We started the morning in Shephard State Park with almost-hot-enough showers in their small bathhouse, then breakfast and a 8.63 mile ride on park paths and surrounding roads.  We then headed out along scenic route 90 along the gulf coast.

The Gulf Coast can be a pleasant drive along the shoreline, and then it can be a long line of traffic congestion. Fortunately, we are not driving here in the “high” season.

We had a company meeting about an hour into the trip.  Tom thought we should stop by Raising Canes chicken fingers for some native Louisiana food – chicken fingers with Lemonade made with Pure Cane Sugar.  We stopped for the meeting in the parking lot next to Raising Canes, then ate lunch.  When checking the receipt, we realized that Tom, who did the ordering, was mistaken for active military and we were given a 10% Hero Discount.  The food was good though certainly not health food.  If you eat there where a blue VideoRay T-shirt and Khakis and maybe you too can be considered a hero.

We pulled into the almost-completely-deserted Camp Margaritaville around 4 and found it to be huge but adequate.  Scott checked out the hot tub in the mammoth pool complex (designed for maybe 400-600 people,) and found while the tub was apparently fairly hot, there was not a soul to be seen anywhere – not guests, nor staff. On returning he described it to Tom as “Eerie,” in a post-apocalyptic kind of way. He plans to try it out tomorrow.

Dinner was crawfish at the adjacent Crawfish Town USA with VideoRay salesman Brad Clause and his charming wife Mandy.  Brad and Mandy polished off 4 pounds of crawfish each, Scott ate less than half that.  Tom had the usual unembellished hamburger and fries.

We will be staying in this resort for two days, so more tomorrow about the hot tub here and such.