Travel Bites - Southern Holiday

Now that we're legally bound to one another, Jared and I decided to partake in the very married tradition of splitting the Christmas holiday between both of our families. A wonderful idea in theory . . . not so much in reality, but we made the best of it.

Leg one of our southern adventure began in Lafayette with my family. And our first order of business was to get our hands on some of the early season boiled crawfish. Thankfully, our favorite spot was serving them that night.

In my mind, it's not really a trip home for Christmas if you can't squeeze in that trip to Dwight's. This local hot spot is famous for its plate lunches and is always packed when the crawfish are available. Since we were there, we also indulged in some of their other specialties. Their fried alligator is crispy, yet tender and seasoned to perfection. It's the best in the area, in my opinion. And their charbroiled oysters are topped with a bit of butter, spices, and mozzarella cheese then grilled until smokey and delicious.

The rest of the weekend was spent visiting with family and catching up with old friends. I, of course, attended the annual girls' Christmas party, which ended with late night dancing downtown.

We had our Cormier family dinner on Christmas Eve before heading to mass, then promptly had to pack up and prepare for the next leg of the trip. Jared's family typically spends the holiday at Dauphin Island, on the Gulf Coast of Alabama.  His grandfather started to head down there for Christmas in the 80s and the Pearson clan has made it into a tradition.

A nasty little line of storms had developed over a number of states and threatened to keep us away from our second holiday celebration. So, at the butt crack of dawn, we packed up our little rental car and plodded off towards I-10 E. Now, Jared hates road trips to begin with. Add to that high winds, heavy rain, bits of hail, and a painfully early morning and you've got a recipe for disaster. We had caffeine and Christmas music, though, so we avoided numerous potential arguments and made it to the island in one piece . . . and just ahead of the worst of the weather.

We rode out the storms in the beach house with the weather alarms sounding and the entire place swaying in the wind. It was special. 

Gulf Coast Whiting

We cooked and ate and relaxed and played some board games. The ladies pour over bridal magazines to help my sister-in-law Lydia get ideas for her wedding later this year. Jared did a little bit of surf fishing. And we made more than a few trips to the Ship & Shore (aka the mall that has it all). Overall, it was a great week with both families.