A Bijou from the Bayou

Bonjour from Sulphur, Louisiana!  It has been an adventure for our group to get here. As many of you know, a winter storm has been sweeping across the plains and Midwest. This delayed the shuttle this morning for two of our colleagues who were flying down to Houston from Bartlesville. S part of us left on time and the others were delayed by 3 hours. However we all are now in the great (currently rainy) state of LA. For those of use "on time", we met a few folks from our Lubricants Gulf Coast Blend Plant for lunch at a Cajun restaurant next to our hotel. Oh my! What FABULOUS food!  It is this little hole in the wall place, family friendly, great service with a Cajun buffet to die for. Great salad bar, Cajun beef tips, mashed potatoes, Cajun rice, sausage, sausage and red beans, home style green beans, corn bread ... I could go on and on. By the time you take a tiny taste of everything, your plate is filled!  They they had mud pie for dessert which is this totally yummy whipped cream, chocolate pudding concoction over streusel topping. Oh my! I seriously should have packed my fat pants. I think I could definitely move here and be happy from a food standpoint. Looking forward to eating mo Cajun again tonight.

The tour of the blend plant went well. The main blending tanks are absolutely massive. The plant was very orderly, neat and clean despite all of the oil and additives that they deal with on a daily basis. It was really interesting to see how they load and unload both the tanker trucks and rail cars.  The 20 people who work there ( number includes both shifts which change at 2pm) are so nice!  It was great that they took so much time to show us the facility and even doing it basically twice when the other half of our party showed up a few hours later.

Meanwhile in Bartlesville, life has been a bit more hectic. With the weather. The schools did not get their act together, finally deciding to close the schools at 8 am AFTER most of the kids had been dropped off by parents or encounters via school bus. I guess it was a madhouse with all of the parents trying to collect their kids. Plus, Bville has not really gotten snow, mostly freezing rain and a lot of wet and slush. Great to help alleviate the drought, but not so good for two boys who were feeling cooped up inside and "bothering" one another. Derek was a bit exasperated when I called to check I at 5pm. Hopefully the weather will clear up and schools will be open tomorrow (and Z will have soccer)!

Anyway, I am going to relax a bit and read before dinner at 6pm. We are going to drive around the Lake Charles area a bit and then eat more yummy food!