Gulf Coast Trip Report

Last week has been one of the greatest weeks of my life. Amie and I decided it would be +ev for me to take a nice relaxing vacation before the WSOP, so we decided to visit my parents in Pensacola for a few days then to head to New Orleans for a few days. I guess I will just summarize everything by day.

Thanks for Amie for help with this, as my memory is awful and I would have a tough time recalling all the great times, as there were a lot of them. We landed in Pensacola on Tuesday. My parents picked us up from the airport and we went to eat at Shrimp Basket, one of my favorite places. My mom, dad and brother were met there by my Aunt Lisa and cousin Morgan. They had all you can eat boiled shrimp so I got that. They were a bit dry though, so I wasn�t too big of a fan. Amie had blackened shrimp and fish but I don�t think she liked it too much because it was really salty. Bad beat.

As a side note, my dad cooks great blackened fish. Sadly, we didn�t have a chance to get any. After we filled ourselves, we went back to my parents� house. Amie came up with the great idea to get my parents some Godiva truffles. I think they were a big hit. I also gave my Dad the Rolex I won from the $1000 rebuy tournament I won at Bellagio a while ago. I think he liked it. We ended up sleeping in my parents camper outside. I kinda like staying in the camper. It is like a mini house. On Wednesday, we ate breakfast with my mom, dad, and brother at Waffle House. I don�t much care for Waffle House but it was good that day.

After that, Amie and I went to Wal-Mart to get camping stuff. We planned on going to Fort Pickens, an old fort on Pensacola Beach, to camp for a day. We ended up with a tiiiny tent. It was kinda fun, as I couldn�t even stretch out in it. On the way to the camp ground, someone suggested we go by this pecan shop. They had basically every kind of nut you can think of covered in every topping you can think of. We bought some regular roasted/salted pecans, some sugar coated pecans, and some key lime pie pecans. They were good. We finally made it out to the campground and set up camp. We walked around the fort area for a while, which was a lot of fun.

We went to eat at Peg Leg Petes. We had an oyster sampler and other goodness. Afterwards, Amie wanted Ice Cream so we went to the boardwalk to get some. The lady in the shop acted confused when she asked for 2 scoops on a cone. It turns out their cones were tiny and one scoop would barely fit. Two was a balancing act. It turns out the ice cream girl actually broke the cone while trying to put them all on and Amie was left eating a scoop of ice cream out of her hand. It was quite funny. We already had bought smore stuff so we went back to the camp site and made a fire.

We had a few smores then fell asleep. On Thursday, my dad took the day off and we met him at the Naval Aviation Museum to watch the Blue Angels practice. We had to wake up early and pack our camp up, as we were staying at a hotel on the beach for the next two days. We figured one night of camping would be enough for us. Somehow our lines got crossed and the Blue Angels weren�t in town. We toured the museum, watched an IMAX film on the Hubble telescope, and then climbed to the top of the Pensacola light house.

After all of that, we ate at Golden Corral, which is the nuts. After that, Amie and I headed to the hotel. The weather was pretty hot but the beach was amazing. We walked along the beach and watched the sun set. After that, we ordered sickly overpriced room service and watched Lost from Tuesday. Sleep time after that. Friday was a big family day. We woke up and had breakfast on the beach.

My mom, dad, brother, aunt, Morgan, and my other cousin, Priscilla all headed to the beach. We rented a little sailboat and sailed around for a while. After that, we went to eat at Flounders. It was great. We went out swimming in the big waves on the beach. It was awesome to just be out there in the water. I hope the oil doesn�t mess it up. After that, my mom, dad, brother, myself, and Amie went to a wine festival/art gallery festival in downtown Pensacola. It was pretty fun. We had dinner at a little place downtown. I had a fish sandwich that was just ok but Amie had a fried green tomato BLT that she loved. We finished off the night by meeting my Aunt, a police officer, at one of her off duty jobs on the water.

We sat by the pier and talked a lot. It was a great day. Saturday was the day we left Pensacola. We had breakfast on the beach again. We also took one more swim in the Gulf. We returned all the stuff we borrowed from my parents and had a farewell red velvet cake my aunt bought. We drove from Pensacola to Biloxi and ate at Mary Mahoney�s. After that, we went to see David Copperfield. I love good magic shows. His is a good one. On Sunday, we woke up, had a couples massage, and then ate breakfast at the Beau Rivage caf�We then headed to New Orleans. We decided to stay at Ashton�s, an awesome bed and breakfast.

We asked our host, Patrick Ashton, what was going on in town. We decided to go to a little food/art festival called the Bayou Bugaloo. Amie and I ended up getting matching paintings by an artist from Pensacola. We had all kinds of food. My favorite was a great little dish of grits with shrimp poured on top. After that, we watched the Lost finale. Amie liked it. I didn�t much like it, although it is starting to settle better in my head. Monday we had a wonderful breakfast at Ashton�s. We had bananas foster waffles with sausages. We spend the day walking around the garden district, Magazine Street, which was supposed to have great shops but I didn�t much care for, and the French quarter.

We ate dinner at John Besh�s Restaurant August. The food was great but the portions were small. We headed to Caf�u Monde for dessert then slept. Tuesday was the day we had to say bye to each other for a while. Those days are always sad. We had breakfast at Ashton�s again. We had fruit salad with a cheesy cream pastry. After that, we had a crepe filled with egg and spinach topped with a great hollandaise sauce and crab. We went to the aquarium and then to eat at Drago�s.

They had some great grilled oysters. We headed to the airport, cried a bit because we were going to miss each other, then boarded out planes. All in all, this was one of the best weeks of my life. I hope there are many more in the future. The WSOP starts in a few days. I am going to the Rio to sign up for events later today. I feel like I am playing my A game. I just need to win some hands. I am going to try to take the next few days easy and get fully rested up for the next 2 months of solid work. Fun times ahead!