Homeward Bounding – New Orleans – The Final Chapter

Yesterday the epic trip to New Orleans concluded with a very early morning trip to the airport thanks to one of the peerless Roothuggers who ferried us there before his own long drive home.  I’ve seriously got to reconsider these early morning flight times – especially given the prior few days of adult beverage consumption.

Apparently even my clothes put on weight during the trip because my wife and I put the exact same items into the suitcase and it weighed in 1.7 pounds heavier at the airport.  I’m not going to think too much about what that might mean.

There was all kind of noise about delayed flights because of the sequestration cuts in air traffic controllers but all the flights were right on time.  The Obama PR machine may have missed the boat, I mean, plane on this, at least from my experience.

The airlines did their usual fantastic job of feeding us – nada.  There wasn’t time to pick up any food as we changed planes in Dallas so we were pretty famished by the time we hit Boston.  We were on the bus to the parking garage when the bus pulled to the side to mark a minute of silence at 2:50pm to mark the one week anniversary of the marathon bombing.  A fellow passenger even took it upon himself to tell a clueless businessman to shut the hell up on his inane cell phone conversation.  The looks the businessman got from the rest of the passengers helped him feel really small.  Events of the bombing really parenthesized my trip.

Since we were right on the cusp of rush hour the first priority was to escape Boston towards Rhode Island where Buddy was awaiting extraction.  Once we wound our way through the labyrinthine meanderings of the Big Dig on I-93 south we successfully avoided the worst of the Boston traffic.  I was convinced there was a Cracker Barrel restaurant on I-95 south before we got to Rhode Island so that became the plan. 

The Elusive Quarry

With each mile it became obvious either my memory was failing or the restaurant had closed (I vociferously voted for the latter).  The problem was once the image of a Cracker Barrel meal was proposed – nothing else would do.  We reached Rhode Island in great time but found my sister’s house locked and empty (well except for the heated barking of Buddy – three feet from the front door). 

My hunger had not reached the point that I was willing to break into the house (a close thing).  We tried my sister’s cell phone with no success so after waiting about fifteen minutes we took off on an odyssey across Cranston visiting literally every house of her in-laws trying to find her.  I became increasingly concerned that something bad had happened in my absence because my sister is reliable and this was not normal.  After rousing her brother in law from his personal meditations and her mother in law we located my sister (immense relief) who was out running errands.  We had her old cell phone number (which still had her message on it which confused us) and she thought we were coming in later.

We made our way back to her house to reunite with the apoplectic Buddy the Wonder Pooch.  He rewarded my absence by promptly clawing my chin in his energetic greeting. 

We went directly home because there was definitely a Cracker Barrel there (at least there was when we left).  I didn’t even go upstairs when we dropped Buddy off, which confused the hell out of him.  We made a bee line to Cracker Barrel and finally achieved lunch/dinner, despite the efforts of a surly waitress, accompanied by their matchless biscuits.  The manager even offered free desserts because of the waitress but we declined in order to get home and watch the Red Sox demolish the Oakland A’s.  The A’s had so many former Red Sox on the field that it looked like an old timers game.

I pause to reflect on the weekend spent in New Orleans. I had never been to this great city before, one of the few US major cities that I had not seen (San Diego and Phoenix remain).  This was the perfect time of year to visit because there was none of the humidity or bugs a friend warned me about.  It was warm enough for the Bourbon Street ladies to display their wares, so to speak, which was a definite plus.  The World War 2 Museum is an absolute must see for anybody visiting the Big Easy.  The coolest thing was that everything was in fairly “easy” walking distance (my wife would disagree on this).  I really liked New Orleans because of the controlled chaos and unapologetic excess.  We crammed a lot in over the weekend but it was time so well spent.

New Orleans - My Kind of Town

Well spent because of that magnificent group of Americans – the Roothuggers (which includes the wives).  As we said our goodbyes it felt like I was saying farewell to beloved brothers and sisters instead of mere friends because that’s what they’ve come to mean to me.  I will be reluctant to return to New Orleans because there is no way any trip could top this past weekend with the Roothuggers.