A January Marathon Road Trip

Several months ago when we began making plans to attend Ray’s youngest son, Trey’s, wedding, we realized that Jaime had a work conference the next week in New Orleans. So as those of you who know us well can imagine, the travel planners in us began to work. Thus, the Marathon Road trip of January 2011 was born.

Sadly, Johnathan wasn’t able to join us on this lengthy excursion because somebody has to work around here! But on Thursday evening, Jan. 6, after saying good-bye to Scott, Suzi and Cooper who were Prague-bound that morning, Vernon, Glynnda, Jaime and Heidi all piled in Jaime’s Pacifica with 10 days worth of stuff and headed to Round Rock, TX (outside of Austin). We made it just in time for Vernon to wrap up the wedding rehearsal and for Glynnda, Jaime and Heidi to rush to the hotel because they looked quite disheveled after two days in the car and were NOT letting anyone see them in such a condition. After the rehearsal dinner, everyone crashed in our hotel room and talked until way too late catching up on all of the news. We were excited to see our Texas family and you know how we can all talk!

Vernon performed a beautiful ceremony for Trey and Kristen at the Texas Baptist Children’s Home Chapel, and we all enjoyed the reception afterward especially Trey’s version of Michael Buble’s cover “How Sweet it is to be Loved by You”—He was definitely showing off his Die blood, and we were proud of him.

After saying our good-byes on Sunday, we headed to Rudy and Kim’s condo at Seascape in Galveston and lounged there until Tuesday. Heidi got to dip her fingers in the Gulf of Mexico for the first time and see dolphins and surfers and sand! It was a bit chilly but so, so memorable. There were trips to Gaido’s for dinner, marathon dominos games, movies and reading before we headed to Beaumont for a trip to “commune” with Great Grammie in the Azalea Gardens at Forest Lawn. :O)  We had dinner at Patilla’s BBQ, which is a huge Taylor tradition, with our friend Randall McCoy and then headed for the Big Easy!

Thanks to Jaime’s Alumni Relations Conference we stayed in the Omni Royal Orleans in the French Quarter. This beautiful, historic property with all the amenities and the Bentleys and Rolls Royces parked out front just made you walk a little taller. While Jaime went to her conference each day, Grammie, Papa and Heidi went on all kinds of adventures. They explored the French Quarter from top to bottom, went to the New Orleans aquarium, ate beignets at Café de Monde and each day they met Jaime for lunch and dinner. We ate at K-Pauls (with our friend Charles Alder), Pierre Maspero’s, and celebrated Glynnda’s birthday at Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. Of course, there was shopping to be done as well!

On our way out of Louisiana, we stopped by Charles’ home for some King Cake and a quick visit before hitting the road for Missouri. It was a fantastic marathon but like all marathons, left us wheezing and gasping for a rest!