|
| 8:16am |
There is no alarm. It's a Sunday,
the day of rest. At least that's what the community standards of this
state indicate. |
| 8:33am |
Tubby is the last in line, but finally takes a shower. I set the
stopper in the sink and created a miniature duck pond; it was lovely. |
| 8:54am |
We all load up into the transportation
module and head out to Bonita Lakes to meet Manda,
who emailed me and wanted to be one of the Frank's Chicks. And, now
she is. |
| 9:07am |
Manda and her dad, Ron,
popped by, and we did a meet and greet, exchanged conversation and
FrankStuff, and the like. |
| 9:22am |
Having waved (or winged) goodbye to
Manda and Ron, we wandered around Meridian
for a bit, stopping for soda, gas, and snacks. Tubby has since adopted
his annoying, and totally stupid/fake sounding, southern accent already.
Darn it. |
| 10:03am |
After completing our purchases at the Sack & Save, we return
to the motel briefly to post updates of our Manda meeting. |
| 11:12am |
The web posting are complete, the
packing of the car is done, and we're checked out of the room. We
couldn't help but make a curious glance over to see this
sight, though. |
| 11:19am |
Feeling like tempting Fate just for the sake of doing so, I decided
to have Tubby drive today, and since it was only a few hundred miles,
I figured little harm could come of it. In retrospect, I was right.
I love that. |
| 12:14pm |
We rolled into Laurel,
Mississippi to look around, and then, we rolled on out. |
| 13:22pm |
Our convoy of one arrived in Hattiesburg,
Mississippi, where we engaged in the eating of lunch from Sonic
(good food, but service left something to desire), and wander around.
I suspect we spent more time here than I'd normally expect, as it
was a warm day, and it's a college campus. Tubby seemed distracted,
but at least didn't hit anything. |
| 3:03pm |
We reached McComb,
Mississippi. I had planned to wander through more of the town,
but I wasn't really able to find more than a few gas stations and
some houses. I'm sure I was just on the wrong road (highway 98, if
you're looking on the map). So, no other pictures. |
| 3:44pm |
We passed from Mississippi into Louisiana whilst traveling southbound
on highway 51. |
| 3:48pm |
We hit Kentwood,
Louisiana. The hope, truth be told, was to have my picture taken
in front of Britney Spear's house (or rather, the one that she bought
her mommy). As my luck isn't 100%, though, the address we managed
to scare up was an old one, and not the picture of the estate that
was featured on news stories after her 55-hour marriage to Jason Alexander. |
| 3:52pm |
We left Kentwood. If we were Britney, and we're not of course, the
opinion is she should invest a bit of her piles of money back into
the town -- it could use a jump start. Or more. |
| 4:36pm |
Nearing New Orleans, we crossed a
22 mile long bridge sort of highway (the highway was on stilts over
water and marsh) as we went from Mile Marker 22 to 0 along Interstate
55 south. Along the way, a view of a nifty grass
fire (on the not marsh area, obviously). |
| 4:58pm |
Even closer to town is where traffic dropped to 5 miles an hour.
For miles and miles and miles. Life is less than peachy right now. |
| 5:54pm |
The boy opted to exit the freeway
once the Superdome was within a stone's throw, and we navigated along
surface streets the three miles to the hotel. |
| 6:31pm |
Mind you, the last 35 minutes were to go three miles. Yes, 1, 2,
3 miles. But we're now at the hotel. |
| 6:46pm |
The check-in clerk, Eugene, informed
us our reservation was here, but due to a break-down in one of the
washing machines, they were running really late in having rooms made
up and ready. He asked us to return in 60-90 minutes. (The conspiracy-theory
sorts amongst us figured it may have been only a ruse, and that our
rooms were given away -- despite being pre-paid in full via Hotwire
-- and now they were bumping people who hadn't arrived yet on reservations
to free us some rooms.) |
| 6:48pm |
In any event, we checked our luggage and headed out to Canal Street
to see the parade. Just to make you click on more stuff and make me
seem busy creating updates, the links are on a picture
page separated from this one, versus trying to get you to click
a bunch of links from here. |
| 9:17pm |
After crushing our way back to the
hotel (Radisson, if you're dying to know), we found Eugene and were
given two rooms on the fifth floor. (Near one another, but not too
near... the girls in one room, the boys in the other, and the bird
Robyn came with us, since I'm not sure quite which team that little
peeper is playing on.) |
| 9:42pm |
As the human sorts settled in, I discovered the in-room DSL was
about $10 a day, but sucked my will to live when it came to actually
being useful. (I had to use dial-up before I could actually post anything
or surf the 'net.) |
| 10:51pm |
Robin and Rachel return from the car
and are all settled in, or as reasonably so as one can be while still
waiting for the last few odds-and-ends to be taken care of by the
hotel. (Their room wasn't made up, and our room lacked towels.) |
| 10:53pm |
The two girls headed down to find food, while I made Tubby do my
typing. While I'm a good typist, the hunt-and-peck method with wing
and beak just isn't as speedy as fingers -- even if I do have to spell
most every word for him that has more than three letters in it. |
| 11:28pm |
The food thing took longer than expected,
but after eating and preparations were made, I told Tubby he was going
to take me out on Bourbon Street regardless of the lateness of the
evening. (I do, after all, have a TON
of duck beads to give away, and this is just some of all that
I brought.) |
| 12:32am |
Unable to stall any longer, Tubby was finally forced to take me
to Bourbon Street. While it may be an odd look anywhere else, here
we fit in: a white, head-shaved dude with rubber ducky beads around
his neck, carrying an incredibly handsome and desirable maned duck,
also with beads around my neck. And we headed out the door for the
eight block walk to Bourbon Street. |
| 12:47am |
Like the parade page, I'll refer to stuff in the pictures in more
detail, but the summary stuff is on the other page. As we walked back,
the question of what happens to all the crap thrown is answered for
us. The refugees of the beads that weren't loved or wanted are left
on the ground, tattered and broken. |
| 12:49am |
In a nutshell, we walk one block past Bourbon Street (too many people
in the way), then up one block, then back to Bourbon Street. It's
extra walking, but gets us into the middle of things without the crowding
and pushing. |
| 1:07am |
The games begin. We are asked for a string of duck beads, which
I happily offer up. The guy who asked then told his drunk girlfriend
she had to show herself to us; Tubby declined (partly out of disinterest
-- she wasn't cute -- and partly because she was too drunk to really
know what was going on. |
| 1:18am |
A guy in an electric wheelchair also asked for some duck beads,
and again, I happily offered them up. But it seems when others ask
you for beads, you're supposed to ask for something in return, perhaps
a glimpse of under the shirts (one lady flashed her thong). This,
I wasn't prepared upon. |
| 1:22am |
Over the course of the next 15 minutes, I studied the craft of asking
for beads to flash someone, asking for someone to flash you for beads,
and the negotiations surrounding both transactions. |
| 1:40am |
When this adorable brunette from New Mexico happened by, I thought
she was cute, and I would have sworn Tubby stopped breathing (or at
least I wasn't hearing his usually rhythmic wheezing). She called
out for beads, and then said it wasn't worth it -- she apparently
wanted five sets, they offered one. She muttered something about being
cute, and walked away. |
| 1:41am |
I suggested to Tubby that we do a ducks for duck trade -- we'll
give her some duck beads, and she'll pose for a picture with me. It
seemed fair, and having watched two other guys offer her beads (crappy
ones, at that) and demanded a peek, she said no. I liked this girl
-- she had standards. But then again, she *is* from New Mexico, so
I should have expected that. |
| 1:55am |
I was sure I would die of old age, but I got a picture
with her! She'd asked a passer-by for his duck beads, he said
no, and told her to ask this guy, pointing at Tubby. Tubby spoke,
suggesting the ducks for duck idea, and she looked tentative. He jumped
into the silence by saying it's just a photo as she's dressed now,
nothing lewd. (She was apparently thinking about it, though.) When
she asked, "That's it?," we were in. And the rest is Duckistory. |
| 1:59am |
Suddenly, the boy is as giddy as a school girl on prom night. I
opted to take him home before his newfound ability to speak to girls
got us in trouble. |
| 2:17am |
We got back to the room, and I found the internet connection still
sucks (it takes 30 seconds or more to post a picture, or even to see
if it wants to do that much). Phooey! |
| 2:21am |
With a Dr. Pepper in wing, I begin working on my web updates, and
applying DuckOut to the somewhat naughtier pictures (sorry, but we're
not one o' them naughty sorts of web sites). |
| 3:01am |
We go to Plan B -- dump the "high speed" internet and
go back to dial-up. As a means of comparison, 48 Kbps is a speed improvement. |
| 3:49am |
Updates are done posting, and we're off to sleep. G'night, y'all! |
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