Chocolate Castles as wel

We are traveling to Florida to see our daughter, Christi, Tim and Kenley. When Randy and I looked at the map, we noticed that the road would take us right by Monroe, Lousiana, home of Duck Dynasty. Immediately, I got excited. To think that we might actually see Ms. Kay or Willie just made me happy, happy, happy. Randy was game. As we neared Monroe, several happenings while driving down the road, let us know that we were getting close.  Randy told me to hurry and get off the phone and take a take a picture of the jeep quickly coming alongside us. I got the camera ready and here it came. All you could see was a pair of naked feet sticking out the window. Click. We go about 5 miles down the road, still trying to forget the feet sticking out the window when we look up and see a baby seat roped to the top of a minivan. The wind and rain was tearing at the baby seat and it looked like it was about to fly off the top of their car. The ropes holding it were being stretched to the breaking point. Click. Hopefully the couple remembered to take the baby out before strapping it to the top. But then, if it was hooked to the top of the van, what was the baby sitting in?  Not wanting to look like a tourist, we had purchased a Willie bobble head, back in Monroe, which we now proudly displayed on the dash of our car. We felt like this might help us fit in as we continued to drive deeper and deeper into the south of our great USA. As we crossed over the Mississippi border, we stopped at a Micky D’s for a rest stop and get drinks. Randy ordered his coffee without incident and I ordered an iced tea. I love the south, home of the best iced tea in the world; I always order half sweet & half unsweet. The young man behind the counter ask me if I wanted creamer and sugar with my tea. I looked at him and thought maybe he misunderstood me. I once again repeated my order, “a glass of iced tea with extra ice, please”. He once again ask me if I wanted cream and sugar. Maybe he didn’t understand that I had said, “iced”, so I repeated it again. He then informed me that he knew my order and that some “folks” drank cream and sugar in their iced tea. It was then that I remembered where we were. As we crossed over into Dixie Land, we discovered that we needed gas. We find a station. Randy gets out of the car to fill “er” up. After about 1 minute, he quickly gets back in the car and tells me to hurry and drive away. The car that had pulled in had windows missing but had a Rebel flag that had been stapled over them. That same car was blowing out so much smoke and exhaust that Randy couldn’t breathe. The fumes filled our car so badly that we had to drive for 15 minutes with the windows down, when someone pulled up beside us to let us know that in Randy’s haste, he had jumped back in the car without replacing the gas cap. We have quickly learned that life really is lived much slower in the south. As we continued to drive down the highway, we saw houses that were on huge lots, but for some reason, the family car had chosen to park right outside the front door. We wondered why, with all he land that surrounded their home, would they need to park right in front of the front door on the lawn. That question will haunt us for weeks. At breakfast at the hotel, we walked in a little cocky. We felt good about ourselves. We had even taken time to iron our suitcase wrinkled clothes before coming down. Everyone there was wearing sweats (that didn’t match) or wife beater shirts. We quickly began talking very loudly about our bobble head so we wouldn’t appear to be outsiders. We got our toast and sat down to eat. I told Randy that the people apparently weren’t use to seeing folks dressed like we were (of course I wore my pearl earrings to spiffy up my new “Si is my role model” T-shirt) because they certainly gave us the one over as we came into the room. We finished our breakfast and checked out. It was at this point that Randy discovered that his pants were not zipped up. We knew why we had been looked at and I guess we fit in with the “southern” folks a little more than we thought. We are now in Florida and am hurrying off to the store. We forgot our Ben Gay to rub on so we fit in with all the retirees. It’s going to take a lot more that our bobble head to fit in down here. Just in case you are wanting to partake of some great southern iced tea I thought I would post one:

3 large tea bags
6 cups water
2 cups sugar
Bring water to a boil. Remove from heat and add the tea bags. Cover and allow to steep for about 30 minutes. Add sugar and stir until dissolved. Pour over glasses of ice.