New Orleans 2001, Day 1: Hey, Driving Sucks
9/24/1

The alarm went off at 6:20 and Aisai got up and took a quick shower. I eventually got up and took a shower. Now it was time to catch the cats.

I had prepped the boxes in the garage. Zapato's and Mouse's cat carriers were sitting with the doors open and towels inside with the doors facing up so we could just drop them in. Velvet's carrier was on the ground, door closed. The plan was to get Zap and Mouse simultaneously and chuck them into their carriers and then Velly, oh, she'd just let us nab her.

Aisai headed upstairs and I heard her talking to Mouse. I asked if we were ready to do this, and she said yes. I scooped up Zapato, who was following me into the kitchen and as soon as I opened the garage door holding her she said, "Ahoooorla!" Aisai says that Mouse tried to fling, throw, or otherwise get herself loose of Aisai. Zap was into the garage and almost managed to climb my back and jump on the hood of the Kronos, but I masterfully wiggled her so she had no leverage and let her down into her carrier and locked it. Press the button to open the garage and get that cat in the Camry so no other cats could hear.

I wasn't aware that Mouse had already heard her. As I was putting Zap into the Camry, Aisai and Mouse came out and that worked as easy as you can ever imagine.

Velvet had gotten under our King Sized bed, an extra firm mattress on a futon frame-ish frame. Not an easy thing to get a cat out of under. So Aisai and I put the mattress against my chiffarobe and I nabbed Velly. We hit the road, dropped off the cats, and ate at McDonald's on the way back.

Those were the hottest breakfast burritos I'd ever had in my life. Temperature hot, not spicy hot.

On the way out of town, Aisai called her mom and told her we were on our way. She'd worry if we didn't check in. I also called TC at work. He had a heart catheterization on Thursday and I wanted to see how he was. He was back at work and his normal self, or so it sounded. [No foreshadowing intended.] I was so distracted by the phone call that I missed the turn from 565 to Interstate 65. And this is not more than 20 miles away from my house. I told Aisai that I hoped this wasn't a bad omen.

Somewhere near the Alabama/Mississippi border, Aisai called her sister Longwinded. We found out that we'll meet them at their place tomorrow at 1 p.m. and they will show us around the Covington area and then we'll have dinner together. We'll try to get home a decent hour, even though we now know the code to get into the park even after nine, when it officially closes.

I was going to tell the story about the Subway we stopped at that had the bathroom that was so horribly filthy there was literally no way it could be used. I wonder if it was one person who messed it up that bad, or were there other people of such low whatever that they used the toilet in a state that was only slightly better. Ooh, it makes me sick to think about it.

So we ate lunch at Burger King since the Cracker Barrel was too far away at around one in the afternoon. Other eventful stuff that I'll not go into detail about was the wide load with the little "guard truck" who was psycho and would veer across the road to try to keep anyone from passing. Eventually someone must have called him on his radio and told him to stop playing Road Warrior with the other cars since after about 20 miles of this foolishness, he started letting the nearly 100 cars they had stacked up behind them, of which I was one, begin passing.

We hit New Orleans at rush hour, and they may be rude down here, but they know how to drive. Skilled rude drivers works better than unskilled average-politeness drivers. It just requires more soothing music. We anticipated the hideousness and listened to Natalie Merchant's Live Album. I was saying that New Orleans doesn�t have a very interesting skyline, until I saw the dome. I don't know the name of the dome at this time, but it's rather large.

Just as we were turning into Bayou Signette, my Tamagotchi...

Wait, I didn't say anything about the Tamagotchi!

Friday night, at 11:30 p.m., I activated the Tamagotchi that Aisai got me for our anniversary. [She got me more than that, I also got my wedding ring resized so I can wear it again after not wearing it for nearly five years, the Tamagotchi, a cross ion pen, and a phone cover for my Nokia 3390]. What was I saying...

["Every time you talk about your wedding ring you lengthen the time. You haven't worn it for maybe two years, not five." - Aisai]

After the Tamagotchi hatched, it was in the first stage that actually doesn't sleep. It wasn't until nearly one that it finally changed into that bubbly looking second stage and finally went to sleep.

It grew on Saturday and I kept it happy. Sunday, I stopped time for nearly the entire day. Even on first generation Tamagotchis you can "pause" them. Just pull up the clock and hit A and C to set it. Time will stop while you're doing this. So keep time stopped for however long you are gone. I can't take a Tamagotchi to church. So Sunday's will be suspended animation day for the little man.

We keep him fat and happy, and when we turned into the State Park here, he matured into the next phase. And he didn't have the big lips. Ha ha. I'm a good Tamaparent.

Ok, back to reality. The cabin isn't bad, but it's nothing compared to the nice one at Double Head. There's no phone or TV, which isn't a big deal. Oh, and, cool thing this, our cabin is on stilts above the water. I took pictures.

Ugh, I'm getting tired writing. It's 11 p.m. now.

We ended up getting, not lost, but confused on our way to Dos Gringos, which didn't have enough cars in front of it for us, weary and strange, to eat at. So we went to Golden Corral, which I always called Golden Bucket, since it generally sucks. We then planned on going to the Piggly Wiggly on the way back, but it looked creepy [are you seeing a pattern developing] so we went to the Winn Dixie across the street.

Odd things happening there: Dude detailing a car in the parking lot [but that truck looked great], the fact that this Winn Dixie was just like the "Wino Dixie" near Aisai's mom's back in Huntsville, and the crazy lady who read the Weekly World News to us in line.

And for the first bit of driving, I was driving like a victim. The part of town that is nearest the state park is Baaad. I was driving under the speed limit and looking around and Aisai was looking at a map. No no no. After a while I made her stop looking at it and I started accelerating quickly and driving like I always do [zero to speed limit ASAP and how fast can I take those corners, anyway].

I've been listening to Two A.D. while I wrote the previous entry and the first part of this and Ali Akbar Khan's Journey for the last half of this.

I hope that not all of Louisiana is this lame. This is the first vacation that I've been worried if we'd have fun.

And the last one had us driving into a Hurricane [Gordon].

Before we left, we found out that Tropical Storm Humberto is the one that might actually get us. But, ha ha, that would be ... actually, quite lame. We'd have to evac. This isn't like the place we stayed in at Tampa.

Must sleep.