Tomorrow morning, we fly to Atlanta and then get whisked to Statesboro and Vidalia, Georgia, for Travel Media Marketplace.

Last week, I was invited to a special dinner at Jolie’s Louisiana Bistro in our hometown of Lafayette. The restaurant’s chef, Manny Augello, will be cooking at the prestigious James Beard House in New York later this month and is fine tuning his menu, inspired by summer in Louisiana, with special preview dinners before the big day.

If you’re like us, you’re starting to have dreams of white, sandy beaches and blue water this time of year. To hold you over until you can actually get there, intern Emily D. Wood created a Pinterest board of “Beachy Eye Candy.”

The Kentucky Derby is this weekend, but for those who can’t make it to Churchill Downs, Alabama is throwing its own party. The historic town of Madison is hosting what it calls “the South’s original derby.”

For those who need to schedule a time and place to smell the roses, pencil the 2012 Decatur Garden Tour into your planner. Decatur’s coming up roses this weekend, which means many of the 13 gardens and public places on display will feature the perennial.