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It's raining men... well, not men, but a crapload of water. After a few mandatory errands, Tubby checked the autogiro into valet, and after a brief retreat to the rooms, we were off in a mixture of wanderings, reclining in the room, and discovering how easy it really is to get girls to bare themselves for duck beads (mind you, they're really nice duck beads, as further discussed below at 12:06am.
| 9:04am | Obviously, the alarm at 7:40am didn't go off, but if I've learned anything, it's that Tubby can move fast when he needs to do so. |
| 9:08am | Left the room, recovered the car and found there was an oil change place around exit 242. |
| 9:18am | Exited at 242, couldn't find the place, but posted my post cards to family, friends, and the rest of you. |
| 9:25am | While listening to local radio station 105.3 (which is also a nifty station back home), we got a weather warning -- the U.S. weather service has issued a tornado alert. Whee! But that would explain why the light grey skies aren't so light any more. |
| 9:33am | I can't find the alleged oil change place, but found this one. I suspect they mean it's a 10 minute oil change, but a 1 minute oil change would be really impressive, I thought. |
| 9:54am | We were done with the oil change. It wasn't 10 minutes, but it was faster than the place I planned to go to, and if was right here in front of me. |
| 10:03am | I mostly drove around aimlessly in the rain for a while. I had a plan, then skipped it, then tried again, and started over yet again. The skies continued to get darker, too. |
| 11:01am | By the time I was done, I had a handful of New Orleans pictures that didn't have anything to do with Mardi Gras, which was sort of the plan. (Check back tonight, I'll post them after I have a late lunch.) |
| 11:07am | For the next 19 minutes, we pumped gas at the Chevron at 447 N. Rampart. It seems with each new person filling up at the station, it gets slower. |
| 11:26am | I was gone filling the car, and began making the slow drive back to the Radisson, what with the weather and the traffic and everyone doing street cleaning in the French Quarter after last night's parties and getting new beer, booze and beads for tonight's parties. |
| 1:51pm | Having finished the morning updates and recovered from the dampness of being in the car, and of the stories of Robin and Rachel's shopping outing and their being drenched, we set off for lunch. |
| 3:13pm | We end up at the Krystal burger joint on Bourbon Street near the cross street of Canal Street. Robin had the tasty beverage, the boy a burger and drink, and Rachel the same; only Rachel opted to photograph the burger containers, as she had three mini-burgers, and the containers were a tad cute. |
| 3:22pm | Being all a bit inquisitive and equally armed with digital camera, we lingered on Bourbon Street, and despite Tubby's claims to the contrary, there were revealing events happening even in the middle of the afternoon. |
| 4:08pm | We headed back to the hotel, slowly. Robin got a picture with this cutie, and while Rachel and Tubby waited for us, Ashley and Mia (both from El Paso, Texas, and Mia being as in "missing in action") chatted with Rachel, and I scored two more FrankPals in the process. |
| 6:52pm | After Tubby napped from his challenging day of walking on flat, even ground, and I updated site content, our collective regrouped about how we'd spend the evening hours. |
| 7:43pm | And yet, we're all still sitting in the hotel room. If I could get away with it without causing a general panic, I'd yell fire just to get them moving. Good grief. |
| 8:02pm | The quest for food was the initial action item. Rachel was looking for something authentic, Tubby was more on the quest for something he'd actually eat, but wasn't plagued with great hunger; Robin wasn't either. I could have gone for some bread crumbs, but it wasn't a driving need. (And we left Robyn bird in the room, since it's past the little one's bed time.) |
| 8:48pm | The food plan went by the wayside, and we ended up wandering around -- surprise -- Bourbon Street. But this time, it's at night, and people are drinking more, and subsequently, engaging in more stupidity. |
| 10:19pm | We landed back at the hotel to refresh, reload batteries for the cameras, and pick up beads. |
| 11:57pm | Just shy of midnight, we sauntered back to Bourbon Street with the primary intentions of having dinner. But just for good measure, we loaded up with two camera and perhaps 18 of the rubber duck beads. (And mind you, these are the nice ones, as seen in this sample, left. The ones you'll generally find sold here are similar to the ones in the sample's right side.) |
| 12:06am | On the way to Deril's Diner, across from Pat O'Briens, the flashery began. Imagine my surprise when I discovered it wasn't something that we happened across, it was encouraged by one of my traveling party. (And as a hint, it wasn't Tubby -- he couldn't talk to a girl if his very life depended on it, it seems.) |
| 12:19am | Rachel and Robin chat up Andrea (San Diego, CA) and Autumn (New Orleans, LA), and both become FrankPals, getting some free FrankStuff in the process. |
| 12:26am | In the course of looking over the menu, I was impressed at the notation of cherry, vanilla, or chocolate Coke. It was something I'd never seen until this moment... and I was here to see it. |
| 12:57am | Sure enough, Tubby's "plain" burger, as described by Charles (our server) as "naked" isn't just him being cute... it's how they refer to it, at least in this establishment. |
| 1:07am | Before leaving, Rachel managed to talk Charles, and a couple at the next table (Ryan and Jaime, who live about ten miles from downtown New Orleans) into joining the ranks of the FrankPals. (Robin and Rachel both thought Ryan looked a bit like Harry Potter.) |
| 1:13am | I put the balance of the pictures from this fast bead-distributing walk down Bourbon Street over here. |
| 1:52am | We finally opt to head back to the hotel and call it a night. |
| 2:10am | The collective arrives back at the Radisson, looks through the pictures and stakes out a vague plan for tomorrow (which is apparently going to be a madhouse, town-wide). The girl types leave us boy types to ourselves for the evening. |
| 3:35am | The updates to the site are completed and posted... yea! And if you're wondering why the total beads taken out don't match the number of pictures, we did have to give one away here and there so Robin and Rachel could get some beads for trade. (No one in my travel party is showing any of theirs off... well, not so far, anyway.) |
| 4:02am | All of the odds and ends are done, and I'm off to bed. G'night (or, an early good morning). |