the alli hunt

at the lakehouse one day, mom was telling me about this light up alligator that was big, lit up, and was specifically for xmas. my mom has become obsessed with 'fun' alligators as the lake has them and therefore she must now collect them. i even gave her a little limoges box with an alli on it for xmas! so, she was talking about how her friend had one and had gotten it from the various truck stops along the way to new orleans where her family is.

so we decided that there was a pilot fairly close to the house that we should check out. it also had an arby's...our favorite fast food joint. so, we drove the 17 miles to cleveland to look for this alli and have lunch. unfortunately the alli was no where to be found, but lunch was good! the next day mom was still talking about it and we decided that we'd probably have to go to louisiana to get an alli since they are known for them there and well... what if... what if we just took a drive??? would that be completely crazy?? um, yes. did we do it?? ummmm, yes.

so, on the day before christmas, mom and i went on an adventure. to louisiana! we drove down back roads, thru tiny towns, and then through beaumont (a fairly big tx town), and then we crossed over in to louisiana... we drove east for about and hour and a half... maybe a bit more. and yes, every truck stop we saw or every place that looked like it might have an alli, we stopped!

this is at the LA border rest stop. check out the sign: we are getting closer to our alli hunt!!!


once we got to LA (i'll use this from now on), there was gambling. i really wanted to stop at this casino called, grand casino coushatta, since i'd seen ads for my entire life on tv. they advertise heavily... and i wanted to go! unfortunately it was a little far for this particular trek. but the gas stations also have gambling. and at one stop, we wanted to so the slot machines, but there was only video poker. boo! and i felt that since our alli hunt had been unsuccessful so would our video poker playing. besides video poker sucks. i wanted to pull a handle. and it was dark, dingy and depressing in there!!

we ended up stopping at cajun charlie's that was literally right next door to a cemetary. no christmas alli there, but we did get a little rubby alli & baby alli set for the bathtub which was cute. but it wasn't the big lighted alli we were looking for. once we left there, we headed back home. we tried to stop at cracker barrell but they had closed for christmas eve already. theycame out to the parking lot to tell us as we were getting out of the car... oh no!!! we thought maybe, just maybe, the cracker barrell might have such an alli. guess we will never know...

rajun charlie's. if you look off to the right, that is where the cemetary was. i would have liked to have had lunch there, but the ladies were wanting to close up and go home. totally understandable on christmas eve!


and then we drove home. since we'd already stopped at all the truck stops, we just went straight home with a quick stop on the border of texas for a quick photo shoot and potty stop!

the texas border rest stop was way more interesting than LA's... maybe LA just uses their state funds on different things... probably smart... but the giant star is kinda awesome.


go texas!!