Baton Rouge Part 2 (I KNOW, RIGHT?!? FINALLY.)

*Note: The first draft of this post was written before Christmas. That's how late it is. I didn't want to change the opening because the thought of you guys crying to "Christmas Shoes" with Andee is too special to delete.*

This post probably won't do anything to help catapult you into the Christmas spirit. It's actually kind of depressing. Maybe you shouldn't read it if you are feeling especially holly or jolly. Or maybe you should go listen to that "Christmas Shoes" song that always makes Andee cry first--that way, reading about how we DID NOT meet any Twilight stars while in Baton Rouge won't seem as sad.

After arriving in Baton Rouge, we dropped a carload of suitcases at the hotel and went exploring. Our first stop was Perkins Rowe, where some of the Twilight cast are rumored to be staying. We saw nada. Almost ate at the Kona Grill, peeked into the window of the Wine Loft, peed in the Barnes and Noble. I bought a shirt from J.Crew.

Where most of the cast were staying. And shopping. And eating. Just not while we were ever there.

Like I said, nada.

Then we did some maternity shopping for Andee--she put on the bump and everything. It was awesomely creepy, in that weird, "an alien is living inside your belly" kind of way. This was after I made Andee drive up and down, up and down Bluebonnet Blvd looking for a restaurant that turned out to the be Cajun equivalent of a Cracker Barrel. So much for fine Louisiana dining. (We more than made up for it the next day--I still haven't lost one of the pounds I gained.)

We headed over to the movie studio where they are filming BD. They were not filming at the time--you can imagine our absolute sadness at discovering they were shooting in New Orleans that weekend. But that meant that we could get really close to all the action. Still no Twilight stars...

The main entrance into Celtic Media Centre

We bought our Eclipse DVDs the morning they came out from Best Buy, then had a nice time at the Mall of Louisiana and then we headed to downtown BR to look at some historic buildings and the Mississppi.

The tallest capitol building in the US

The Capitol Center Hilton, where Rob and Kristen stayed before filming began

We also spent about 30 minutes wandering aimlessly up and down Third Street, looking for somewhere, ANYWHERE, to eat lunch. (We spent alot of time on this trip looking for food. It was like we were cavewomen or something.) People kept suggesting a sushi place called Tsunami, but we weren't feeling sushi. When we finally found a good place, the shrimp poboy and fried catfish covered in crawfish ettoufee made our aching shins worth it.

OMG SO DELICIOUS

Then we visited the old captiol building, where a very friendly security guard made me say a naughty word in front of the musuem docent that was taking us to see the capitol's "dungeon." The docent was a nice middle-aged lady who probably was used to wholesome families with little kids, not scared sh*tless (which, coincidentally, is a form of the word I used) potty mouths from Alabama.

Grey before her potty mouth incident in front of the old capitol

Andee and the Victorian Christmas tree

We headed back to the mall area and drove aimlessly around looking for somewhere to go. We vetoed seeing a movie and instead headed into a wonderful place called DSW Shoes...where they had shoes, SHOES, as far as the eye can see!! Seriously, the building was as big as a PetSmart, except instead of squeaky toys, there were SHOES (which, to a dog, is probably the same thing). It was great, but all that shopping made us really tired, so we headed back to the hotel before dinner to watch some Eclipse DVD footage. Then we headed to a wonderful restaurant called the Cheesecake Bistro and stuffed ourselves with more crawfish. And cheesecake.

It was after the trip was over that the words in italics above started to become significant. Because after checking out our very favorite Twilight Baton Rouge website, the Facebook page Twilight Takes Over Baton Rouge, that we discovered that:

a) The Best Buy where we got our Eclipse DVDs? Turns out Rob, Kris and Taylor came in there and bought TVs before filming started. Our cashier told us after we turned down a discounted Bella bracelet at the checkout. Also, a couple of weeks later, some of the cast signed autographs there.

b) While we were in our hotel resting after a day of shopping, Liz Reaser and Nikki Reed were directly across the street from us at the Mall of Louisiana.

c) We vetoed seeing a movie at around 4pm. Which was coincidentally the same time Kellen Lutz was spotted at said movie theater. Oh yeah, and he took pictures with fans.

d) Kona Grill, Wine Loft, Barnes and Noble and Tsunami were all places where the cast has been spotted since our trip. (Hey, we peed in the Barnes and Noble. Maybe we peed in the same place as a Twilight star! I feel more specialer now.)

At least we can say, "Hey! We were there!" Maybe even "Hey! We peed where a Twilight star peed!"

Grey




More pictures from Celtic: