"Alligator bit smoothies"

Day three: Ridiculous

A ten hour drive from Amarillo to Houston. LONG. I took the doors off the cat cages to allow them room to move and stretch…Red slept under her blanket, as usual, and Palo napped on my lap for a while before he went off to sleep in his box. They’re handling the crazy of the move very well.

We discovered an In N Out in Dallas, so of course that’s where we stopped for lunch. For dinner, we went to Taco Cabana (I wish I was kidding) and stayed at a Baymont Inn hotel in Houston. Well the first room was flooded…which might be nicer than the second room. The second room…just generally gross. But it’s one night, and you make due.

Observations from the road:

1.       Never again, Baymont. Never again.

2.       Never again, Taco Cabana. Never again.

3.       Cows. So many cows.

4.       Tons, also, of horses.

5.       Some deer? I guess.

6.       The changing landscape from the Texas Panhandle to Southeast Texas.

7.       Texas. It’s far too large.

Song of the day:

                Summer Girls, LFO.

Tomorrow: 351 miles and 5 hours and 46 minutes to New Orleans, Colleen, and two relaxing nights.

New Orleans:

My car is cleaner than it’s been in years, from the open skies of New Orleans, and I thoroughly enjoyed the rain. Sick and tired of Texas, it was a relief to get to New Orleans and to see Colleen. It always is. Too short this time…but only 9 weeks to go. It was a blast meeting Colleen’s friend Heather…we all had a great time together.

A quick summation:

What a great time. Jambalaya. Crawfish. Oysters, both raw and charbroiled. Walking the French Quarter with Colleen, Sean and Heather. Alligator sausage with andouille sauce. Enjoying an evening on the fly by the Big Muddy, and getting caught in a downpour. Hiking the Barataria Preserve in an epic downpour while listening to the Pig Frogs (HogFrogs) and watching the snakes and alligators. Walking the French Quarter with Sean and Heather while Colleen gave a presentation, and ducking into the nearest establishment when the skies opened up. Live music in the French Quarter on Thursday night and live music at the Jolly Inn in Homa on Friday night.  Ridiculous conversations. You think Sean and I are bad? Throw in Colleen and Heather and see what happens. It was fantastic.

Palo being really fancy and making everyone love him. Red doing some of her highest class hiding.

Road kill alligators. Weird. 

It’s a city with fantastic charm, and one I haven’t gotten a chance to explore enough.

Tonight, I sit in a hotel room in Kingsport, Tennessee after driving close to 700 miles through Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Tennessee. The cats are really handling this chaos well, but I can tell it’s beginning to stress them out.  Tomorrow we finish out the drive, 580 someodd miles, 9ish hours and Beachwood at the end of the day.

Song of the day:

Mashup of “Fancy”, “Happy”, “Turn Down for What” and “Talk Dirty to Me”. And the entire mix Colleen made of 90’s tunes that started our day. She didn’t give us the play list so every song was “….OH I REMEMBERTHIS ONE!”

One more day. Then Mom can try to steal my cats.