I headed to Shreveport, LA for Ginny's wedding celebration! And to escape the cold! Unfortunately, flights were really expensive and I only flew in for a night. This did, however, give me the opportunity to try out a new travel backpack my folks got me for Christmas - the Osprey Porter 30.
Saturday morning I flew from DCA to Atlanta (35 minute layover - yikes!) to Shreveport. I was going to take an Uber, but there is no Uber in Shreveport - only Lyft!
Instead I hopped on the hotel shuttle (after it finally arrived), dropped off my stuff at the Hilton Shreveport Convention Center (which was excellent, by the way), changed and headed to the lobby to meet up with some friends before the wedding reception. The shuttle driver had told me there were not one but TWO Mardi Gras balls at the hotel the same night, so it was going to be wild and crazy. I’m not super familiar with all the Mardi Gras traditions, so this was a bit of an education.
Ginny’s reception was at Red River Brewery, which was a nice, open venue to have everyone from infants to grandparents hang out for the night.
Ginny looked awesome in her dress! We ate some gator lollipops, which were actually delicious and spicy, some lobster mac and cheese, bread pudding, drank beer and danced until they closed at 10pm!
We took the hotel shuttle back and spent the rest of the evening in the hotel bar hanging out. There we met the Queen of Atlas! Atlas is one of the Mardi Gras “crews” of this part of Louisiana. My Mardi Gras cultural education continues.
We went for brunch at Marilyn’s Place, which is the one place in Shreveport I had actually been before. And here was King Cake. And shrimp. And beignets.
Jeremy, my Lyft driver, took me to the airport in a fancy Tahoe and TSA Precheck handed me a laminated card - woo?
In Atlanta I did my usual airport sprint with 12 minutes to make it from terminal D to T. Made it! Unfortunately I was in the middle seat again - ugh. I hate this Delta seat assigned at the gate stuff.