The Southern Route to Texas

Carlene and I left her driveway at noon on Monday.

 We spent the first night in Montgomery, the second in Hammond, Louisiana.

We enjoyed two excellent quilt shops (I'm so inspired!) --one in Gautier, the other in Mandeville--then had shrimp PoBoys at Buster's in Covington.  From Mandeville, you can see the Lake Ponchartrain Bridge from New Orleans and beautiful beachfront houses, the huge live oak trees heavy with moss.

I just read on the Internet that the largest oak tree is The Seven Sisters oak in Mandeville--a 1500-year oak tree that measures 38 feet across at the bottom of the trunk.

Buster's in Covington

I've always wanted to take Carlene to Breaux Bridge (one of my favorite road trip stops)--so we went there yesterday morning and had their truly incomparable white chocolate bread pudding at Cafe Des Amis.  We walked around the town and met several of the carefree, friendly people I always associate with Louisiana.

At the visitor's center, a woman named Marel was amazed that Carlene is about to turn 90 and she gave us both "sussies" (little presents) for Carlene's birthday--little red leather bags with Breaux Bridge embossed on them.

"I always want to ask people who stay so young how they do it," Marel said.  "How do you do it?"

Carlene told her that her secrets were good genes, good food growing up, and gratitude every day.

We love motels!  Here we are this morning at Comfort Suites in Katy, just outside Houston.  We'd planned to make it home last night, but after two hours of nerve-wracking Houston traffic,  we decided to stop for the night as soon as we could get to an exit.  We'll be heading home to San Antonio soon.

Carlene always ends the day naming the things she has to be thankful for.

"We have a million things to be grateful for," Carlene said...."Of all those million cars, not one of them hit us."