Bass Pro Opening

Last week was the big happenin' event in Denham Springs, and it happened very close to where we're staying! It was the long-awaited grand opening of the Bass Pro Shops' Outdoor World, one of the biggest in the country! (Can you feel the excitement?) Neither of us are fishermen or hunters, but since we have so little to do, we decided to check it out. The festivities were to start at 6pm Wed., Feb. 6, and the traffic started backing up hours before that. But our campground is just across an open lot from where they built this huge store, so we walked over, and we're positive we got there much faster than if we had driven!

The opening of this store has been a long awaited project. There was one man in town who for nearly 4 years led a long court fight to stop public financing of this project. But after two trips to the state Supreme Court, the Denham Springs Economic Development Council was finally able to get the funding needed so construction could begin last year. Since we've been here, crews have been working virtually round the clock to get the store, parking lot, and necessary roads completed in time for the Feb. 6 opening.

We arrived early, a band was entertaining the huge crowd, and we decided to walk around the outside. Attached to Bass Pro is a 25,000 square foot restaurant called Islamorada Fish Company (pronounced eye-la-mah-rah-dah), which has franchises all over the U.S. You can check them out at http://www.fishcompany.com/. We thought we'd look around while we were waiting, but the doors were locked though we could see people inside. A few folks arrived at a door ahead of us, and as someone let them in, we walked in right behind them just like we belonged! Turns out it was a little pre-opening party for the political figures from across the parish (that's a county in the rest of the U.S.). We didn't partake of any of the food or drink, but merely were there just to sort of take it in. At one point one of the guys in charge came up to us and said he wasn't sure we were supposed to be there since it was kind of a political party, to which Russ replied, "Well, we're kind of political." The guy was just concerned that security might not like us being there, so he was just giving us a heads up. All I know is there were cops and security all over, passing us constantly, and not one other person said anything. So leave it to us to crash a political gathering! What rebels!

Between the restaurant and bar is a huge saltwater aquarium, and the entire decor is amazing. We migrated into the bar area to hang with the rest of the politicos waiting for the doors to open. Russ figured it was much better waiting inside with about 100 people than outside shoulder to shoulder with the thousands who had to listen to the speeches before the doors would be opened! As the time grew nearer, you could almost feel the excitement building!

Of course, as you can imagine, when politicians start talking, nothing goes on schedule. So instead of the doors opening shortly after 6pm, it was closer to 6:45. According to the newspaper, when the doors were opened, the first 9,000 visitors were allowed in while thousands more waited outside since the general manager said he had to limit the number of people who could be in the store at any one time. Yep, crashing that party was a brainstorm! Much of the excitment was generated by the myriad number of celebrities that were in attendance for autograph seekers ranging from champion bassmasters, the lady billiards champ, and even NASCAR racers. Of course, the only one I had ever heard of was Tony Stewart.

From what we've heard and read, each store is designed to go with the area where it is located, and this one has what is referred to as a swamp motif. It really is quite spectacular, and Russ says it's the best theming he's seen outside of DisneyWorld. The store itself is a two-story, 165,000 square foot building, and has a uniquely designed aquarium housing fish native to Louisiana, an expansive boat showroom, beautiful murals, and museum-quality wildlife mounts and dioramas. Throughout the store are huge "trees" in which are various wildlife, and one even has a logger climbing up! And I know I've never seen so many guns in my life!! When we left about 7:30, the lines waiting to get in were still unbelievable and more people kept arriving. I'm telling you....this was the big, long-awaited happenin' event!

Other than that I guess it's been a quiet couple of weeks. I had lunch in the Clubhouse over at Greystone with my former co-worker, Jodi (pictured in the middle), and Ron's wife, Susan. It's always fun to catch up and spend some time getting to know each other even better when you're not rushing to get back to work. OK, maybe they needed to get back to work!

Of course as you can imagine Mardi Gras is HUGE in Louisiana, and though we didn't attend any of the dozens of parades, our neighbors sure did! Dennis is a contractor working in the area, and his wife, Sarah, had come down from Missouri to spend a month. Initially she wasn't sure she wanted to go to any of the parades, but figured "while in Rome....." Well, she got caught up in it real fast and couldn't go to enough parades and collect enough beads!! I know at one count she was close to having a thousand of them!! Plans to take them back home to the grandkids. They even ventured down to New Orleans to catch a couple parades, and when they got home we happened to be outside with the dogs, and she made sure that Mikey and Abby got their beads, too!

Otherwise it's been doctor appointments, some medical tests, and working on eBay. I tell ya, between going through boxes of stuff from storage, researching to see if anyone's actually buying any of the stuff we have, taking the photos, writing up the descriptions to market your particular item to sell, listing it, packaging for mailing, and going to the post office, this is almost like having a fulltime job again!! We will have more on our eBay experience in our next post. People will buy anything!