The drive home from Louisiana….

Our drive home from Louisiana was great. Beautiful. Sunny. But it was funny to read Facebook and friends from back home where it was apparently pouring down rain.

As we left Louisiana, I was exhausted. I blame the food. So somewhere just around the Louisiana/Arkansas state line I fell asleep. Not such a good thing. Abug got an ink pen and decided to draw all over her new shoes. Whoops. Don’t worry, I woke up to slamming on the brakes when deer jumped out in front of the car. 4, there were 4 deer. 2 went back and 2 continued to cross and no one hit them luckily!

Abug woke up a little while after that and she was crying and crying so we decided somewhere in Arkansas about 2 hours from Van Buren, AR to stop and get her an ice cream cone and let her stretch her legs. This was her first ice cream cone like this too! Oooooo she’s spoiled now! haha.

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Monroe, Louisiana: Captain Avery’s Seafood Market & Riverside Coney Island

Earlier in the week while we were at the Children’s Museum, we asked where a good place would be to get shrimp and/or crayfish. Apparently Crayfish were out of season by a couple weeks, but the gal told us to go to Captain Avery’s Seafood Market (2607 Ferrand St. Monroe, LA). So we went that day to check things out and said we’d be back on Thursday (our last day) to pick up stuff. Now I’m not huge on seafood but they had a great selection. So glad we went there to get the seafood for hubby and Jared.

Selections of remoulade sauce and shrimp cocktail sauce.

Shrimp and fish selections. We wound up with 3lb Jumbo shrimp and 1lb Large shrimp if I remember right.

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Monroe, Louisiana: Warehouse No.1 Restaurant

I mentioned in the post about Waterfront Grill that I had my heart set on food at a particular restaurant… Well Warehouse No. 1 Restaurant happened to be the place I wanted to eat that day for lunch. Why was my heart set on this place? Well of course I read they had Cheddar Jalapeño Cheese Grits. Yup, I had my heart set on eating those grits. Grits is something that I associate with the South and I’m surprised this was the only restaurant that offered them for where we ate.

When we arrived they asked if we wanted to eat indoors or outdoors. We said outdoors because at home we don’t get that option. Maybe looking in hindsight we should have eaten inside because it was hot, but hey… why not be a yes person :).

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Monroe Louisiana: Waterfront Grill

After we left the Zoo, we decided to sit in the car for a few minutes, cool down, and find a good place to eat lunch. We pulled out our handy travelers guides and mom read one while I read the other. Mom stumbled across a place and read about it and it made my mouth water so I started pulling up their menu on my phone when she got off on another restaurant and decided we were going there because it made Southern Living Magazine so off we went to Waterfront Grill (On the Bayou, 5201 DeSiard St., Monroe, LA).

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Monroe/West Monroe, Louisiana: Doe’s Eat Place

There was something about the weather in Louisiana. I think it rained every day except our last one there. It was CRAZY! But cool too :). Hey, I’m always up for adventure! So on Tuesday night my dad asked us if we wanted to go eat at a place called Doe’s Eat Place (300 Washington St, Monroe, LA). Sure… I don’t know what it is but sure :). Mom and dad said that this is a place that is not really a chain, but there are a few locations around. One is in Fayetteville and it’s one of the last places they took my grandma before she was diagnosed with cancer.

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West Monroe, Louisiana: Trapps

On Tuesday while we were out and about, at the Spice exchange we asked a gal for a suggestion on food. She told us there wasn’t anything local (not chain) that was based around kids. Then she suggested Chucky Cheese. No thank you! We told her it didn’t have to be kid based. So she suggested Trapps (113 S. Riverfront St, West Monroe, Louisiana) which was just around the corner. We decided to try it out. (Glad we did!). And I promise my mom was with us… she H.A.T.E.S. to have her picture taken and if I were to say take one and post it, she might disown me. Which kind of surprises me that I like pictures so much but anyway that’s beside the point!

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Monroe/West Monroe Louisiana: Haskell’s Donuts, Louisiana Zoo, Bubbles

So here’s a little fact… Around these parts, for us anyway, Wednesday = Donut Day. It is something we’ve been doing for at least a year now and I have no idea how it got started. All I can tell you is it did. For a long time Abug would even remind us… and while, no she didn’t know it was Wednesday per say, things clued her in that she should be having donuts.

While we were down there, I mentioned in passing to my mom this little fact. So Wednesday morning we went out on the hunt for donuts. The day before one of the ladies gave us a “tour” guide book and we had a second one, so one read through one while the other read through the other. Funny how that works, huh?

Mom picked out a donut shop there in Monroe, we went and they were closed. As in, closed, for sale, etc. So I got out the book, found us one over in West Monroe that was only 2.7 miles away (where as another one in Monroe was 4.7 miles away. See very closely connected!), we plugged Haskell’s Donuts (413 Thomas Road, West Monroe, Louisiana) into the GPS and away we went.

When we got there, we decided to order Abug half a dozen glazed donut holes. I thought the ones with chocolate icing looked good so I ordered half a dozen of them.

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Monroe/West Monroe, Louisiana: Farmer’s Market, Duck Commander, Duck & Dressing, NE LA Children’s Museum

Wow, our first full day in Louisiana was Tuesday. Now I mentioned that Monroe and West Monroe are just separated by the Ouachita River so we were back and forth over the river.

Our first stop was the West Monroe Farmer’s Market. (1700 N. 7th St. West Monroe, Louisiana). We decided we needed to hit up the Farmer’s Market first thing in the morning so all the good stuff wasn’t taken :).

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Monroe/West Monroe, Louisiana: Willie’s Duck Diner

When we got to town, we decided to go exploring. We wound up at Duck Commander but it was pouring and no one wanted to get out. In the parking lot was a sign that said Willie’s Duck Diner was down by Academy so we decided to go on a hunt. Again, it was pouring and only 4:30, so way to early for dinner anyway so we went around a few other places and back to the hotel before winding back up at Willie’s Duck Diner for dinner. And it was only like 7 miles away. Not bad at all!

Every so often I am mean and send pictures to people of different things. In this case, I shot this picture to Hubby and Jared. I didn’t get the response I wanted. Oh well! Later I tried to send photos of our food, hubby didn’t get them, I’m not sure if Jared did or not because no response.

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