in for a late supper Thursday night, and there again Friday morning when we had an early lunch after checking out the nearby Revel. He chatted cheerfully with us about food, road trips, the DFW freeway system, the New Mexico Highway Patrol, the Revel…in fact he had an amusing and articulate viewpoint on pretty much every subject that came up. It’s a great little place, and the service couldn’t be friendlier.
So, the Revel. I’d never heard of it before we arrived in Shreveport; apparently it’s a big local event where artisans can come and display their wares. We went to take a look, but it turned out to be the sort of thing you need to have a big chunk of time set aside for, which we didn’t, so we didn’t stay long. Looked like fun, though.
We’d planned to make one more stop on the way to Georgia, but we were all eager to reach our destination, so we drove straight through and arrived very late that night.
It was great to see the Schubert clan again. I couldn’t believe how tall Jonathon had grown–he’s pushing six feet tall! Hard to believe he’s the same guy I used to roll into a sunbeam when he was a fussy baby, to make him happy again. And Mikhael’s in his twenties now, that just blows me away.
Georgia was awesome…but that’s another post. :^)
An Invincible Summer 