A short but fun trip to Lake Charles, Louisiana

I'm not sure if it is my French heritage or my love of food that attracts me to the Louisiana.
 My husband travels there a lot for work and this trip we tagged along. I usually plan fro weeks or months when I travel and this is no different, but it is really difficult to find things to do in less traveled locations.
 Traveling would be Myself, My Mom from NY, My DD#2 DD #3 ( DD#1 had to stay home because she had college finals) My DH met us down there.
 Lake Charles, La is not a vacation destination that is well known., It a small city or a big town I'm not sure what the criteria is for determining if its cal;led a city or town. This to me is a hidden gem that is filled with a lot of interesting and laid back vacation opportunities for families and couples.
 Living in Wisconsin our flights would be 3 segments long! The first and last plane are only 3 seats across and the seats I swear are designed for 6 year olds. I am not sure if the person in front of me really enjoys lying in my lap while reclining their seat, I certainly do not recline my seat for respect to the person behind me.

 Our flights were smooth and I can not complain about anything about them. The Flight attendants were nice and polite. They did bring back tiny snack bags for free. They hand them out first then half an hour later they pass drinks. To save time they should pass them out at the same time.
 We landed in the tiny airport in Lake Charles at about 10:30 at night. My husband left a car at the airport for us to drive to the Hotel. They do not charge for parking there, that's really nice!!!
 I had to stop at Walmart before we checked into our Hotel. We carried on our luggage  so I could not bring many liquids. The Walmart there is typical and the checkouts are not open for some reason. They only had self check out lanes open. They only take cards,no cash. Lucky someone was around so my Mom could buy her stuff.
 Our Hotel or Resort is the Golden Nugget...yup! Just like in Vegas!! Its a beautiful resort with every amenity you would find in the Caribbean except water sports. My husband is very lucky to stay here on business every time he comes here. They have many restaurants, a casino, bars/lounges, live entertainment. (There was advertising for many popular bands/musicians performing there this summer. From famous Country and pop stars to comedy shows)
 The resort pool had me sold!! They have a lazy river, huge resort pool, a small hot tub and a mammoth size one, tennis courts, a gorgeous Golf club.
 Here's a view from my room at night.

 This is my bed. My mom shared her room with two double beds with my girls

 This a picture I took from the lazy river the next morning. The water is heated so you can walk right in . This is key to me as I hate cold pools. The grounds were impeccably clean and well taken care of. They play music outside and have a restaurant and wait staff that walk around to take your orders.
 The only thing that I did not like was the towel police. To get to the pool area you have to sign in with the towel authorities. They need your ID and room #. They give you your towels and when you leave they make sure you leave the towels at the pool. NO you can not take them to your room for any reason. One lady begged to take it and promised to bring it right back, gave her room # and everything...the towel cop said NO! I knew this before I came so I brought a swimsuit cover-up dress that worked well to keep me warm for the walk back to my room. The hotel has A/C they blast!! It is always cold!!

 Here's a view from the pool up toward the main Hotel building. To the right they are building another extension of the hotel. I am not sure if its more rooms or what.
 This hotel does sell out almost every weekend. If you go here, book very early.

 On our second day in Lake Charles, as you know we started out at the resort pool. My husband was supposed to fly in by 1:30 pm and his flight was delayed so much he missed the last flight out of Houston. So he rented a one-way car and drove the 2 hours to Lake Charles. Our dinner that night we went to one of the restaurants I had been to before and loved!! Steamboat Bill's. Fish and Crawfish were the main items on the menu. This is a local favorite and rankled really high on trip-adviser.
 We ordered the bowl of crawfish below to share. They are a lot of work to eat but really good. Kind of like shrimp. This was my Mom's first trip and my girls so we had them try alligator bites and a bowl of Gumbo too.
 For my entree I got the Catfish Atchafalaya. Its a fried catfish with crawfish etoufee on top and on a bed of rice. I had this before and loved it..today it was as good as I remembered!!

 That night we relaxed again in the resort pool and spent a few minutes in the casino, you know to make donations!!!
 This is the sunrise below. Its looking toward another big resort casino, L'Auberge. DH stayed here before and its just as nice but he prefers the Nugget!!

 Today I am so excited and its the day I have been looking forward to for months!!! A guy that works with my Husband had invited me to go fishing with him.
 MY DH brought us to work with him in the morning and we met up with Arthur. He was going to take us on his boat but on the way something happened to the boat trailer tire that made it very unsafe to tow it. It was a bearing that made the tire tilt outward. Poor Arthur!! So he said he would take us on the Creole Nature trail and fish off the docks.
 That's cool with me!!
 We stopped at a Walmart to get our one day fishing licenses. They were like $17 a piece, Arthur picked up some chicken legs-raw!!
 We stopped at a place along the way and bought some bait....more on that later.
 The drive is not very scenic. La is not a scenic state. It's below sea-level so the land is flat with tall grasses, pasturing  steers, and shrubs. There is a lot of water ways, inter-coastal water ways and bayou.
 Fishing is allowed all along the Creole Nature trail. Its a road that goes all the way to the gulf. Its salt water, so our fishing licenses are for salt water as well.
 Below you will see our bait. Giant shrimp, I pay huge money for in the North. They use that size for bait!!! Now I don't eat shrimp any more!!
 Ther's Arthur in th epic in the blue T.

 I caught the first bite!! I was so excited and knew it was small so I reeled it in nice and slow. As the hook comes above the water I see it's a freakin snake!!!! It drops off almost right away and I thought Arthur was going to run back to town. He hates snakes!!!
 DH#3 caught the second creature!! A small stingray!! He was so cute and felt so bad for it!! We had to put him on his back to get the hook out of his mouth and they have a hard time breathing and he was sucking in air. Thats not good for them so we quickly released him back in the water and he swam away with his nice shrimp bait lunch.

 After a little while we drove to another location to try our luck. I forgot to tell you about the chicken legs!!! So you take string and tie it to a chicken leg and toss it in the water and tie the loose end to the dock. When the string walks away from the dock you have a crab on the line!!! You just pull it in gently. We caught a bunch of blue crabs!! Many we released because they were too small.
 Here's a pic of a fish my Mom caught at the new fishing spot.

  Arthur felt really bad about not taking us on a boat he promised us. We were totally happy fishing off land but he called a buddy that took us on his fishing boat. He was a a really nice man. H's retired and loves fishing. He has a shrimping boat too that he showed to us.
 This pic is on his fishing boat.

 On Saturday we went o the Tabasco Factory on Avery Island.  They also have a Jungle Gardens tour you can drive through. You can see in the Tabaco Factory how they grow, and process the peppers all the way through bottling. The ground are very clean and pretty. The tour is self guided so you can see everything at your own pace.

 The Jungle Garden is kind of well known to locals for an awesome photo shoot for prom, senior pictures, and weddings. A bride was having her pictures taken today on a stone bridge the was over a small creek. I bet the pics turned out amazing!

The road trip was about 2 hours each way. So we ran out of time to do the swamp boat tour I had wanted to do. I can save that for next time. We also had gone down to Holly Beach on the Gulf of Mexico and found some great shells. This beach is not really a swimming beach or touristy area at all. Its a nice beach to have a picnic, and just watch the beautiful scenery without any crowds or noise.
 Overall, this trip was great. We had the cool fishing adventure, ate food we do not have at home and made some really great friends. I would come back to Lake Charles anytime. Even just for the food. Darrell's for lunch, Steamboat Bill's, Pat's on Henderson, just to name a few that are awesome!! They also have a lot of festivals downtown.
 Next trip San Francisco!!! I plan on doing an extensive review of San Fran, Reno, and Yosemite and Sequoia National Parks. Come back n 1 month!!!