An Historic Meal

At 10:00am Sunday morning, ten of us headed to the city of Blessing for an all-you-can-eat homecooked meal at the Hotel Blessing.  Mark and I drove ourselves since we wanted to sightsee around the coast since the weather was just about perfect. 

This quaint hotel was built in 1906, and is still has rooms available for overnight stays.  The Coffee Shop is open for lunch buffet seven days a week.  The dining area seats about 40 people and is always crowded, which is why we got there at 11:00a to beat the folks coming after church.  Sunday's meal is always turkey and dressing, along with ham, fried chicken, beef, potatoes, yams, cabbage, veggies, salads, along with all the trimmings.  For $9, you get coffee or tea, dessert, and all you can eat.  It was well worth the hour's drive to get here.

Mark and Linda filling their plates.

Here we are, stuffed after filling our bellies.

This place reminded us of Wittmond's Hotel in Brussels, IL where we had Dennis and Ann's rehearsal dinner.  The only difference was, the IL hotel served us at the table instead of us going through a buffet line.  Both places were fabulous.

We had told the group that we were taking the scenic route back and started heading off to the coast.  We stopped off first in Palacios at a roadside park right on the bay.  It seems the other two vehicles were game for us being tour guides, as they followed us and we all walked around a while. 

The next stop a few miles down the road was a marina full of shrimping boats.

                             

This stop concluded our tour so the others left to return to the park.  Mark then stopped by the "bait" guy to ask a few questions about the shrimping industry; when's the season, why aren't the boats out, etc.  The guys was very informative and even offered to give us a tour on one of the boats.  Mark declined but was happy to get all the info.

We got back to the park in time to walk a couple of miles before ice cream.  I was still full from lunch, so this Sunday I only got one scoop (free because of my bingo on Friday night).

Today Mark, Maurice, and I once again headed to the golf course.  Today there was a horrible stench on the course. (Mark didn't notice the smell, but Maurice and I sure did.)  It was so bad that it was one of the lead stories on this evening's news.  It seems that some rice farmer in Inez, TX fertilized his fields with "chicken excrement."  Because of the 15-20mph winds, it apparently blew the stuff into Victoria. 

Here's hoping for no winds tomorrow!