Day Thirty-Seven

Last nights motel stay was a fascinating Alabama study. I'll leave it at that.

I drove into New Orleans this Sunday morning around 10am to find the bars in the French Quarter already open on Bourbon street, and some were actually kinda full which leaves me to believe maybe they didn't close last night. I made sure to find a restaurant in the quarter where for breakfast I had an alligator and crawfish omelet which was so good, not even joking. It is going on my list of favorite meals. One gator omelet later I made a friend at the restaurant over a cup of coffee and continued my walk around town. New Orleans is a pretty neat town but seems really dirty, I am not sure if it is all Katrina related or if it's just been like that. I wasn't really around long enough to ask. It would be fun to go back one day and check out the live jazz scene and eat some more gator. To Houston!


Here is the Mississippi River in New Orleans, LA


Before you judge this plate, I want you to know this was the best omelet I have ever eaten. Alligator and crawfish with a cream sauce. So Tasty.


What I find more impressive is "to go"


Here is some French Quarter on Bourbon St.


Here is my drive into New Orleans.

Day Thirty-Six

I write from Pensacola, FL where for the second time of my life, weather was scared me off the road. I take refuge at Denny’s with other travelers, a warm plate of Nachos comfort me. Roughly four years ago, there was a fog in Northern California on one of my commutes from school to home where I had to open my driver’s side door and look down for the yellow line, just to be sure I was not heading into oncoming traffic. The second time and the reason for nachos, is now and because it has been raining so hard that 70 mph traffic slowed to 5 mph with emergency blinkers and thunder & lightning aren’t playing tag, but are hitting at the same time and apparently are hungry for Grand Slams or something. I am going to sit this one out because whatever the odds of getting hit by lightning are, I imagine the chances of losing are higher than usual because the Denny’s workers are currently huddled around a coffee pot discussing going home to be with their families, and they told me storms were “routine.” It’s a motel night. Thanks Earth.


Here is a break in the weather.

Day Thirty-Five

Much similar to yesterday’s plans, I did nothing until about 4pm. Check that, I watched Jaws 2, which I’ll define as productive as all is relevant. For the 4th celebration, we headed to the Epcot Center at Disney World for some rides and explosions. The fireworks were placed on barges on this big lake and the show went something like this… patriotic music, about 100 feet of billowing flames, followed by real fireworks, lasers, and probably the craziest loudest grand finally my stomach ever felt. Disney World does Independence Day well; perhaps something they do not do well is walking traffic logistics. My 200,000 closest friends and I mooed all the way to parking lot.


This is me happy to have my phone back.

Day Thirty-Four

The day started with some morning reading of “Crossing the Unknown Sea,” a new book of mine that I’ve been excited to get going on. So far I am very much enjoying it, Thanks MaryAnn!!! Kristine was called into work at the last minute which totally disrupted our plans of doing nothing today, so I had to go on without her. First I laid by the pool, then went for a run, did some more reading, and then headed to Disney World intent on recovering my cell phone, which I did. The phone was right where I left it on “Mickey Mouse’s Fantastic Pick Pocketing Adventure Through Outer Space Ride” and needless to say, I was pretty stoked to find it. It took some work to get the phone back with a lot of looping and redirecting, but being connected again to my world was well worth the 12 minutes of inconvenience. Later in the day we assembled a small group to see Hancock, the new Will Smith movie. As quotable as predictable, but a lot of fun and I totally recommend it.


The giant monkey is actually one of Kristine's roommates.


Here is me looking really excited.