You call him "Doctor Jones", Doll...

After many years of hard work & study & reading & writing really looooong papers, my fabulous, amazing, handsome husband graduated with his DOCTORATE!!!

So we flew out to Louisiana for his graduation.

And as longs as we were there we obviously had to drive into Texas & Oklahoma & Arkansas as well. 

I mean, hello, we were there weren't we ? 

And now my grand total of how many states I have been in is up by 4 :)

For a grand total of 12.

I'm just flying thru this nation...

Anyhoo back down south.

Here he is, the man of the hour, in front of his alma mater.

Look ~ they welcomed him.

And here's his bound dissertation in the library.

So, the first night we were there you know we had to drive over the Red River (alas, neither John Wayne nor Montgomery Clift were there to greet us. Sigh.)

And it looked different than I expected. All of the states looked different than I expected. East Texas is a forest~ who knew?

"OOoooooooooklahoma where the wind comes sweeping down the plain"

And the great state of Texas...where they drive...friendly

Look at this gorgeous building in Marshall Texas.

And this one...

and this one...

It's for sale. Who wants to buy it with me? We could renovate it & open some kind of artsy thing where folks would come & spend their money ;)

If you have ever given directions using a crawdad as a land mark....you might be in Texas...

We were in Marshall, in the crawdad encrusted building, to have dinner with my gorgeous friend Melissa & her equally gorgeous little girl (who I had to totally bribe to get her to let me hold her) Oh & our husbands were there too but this isn't about them :)

She has the most amazing Texas drawl ...even if she did accuse me of being a Yankee. (I have never been so insulted in my life.)

So the family joke has always been if I ever went to the South I would starve to death. Because I don't like sea food, I don't like bottom feeders, I don't like spicy/hot & I don't like sauces. Those are pretty much the 4 food groups of the south.

But, I decided that on this trip I would step out of my bubble (waaay out) & eat the local fare.

So at our dinner I actually ate fried green tomatoes (yum) fried cat fish (yum) & fried gator (too gristly).

Later in the week I tried even more local fare but that will have to be another blog post because I have a little bub here who desires a game of Go Fish.

Blessings.