Buc-ee’s Chicken for the win

Monday, September 28, 2026

I am a Buc-ee’s convert. First, we ate the sugar pecans today and they were great. Great. For dinner, we cooked the jambalaya stuffed chicken and might be the best thing I have ever cooked. To be clear, Keith cut open the package, I got out a baking dish, covered it with a pot lid (because we had no foil), and put it in the oven. It was absolutely delicious.

We had a lot of good eating today. We walked down the street for lunch. I had a perfect salad – all the salad-y bits were diced up so I got everything in every bite, and the blackened chicken was juicy and plentiful. Keith had “Shag-style” shrimp and grits. The first bowl slipped out of our server’s hand and bounced on the asphalt floor of the patio area, so they had to make him another one. Ouch. It had tons of popcorn shrimp doused in a zippy sauce with andouille over the grits. It was a beast of a bowl that Keith could hardly finish.

We walked back from lunch to the hotel on the beach, because beach walking is great. There was a bin of leave it/take it beach stuff and we scored an umbrella. After we got it, I have absolutely no idea why we didn’t try it out right there. There was a local woman eyeing us up and I felt like we were doing something illicit (taking from the take it bin). I assumed she was a local because we were at a local parking lot walkway to the beach and she was very, very, very tan. Not vacation tan; life tan. We carried it home and opened it up in the room. It was great. We walked back to get the other one in the bin. We opened that one there. Also, great. We are ready for beach sitting!!

We beach walked again in the evening. The water was so lovely I could hop right in. I was in such a good mood, I was jumping. I worked very, very hard to get my feet off the ground when I jumped. Please notice. I tried to bend my knees so my feet would be farther off the ground, but it literally just did not happen.

Water and sand are a great couple. They make great art.

Keith chased sandpipers around to get a picture. They are very fast, running on their tiny stick legs away from the waves. We love sandpipers because of the Pixar short, Piper. If you haven’t seen it, you should. Go now to the Internet and watch it. If you have seen, go now to the internet and watch it again. It is so sweet.