The trip back up from Mandeville went well; a little more time on the Interstate as not all sections were doing construction on a Saturday. Now, there is an iconic – well, from a regional perspective – place called Lea’s which is on one of the state roads. Back before the interstate was built, our maternal grandfather would always stop for lunch there when going back and forth to Baton Rouge. Sis made a comment about it and when I told her it was still open, that was the obvious place for lunch. It’s iconic for two reasons. First, they have a very limited menu. Baked ham is the specialty with little else and homemade pies. Second, the owner Lea – long gone and I don’t know if family still runs it – was quite the character. He was straightforward – if you wanted something else on the menu, there were other places you could go to. Anyway, Sis did have a ham sandwich and they did have two other items on the menu, so I had old-fashioned cube steak with gravy. I passed on the offer of a biscuit as we were going to split a piece of pie. Cherry was Sis’s choice.

Anyway, the only downside to the day was my high school friend we were to have dinner with is not feeling well and we had to pass. I took Sis to Mariners on the lake – the exact opposite of somewhere like Lea’s. I called for reservations and explained it was to be her first time there and they did give us a table with a view of the lake in a spot where we could watch the sun set. We both had shrimp dishes. Considering lunch, she went with the mandarin orange salad adding grilled shrimp. I had a slight variation of Shrimp Oscar; grilled shrimp with lump crab meat, Bernaise sauce, and a couple of asparagus spears. We didn’t do dessert.

Lunch with other high school friend is still on for today and then we drive the short distance to see the branch of family in Many.