Day 86 - 24 Mar - Houston, TX to Beaumont, TX

Photo: Easting crawfish in PapaDeaux's in Beaumont, Texas, on the Louisiana border.

We came....to Katy Mills....we saw....we shopped! Three words best describe the gi-galla-normous outlet mall at Katy, Texas.....OH MY GOD!! It had the SAKS and Neiman Marcus clearance centres and every other store imaginable. My feet hurt, my back was killing me but I'm betting I walked 87,000 in 3 hrs (I was on a time limit).

I went in to the Burlington Coat Factory, which was the size of Home Depot, and by the time I looked at my watch, I'd spent the better part of 2 hrs in there and had to meet Wayne at the van. He gave me another hour and I did a fly around of a couple of stores but really needed at least a day, probably two, to really do the place right.

If that darn Melanie would have given in months ago and found out what sex the baby was going to be...or...had had the baby early, I could have done some real damage in this mall. I probably wasted more time picking up girl/boy stuff, putting it back, picking up something else, putting it back! They had the dearest, cutest little outfits for girls...so cheap! There were sweet outfits for baby boys up to 24 mos and then it was the same old stuff...but cheap! Every kids store I can think of, and 20 more, had a clearance outlet at this mall. It was painful, I really mean painful, to have to get in the van and head out. I ended up sleeping for about an hour...I'd had to move so fast that it wore me out! Mind you, the shoe stores killed me as I couldn't pass one without at least trying on one pair per store and ended up with 2 pr.

We drove to Beaumont, Texas and managed to get the last site at the Gulf Coast RV Resort. When we went in to the office to register, the girl said this was the crawfish season and if we wanted the best feed in town, we needed to go to PapaDeaux's for Crawfish Gumbo and fresh boiled crawfish. Not ever eaten the little mud bugs, I figured this should be one more notch in my adventure belt, so off we went.

We ate 2 lbs of the little critters...and enjoyed it. The first batch was in spicey cajun sauce, which Wayne wasn't fond of so I ate those but the second batch was plain and he cleaned those up. I had told the girl in the office that we had them at home and used them as bait. Her response was..."Well, ours are a lot bigger...this IS Texas you know!" Each one is just short of a mouthful and tastes much like lobster (to me), which shouldn't be a surprise as they are just miniature lobsters. The locals 'farm' them in this part of Texas and through Louisiana. A large tract of land is dug out and flooded and then they plant some rice for the crawfish to eat. After the initial crawfish are put in the ponds they are left until fall when the pond is drained. The following spring, the pond is flooded again, the crawfish come up from where they have dug in for winter (sometimes 12 ft down), procreate and then harvested. It's quite a business but considering you can by a sack for $35 and the restaurant has them for $4.95 per lb, the 'growers' are making about 50 cents a lb. Everywhere you go in these parts, you hear people talking about their big crawfish party!

Until next time, our love to you all. I need to rest up in case there's another mall in the immediate vacinity. It's a KILLER out there! xx