Houston

Houston was to be the Stop of Amazing Coincidence. This we knew, in part. And the rest we discovered on our arrival. But more on that later.

So, driving to Houston was fine.



You know - nothing unexpected. And the exact same route, almost mile for mile, that we had driven from Tucson to Tampa. We are intimately familiar with the 10. We're nearly on a first name basis with some of the rest stop staff. They have good orange juice at the Visitors' Stop on the Tampa/Alabama border. Fresh squeezed. Good maps, too.

It was a looong drive, one which took, as expected a day & a half. We covered 767 miles in about twelve hours, and we spent the night at the Pear Tree Inn in Lafayette, Louisiana. When we were pulling into Lafayette, calling around on to hotels listed in the GPS, we rang the Pear Tree and were quoted one price. But then when we got to the desk, they said that it was an internet rate and that's not the 'drop-in' rate. However - TRAVELLER'S TIP: the receptionist at the front desk, somewhat sotto voce, explained that if we simply walked across the lobby to the computer & printer, and went to Roomsavers.com, and looked up the Pear Tree Inn in Lafayette, Louisiana, we would be able to download & print a coupon, redeemable at the Pear Tree Inn in Lafayette, Louisiana, which offered a better rate than either the walk-in rate OR the online reservation rate through their website. $39/night! So, all you money-grubbing Gullivers, all you parsimonious Phineas Foggs, take note - and not just of the website, but of the fact that, often, you can walk into a hotel, go right to their 'business center,' right onto their computer, and print out the coupon right on site.

So, feeling very satisfied about ourselves, we unloaded the car, washed our faces, fed & walked the dog, and headed out to a perfectly fine, truck-stop kind of diner at the TA Travel Center #161, at exit 101. You know the one.

The next day, we covered the final 217 miles to our Craigslist rental and were every bit as satisfied as we might have hoped. Situated on Heights Boulevard, in the up-and-coming, if not already up-and-come, neightborhood of Houston Heights, the home of Steve Ouellette, his partner John, and their dog Foster, is a very comfortable, brick home complete with carport, green lawn to the side, metal-framed gazebo and granite Greek discus-thrower to greet you on your arrival. In the back are two carriage houses, both of which he rents, one on a regular basis and one to transients like ourselves. Essentially a one bedroom apartment, complete with a separate living room, hardwood floors, complete kitchen, cable TV & wi-fi, we were back to homestyle living for a couple weeks. It was very comfortable, and Steve & John were perfect hosts, even supplying us with wine for the night & fresh coffee beans and a grinder for the morning.

NOW - here's where the Amazing Coincidences begin. But first, a little history.

Flashback to two years ago. Your humble correspondent was taken by his morning jog past a parking lot each day, wherein he noticed a gaunt, dusty, and very sad looking dog lying underneath a shrub. He was there the first day. He was there the second day, and I bought him a Subway sandwich, which I fed him through the fence. The third day, seeing him again and convinced that he was indeed homeless and in bad need of medical attention, I couldn't take it. I took a company rental car and, armed with another Subway sandwich, I found a way into the parking lot, whereupon I proceeded to lure him into the back seat. Why didn't I blanche at the notion of bringing a stray pit bull into the back seat of the car, I can only explain by way of my own dog, Diego, back home and the fact of his early life on the street.

Here are some photos of him, when I took him in, and the shape he was in.




I took him to the local shelter. But they don't adopt out pit bulls. If he wasn't claimed over the weekend, he'd be put down. So, I took him to a couple vets before I found one that would not only treat him for the severe malnutrition and dehydration, begin de-worming, and give him some antibiotics, but who would also agree to hold him for the weekend while I looked for a rescue organization. Many phone calls and referrals later, I made a fellow named Dana Blankenship at Scouts Honor, a local Houston rescue & fostering organization. Dana called the vet and, after consulting with them on his general health, agreed to take "Cheech" (as I'd been calling him) in.

As I kept in touch with Dana, over the rest of the tour, I learned that Cheech had acclimated to his foster home very well, making a great recovery. And, ultimately, he was adopted (and renamed "Chuck") by a young woman - who actually lived in Houston Heights, not far from Steve Ouellette's home where we stayed, two years later.

Here he is after his recovery.



My contact with Dana proved to be particularly valuable to us later on as it became clear to Angie and me that Diego, with his increasingly difficult behavioral problems, simply needed owners with a better skill set than we had to offer. Much time was spent on the phone with Dana, with their trainers, with their vet, and after much, much grief, we ended up putting Diego on a plane to Houston. It was the worst day, in July of 2007, and it was only alleviated by the knowledge that - if our ultimate purpose in Diego's life - was to get him from point A to point B, then we were glad to have played that role. Diego later was sent to stay at Spindletop Pitbull Rescue - a place which has been described to us as the "witness protection program" for dogs, because they work with many difficult cases - ex-fighting dogs, dogs who've been abused - and they don't list their physical location. They have 70 acres in the country, about an hour north of Houston. They work with them intensively. And if they decide the dog simply can't be trusted to be adopted out, then the dog lives out its life in a safe environment there. They don't take in animals from private individuals - only fostering organizations. And they're considered a last, best hope for some dogs.

NOW STAY WITH ME, PEOPLE....

So, we think we're done with dogs for awhile. Then Butley falls in our lap, another pitbull no less, and I leave Angie to host him for the 'weekend' (which has now turned into a year and a half) to go out on the second year of TWELVE ANGRY MEN. Then, with our little family heading out on the road again this year, we're in constant need of dog-friendly housing, of which were neither of the two company options. So we scanned the Craigslist options in Houston and posted our own ad. We were then contacted by Steve Ouellette, who sent us photos and an address. I check in with him - is he okay with a pitbull? He's fine, he says. He and his partner have hosted many dog-adoption events on their front lawn. Oh really, I reply. Maybe you know a friend of mine, Dana Blankenship, with Scouts Honor. I know Dana very well, he responds. In fact, they're the group that we often host here. Really, I write, that's such a coincidence. Dana was kind enough to take in our dog, Diego.

Here's where the chill of impossible coincidence set in.

Oh, I knew Diego very well, he replies. In fact, the vet who rents the house right next door to me worked with Diego and even housed him for a brief time. I write Dana to let him know. He's as spooked by the coincidence as we are.

Just something about karma, I guess. In any event, we knew we had found The Right Place to Stay in Houston.

So, shortly after our arrival, we were walking Butley along Heights Boulevard, a tree-lined neighborhood with a grassy median in the middle along which residents often jog or walk their dogs. On our way back we happened to stop in front of the vet, right next door to Steve's place. The assistant comes out to see Butley, because she just can't pass up a big-headed lug like Butley (and who can blame her). We talk for awhile, and it happens that we end up going in to see some very new puppies they're fostering and their mom. We meet the vet, Patricia Cooper, mention the connection through Diego and Scouts Honor, and she recalls Diego fondly, with the inevitable tinge of trieste over what a trying case he was. Thankful, though, as were we, that he ended up in a good place after all.

Meanwhile, Butley befriends the new mama (named Cassia), and before you know it, Angie and I are making it a daily practice, on Butley's walks, to stop by Dr. Cooper's & pick up Cassia for our walk, who's thrilled and starting to come out of her shell. Butley has a good time, showing her the ropes of how to behave on a walk. And Dr. Cooper not only gives us some pointers on how to give Butley the allergy injections he's been recently prescribed (another story, don't ask - our dog is allergic to grass and trees - it's like a kid being allergic to Crayolas & Play-Doh) but she also gives us a box of syringes & needles for his injections. Like father, like son, apparently. Only he has to get his every three days.

Much of the rest of our time in Houston was occupied with dog-related activities as well. We had dinner with Steve & John and Dana and his partner Danny. We tried (unsuccessfully) to make contact with Spindletop's owner, Leah, who was predictably shy and still recovering from Hurricane Ike and a separate injury to boot. And beyond that, there was just a lot of rehearsal.

You see, Kate Fuglei, Angie's understudy and a wife & mom who's been away from home for six months, quite understandably made only a six month commitment to the tour. And now that the time has passed, she's heading back to her husband and two boys, one of whom is currently fielding offers from college, when he's not fielding baseballs on his varsity team (and the source of much pride to his coaches and college recruiters). And while we'll all sorely miss her, I'm sure she'll enjoy a triumphant return home, brief though it may be before she's packing lunches, driving to practice, and all the other inevitable motherly & wifely pursuits - pursuits whose familiarity will offer a soft landing for her, I'm sure.

Kate Hampton is her replacement, kindly only requiring us to learn a new last name only, and a welcome addition to the "Seniors' Club" here on tour. And as she's been trying to get up to speed, there has been a maximum amount of rehearsal to help her do so, understandably. She's doing just fine, and I'm sure everyone will enjoy the chance to get to know a new face & a new set of favorite drink recipes.

And so, rolling ever onward, we tip our hat to the locals and saddle up. Tomorrow, we've got 981 miles to go to get to Des Moines. In a fantasy life, we'll be making the whole drive in one day, crashing in Des Moines, and then rising to watch the Inauguration with a cup of coffee and a smile. It'll be a whole, new US of A come 11am on Tuesday.

Do I think we can make the drive in one day, the whole 981 miles? If we just grin and bear it, get up early, stop only for gas & bathroom breaks, and milk the Texas 80mph speed limit for all it's worth?

Yes we can.

Do I think we will?

No I don't.

Tampa & New Years Eve

Getting up the next day, we had a good ten hours of driving ahead of us, to make it to Tampa. Not much to say about it, really – we’ve got the routine down by now. We hook up the iPod, we each take turns driving or relaxing, Butley falls asleep, and we only stop for food, gas, and bathrooms. And there’s always coffee and peanut butter crackers, when things get rough.

We got into Tampa late Sunday night and checked in to our very comfortable Residence Inn digs. Since we didn’t have to be anywhere except rehearsal the following Tuesday, we had Monday, as planned, for ‘reparations’. Laundry, car wash, oil change, tires rotated, and massages. The last part is my favorite, and of course the best way to end the day. I’m a real convert to the notion of a massage after a long drive. One indulgence that seems particularly useful in getting back onto my feet all the sooner.

Angie’s family came into town Wednesday evening (New Year’s Eve), and we met them at Busch Gardens where our ever-resourceful company manager managed to trade show tickets for free admission to the park after our show. We got there kind of late (11pm), and we met Tony & Marianne, Deb, Mike, Nick & Taylor at a steakhouse on the grounds where, after a long day of traveling from Denver, they set about their own recovery. But Angie and I, only having a couple hours to enjoy the park, lit out for the roller coasters and went straight to the biggest, baddest one in the park. Shei-kra. Featuring a thirty story drop straight down at a ninety-degree angle. We got in line and waited for about 15 minutes, until they made an announcement that they were shutting down the ride until after the fireworks display at the park. Apparently, falling debris and gunpowder flares don’t mix well with high-altitude hijinks.

So, rather than stay in line, we headed in the direct opposite direction towards which everyone else was walking to go see the fireworks, in the hopes that we might find one rollercoaster that was far enough away not to be threatened.

We were in luck, as the Kumba, a manic maze of corkscrews and loop-de-loops, was not only running, it was completely empty. We walked right up to the front and had about a five minute wait. Sitting down in the car, as the chest restraints locked into place, Angie and I looked at our watches. One minute to midnight. How perfect, I thought. For two people whose lives, since we got married, have been filled with unexpected turns, wild adventures and misadventures, and harem-scarem surprises of all kinds, in careers which are in a constant state of flux, and who seem to have little more than the vaguest of notions about what life may have in store for us in the ensuing weeks, let alone months or years, that we should be ringing in the new year strapped into a mechanical wild bull bucking and kicking, screaming at sixty miles an hour through alpine climbs and daredevil falls, spinning around in mad disorientation, and totally at the mercy of all kinds of forces larger than ourselves, with fireworks going off all around us along the horizon, and for that horizon, depending on which direction and which incline we happen to be on, to be constantly shifting and twirling around … well, it rarely gets more apropos than that.

Unless it’s like this. That after one crazy, fear-inspiring, stability-shredding trip like that, our first thought is – let’s turn around and do it again. Which, because everyone was still over at the fireworks, and there was no one in line, was just what we did. I felt like Richie Rich and the park was all mine for the day.

Immediately afterwards, we walked back to Shei-kra, that granddaddy of terror, committed to the idea of getting as much panic and near-death experience as possible before the park’s doors closed at 1am. On our way there, we found The Reed/Ogborn contingent and en masse we all sallied forth to our doom. Tony & Nick sat it out, but the rest of us enjoyed a similarly empty line and walked right past the “From here your wait is 1 hour – From here your wait is 45 minutes – From here your wait is 30 minutes – From here your wait is 15 minutes” signs, right to the gate at which you enter the ride.

Now – exactly what it is in some people’s natures (mine included) that actually seeks out such death-defying bull rides like this, I don’t know. But I think this may have been the shortest, and yet most intense, ride I’ve ever done. Here’s the deal: they strap you in, six abreast, three rows to a car. Your feet dangle below you. You climb up into the heavens, unable to turn your head for any more than 90 degrees in either direction, and if you are (as we were) doing the ride at night it feels like you’re in a slow motion rocket ride up and up and up, as there are no tall buildings around the park so you can see off for miles in every direction. Then it levels off at the top, and you feel like you’re taking a tour of some construction site, with nothing more than metal framework around and beneath you.

Then – the track below you stops. At least as far as you can see. It looks that way because it actually bends down. Down at – I swear to God – what I think is a 90 degree angle. And there you sit, legs free and braced in only by the chest restraint, looking at the expanse of the park below you, as your car creeps, foot by foot, towards the edge. And if that isn’t enough, it even slowly crests the corner ever so slightly, and leaves you literally hanging there – stopped – staring down the immediately impending drop of twenty stories below.

And you’re there for probably a full ten seconds.

And then you drop.

There’s no wind up. There’s no gradual increase in your rate of fall. You PLUMMET. Like you have never PLUMMETED before. In fact, I think this ride specifically was the purpose for the crafting of the word PLUMMET.

Down at the end of fall, you wind around a few curves and turns and then back up for another 15 story climb – another slow crawl towards the edge – and another PLUMMETING PLUMMET.

And then you whirl around, and you’re easing slowly into the station. And if you are, as we were, there at 12:30 at night, and almost no one else is around, you think to yourself – let’s do that again.

And so you do.

Madness.

Now – you would think, if you’re prone to motion sickness, particularly in twisty-turny car rides and stomach-flipping rollercoasters, this ride – this one ride – might be one you would think to avoid. My wife, however, was not one to make such a choice. And her bravery got the better of her as, descending the stairs after the second ride, the beer-and-potato-chip dinner that we hastily enjoyed upon our arrival at the park began to argue with her intestinal chain of command. Clearly, her digestive mechanism was understandably confused as to the proper direction in which to process her less-than-nutritious meal. And the result, after looking a bit woozy and green around the gills, was inevitable.

Fortunately, there was a small, wooded area off to the side. I pity the poor shrubs and cedar chips.

Happy New Year.

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The next day, we visited my Aunt Sue and Uncle Erny at their lakeside home. Erny and Sue, various maladies not withstanding, are two of the finer examples of retirement life one could hope to enjoy. And we had a great New Year’s Day lunch, Erny showed us his amazing orchids, out in the garden in the shade, and Sue plied us with sandwiches, potato salad and peanut butter cheesecake. He had plenty of old family stories, from back in the days before I was even around, and in looking at his face I could look straight back through the generations, to my dad, to my grandmother, and probably my great grandparents. The blessings of a family are many, to be sure, and one of the treats is the sense of connectedness it gives you.

The rest of the time in Tampa has been a bit busy. I had understudy rehearsal Wednesday & Friday, and we had two-show days on Saturday & Sunday. But we’ve nonetheless managed to meet up with Angie’s family for drinks or breakfast in the morning. It’s been a good visit, and the Deb & Mike and the kids went off to take in Disney World also. Sunday night, we were planning to pack up & head out after the evening show, to try to get a couple hours of driving under our belts before crashing, but the more we thought about packing the car, then unpacking the roof rack and the bike rack when we land somewhere, and re-packing the roof rack and the bike rack before leaving again, it just seemed wiser to stay the night and just get an early start on Monday. Who knows – maybe we’ll even make it to New Orleans for one more stay, though it would seem like a shame to put down in the Five Continents for little more than a stop-over.

In any event – it’s fifteen hours of driving back to our next stop in Houston. Nearly half-way back the way we just came, from Tucson. And then, after two weeks there, we have another 900+ mile drive to Des Moines.

Holy Mary, Mother of God. Pray for us……..

Lower Ninth, The Garden District, Preservation Hall

We felt like we should visit the Lower Ninth Ward at some point on the trip. Especially since Angie had never been to New Orleans at all, and I had been a couple years ago, so I was curious to see what was the area’s current state of affairs.

With some direction from Jess, we headed right for the heart of the worst damage. And of course, on our way there, we were passing through some of the lower income areas and it would have been easy to mistake some of the rattiness as just examples of disrepair that had existed long before Hurricane Katrina ever hit the shores of Lake Ponchartrain. But by the time we rolled into the Northwest corner of the Lower Ninth Ward, there was no mistaking the carnage that storm must have wrought. It wasn’t the boats upended or the skeletal houses or the trash littered in the streets that brought home the message so much as it was the vast fields of no man’s land that exist where whole communities used to be.



I mean – nothing. Fields, identified only as former neighborhood blocks by the fire hydrants, the street signs, the bare electrical poles, the slab after slab after slab that were the foundations of where houses used to be. Hiroshima comparisons would be unfair, but not far from the mark. Since it wasn’t the storm so much as the flooding of the levees that caused all the destruction, it was all the standing water that wore down all the houses. And the particular are we had gone to was one where a barge had broken through a levee and simply wiped out house after house, knocking them down like so much tinderwood, houses which were probably not all that well constructed in the first place.

Every now and then we would see a new or newly renovated house, someone who had either finally gotten through the bureaucratic red tape of their insurance company or who had had their own money or families who could help. And they looked like homesteaders, colonists in an otherwise barren outback. It sounds extreme, but I urge you to take what I’m saying literally. It’s a huge series of neighborhoods, where the devastation spread through, and they are largely wiped off the map. I didn’t even see many FEMA trailers, at least not in the areas we went to. A few, next to construction sites. But it looks like many people have just decided not to return, at least not here, at least not now.

Rebar poles, bent and rusted, stuck up through concrete foundations like so many pipe cleaners. Grasses that may have once been lawns are now shoulder-high fields that resembled the wheat fields of the Midwest. The few remaining streetlights that have electricity don’t bother with red-yellow-green. They just flash red, over and over and over. A beat-up truck might chug by with pipes and materials in such disarray that it’s hard to tell if they’re for construction or demolition. A lone dog will bark off in the distance. And we saw one US mail truck parked on the side of the road. What must his job be like, these days, and who does he even deliver mail to anymore?

To say it was sobering wouldn’t be right. Maybe because I’d already seen images of this before, or maybe because we weren’t expecting a jolly time, or maybe because I’m just that callous. But it drew a picture, in thick, indelible marker ink, of an entire city at a loss of even where, of how, to pick up the pieces. And it made clear how distancing the media reports, with all the excitement and adrenaline of ‘news flash’ advertising, can make the whole event seem like yet another reality show, made it seem like a crisis that had some kind of end, or ought to have. But driving through street after street, for a couple hours, amidst the unremitting desolation, was just a very good way to remind me that while severe tragedy makes for good television, long-lasting banality and numbing sensory deprivation takes a different toll on a person, on a community, on a city. Like having the floor drop out from underneath you. And I cannot begin to imagine what it’s like to have to rebuild your entire life the way that may of those people have. And the way that many of those people have decided to forgo.

Action movies are good at showing the rush of a gunfight or a battle scene. They’re less successful at showing how the dead are buried, how the lifelong injuries are endured, how the broken marriages and families are recovered from, how the window. Likewise, the media coverage showed us every angle of people on top of flooded houses waving to the news helicopters overhead. Showing us the mud-clogged cleanup, the daily brick-and-mortar rebuilding, the making of funeral arrangements, the choking grip of institutional red tape, the becoming used to things being so bad, life being so hard, that it seems useless to try to make them better – these are all things at which it’s much less successful. All that to say – it helps me to make things real for myself.

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That afternoon, we took the bikes for a ride along Magazine Street, exploring the other, more opulent side of New Orleans. The Garden District. And opulent it was, though steeped in such history it didn’t feel showy, just very blessed. Lots of great little shops, cafes, restaurants, bars and pubs. And some majestic examples of the finest Historic New Orleans architecture I’d seen. I love the second floor porches that every other house seemed to have. They brought to mind the day when gentlewomen would take in the air and yet still remain on the household grounds, when you entertained guests not in the backyard, enjoying your own privacy, but in the front, where your guests could see and be seen by passersby, where families used to the space of rural life made accommodations to the more cramped living in city life by giving all floors a feeling of the ‘out of doors’ and, in an age before air conditioning, floor-to-ceiling French doors offered the best escape from the stuffy, summer air.

That evening, after a dinner of hotdogs from a cart, we went to Preservation Hall to hear the Preservation Hall Jazz Band – possibly THE New Orleans musical institution. What a throwback. A room no bigger than a neighborhood bar. Wood floors so worn that any coins which might slip out of your pocket are lost forever in between the slats. The only lighting is the original incandescent wall sconces and overheads. There are some benches which hold as many as can fit, and the overflow standing behind them and sitting in front of them triple the occupancy. In fact, packed in as we were, I’m sure they must pay off the fire marshall.

We managed to get a front row seat, literally inches away from the trombone & trumpet player. In fact, Angie and I could look between the tubing of the trombonist’s slide on his lowest notes. And they have fun, fun, fun when they play. The music was great, and the large group of foreign nationals in the audience reminded me how big a commodity jazz is internationally, probably as much or more so now as in the US. There was much stomping, much clapping, and when I turned around, I saw nothing but smiles, all packed together like sardines and enjoying every minute.



Also, you had to love the journeyman sense of all the musicians in the band, the way they simply showed up, plied their trade, and packed up – another day at the office. Afterwards, we saw the clarinet player unlocking his bike, his instrument case slung over his shoulder, and riding away like he had just come into town to buy a loaf of bread. All in a day’s work. We spent the rest of the evening, our last in New Orleans, walking around a packed French Quarter, sampling a few drinks – including some authentic absinthe (it’s legal again, now, supposedly with the wormwood), prepared with all the customary protocol: the slotted spoon, the sugar cube, the lit match to melt it. No hallucinations, though - and an acquired taste, I think - sort of like anisette.

Catching a cab back home, we asked the cabbie if it was always this busy, thinking the holiday must have the streets particularly packed. “No,” he said, “it’s usually a lot busier. The universities are out, people are out of town. It’s real slow tonight.” Which floored us. Us – the New Yorkers – the inhabitants of supposedly the busiest city in America. “It’ll pick up, though. Have no doubt.”

And yet, as we fell asleep in our comfortable bedroom, the ceiling fan swirling around & around, we were content in the thought that our New Orleans experience was all the better for whatever holiday doldrums might have held sway. A perfect break in our drive, and what better way to face the ensuing ten hours of driving ahead, to Tampa the following day.

Algiers, Mardi Gras World, Rock 'N Bowl

You might think we’d sleep in super late that day, but with all of New Orleans to see and only two days to do it in, we got up at the nearly respectable hour of 9:30 and managed to assemble something presentable for breakfast.

Which was amazing – a fruit cup to begin, followed by Christmas sweet bread, and then Russian eggs (which was essentially scrambled eggs with salmon & spices). Fresh juices and coffee/tea, naturally. And our host struck the perfect balance of chatting enough with us to make us feel welcomed and attended to, but otherwise letting us enjoy the stately yet comfortable dining room by ourselves. At the end of the meal, we planned out the day with his help and the use of a map he offered us.

We started with a drive down to the area just east of the French Quarter, where we took Butley for a walk and looked around to see who was playing at the various clubs. Then we headed west and looked around there, doubling back to walk along the levee. The crowds that were absent on Christmas Night were back out & we wove in and out, the three of us, until it all got a bit much and we headed back to the B&B.

Dropping Butley off, we unlocked the bikes and went for a ride down the ferry which took us across to Algiers, an area that’s more for longtime residents, retirees, and locals.



Getting off, we rode around, still impressed at how even the smallest, simplest houses there have at least a nod to the genteel style of New Orleans’ plantation-style porches and colonnades. We rode along the levee, looking to see how far we could get, and then doubled back and cut across the area, stumbling onto one of the more unique New Orleans attractions – Mardi Gras World.

Apparently, there’s one studio that builds most of the floats for the Mardi Gras celebration each year. Kerr Studios, housed in a series of warehouse buildings along the water, makes you feel like you’re twelve inches high and have just wandered into a child’s toy box, staring up at all these enormous, cartoonish sculptures and figureheads. They have a tour available, but we saved ourselves the $17 dollars and just asked to use the restroom, the route to which afforded us a perfect view of much of the studios minus the tour guides’ narration, of course. Jesters’ heads sat next to oversize models of Laurel & Hardy, down the way from enormous Bessie the Cow and papier mache & Styrofoam renderings of the Venus De Milo. And in the midst of a grey afternoon, threatening to rain at any moment, the brilliantly colored paint and flashy baubles was testament to the resilient spirit of New Orleanians in the face of their recent weather disasters.

We stopped off at a British pub, on our way back to the ferry, for our teatime pints. And riding home, once back on the other side, we debated the merits of Dr. John at the House of Blues or Kermit Ruffin and the BBQs at Midland City Rock ‘N Bowl. The latter won out, and, showered & rested, we went first to dinner at Ye Olde College Inn.

Just down the road from the Rock ‘N Bowl, Ye Old College Inn is owned by the same family and has been an institution for university students for decades, apparently. It’s a great, old-fashioned décor, where the walls are littered with photos, artifacts, and news clippings, and bayou seafood is the house specialty. (I had the ‘redfish,’ which the waiter couldn’t compare to anything outside of the gulf, and it was amazing. And I’m not a gourmand, so I’m not one to sling compliments around like Frisbees.) It was busy, but nothing, I’m told, like what it would normally be when the universities are in session. So, if you go, make sure you get a resderation. And save the receipt, because each entrée gets you free admission to the Rock ‘N Bowl.

So, here’s the deal: music and bowling – two great things, it turns out, do go great together. I wish I could claim an insider’s knowledge about Kermit Ruffin, New Orleans favorite that he is, but I have to admit to having gotten the rec from my bro, Michael. And a good one it was. The Rock ‘N Bowl is a real family joint. And not the kind of family joint that ‘dumbs down’ the entertainment for the lowest age denominator. The joint was jumpin’, and teens were dancing with grandparents, hipsters were dancing beside suburbanites, and Kermit & the boys were playing all the favorites, from “When the Saints Go Marchin’ In” to my fave, “Christmastime is Here,” from the Charlie Brown Christmas Album.



We sat and listened for the first set, and right after we were able to get a lane. You pay by the hour, not by the game, and you have to pay for shoes, but judging from the locals, it doesn’t seem like you have to use them. And the good thing about bowling is the same good thing about old-time jazz. Everybody likes it and nobody has to be a connoisseur. So we bowled miserably and had a great time.

Christmas Day

Various artists of all persuasions with their inimitable style and panache sang holiday favorites all the way along our drive to New Orleans. Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra, Mel Tormé…Alvin and the Chipmunks. We had ‘em all. And somewhere around mid-afternoon, as I sucked on a red Tootsie pop and Angie crunched a candy cane, we remembered what day it was and ironically wished each other a Merry Christmas in much the same manner as one asks for lettuce on your tuna sandwich.

It was a banality that we’d expected, but underneath it – loaded up in our red Subaru sleigh with handy supplies for each girl and boy, and with our blue-nosed Rudolph in the back seat – there was a genuine holiday cheer. Our family was together – which is the most anyone can wish for Christmas. But it was also only the beginning of a pretty magical holiday.

Pulling into the gate of the Five Continents Bed & Breakfast, in the Tremé section, just North of the French Quarter, any fears that we might have chosen unwisely fell away. An old, two-story stately manor, with a driveway in the back to the garage and another guest cottage, Five Continents is exactly the kind of oakwood-banistered, pine needle-garlanded, red-ribbon-wreathed, Plantation-style home you’d hope for in a New Orleans Christmas. Apparently once the Southern home of Sam Giancana, the mafia boss, it was built in the nineteenth century by an English gentleman and his French wife, who apparently sought to reconcile the cultural divide with accommodations for both. The English drawing room is separated from the ladies’ parlor with sliding doors that open up for a full viewing of the entire downstairs space when entertaining.

Jess, a former Lieutenant Colonel in the US Army, took his honorable discharge and went to Switzerland where he enrolled in a program for five-star hoteliers. Bringing his savoir-faire home with him, he opened up this B&B six years ago, and managed it first with a partner, but mostly on his own – through Hurricane Katrina, through the ensuing flooding, and through Hurricane Rita. And he has great stories to tell of bailing the home out of all three. But while not unscathed, the house recovered, and he’s been doing good business since, including a fair amount of repeat business.

AND TO THAT END, I WILL SHAMELESSLY PROMOTE HIS BUSINESS FOR THE FOLLOWING REASON: as a referral from us, you – the reader – will get a 10% discount by just mentioning our name. And if we get three guests or groups to visit, Angie and I get a free weekend’s stay... :)

But first, let me tout the Five Continents’ virtues a bit longer, just to encourage you to make use of his hospitality, should you have cause to find yourself in New Orleans.

And when I say hospitality, I mean it. We arrived in the early evening of Christmas Day, a day on which, party city or not, it’s not easy to find an open restaurant. But after unloading our car, Jess not only gave us a map with all the best-recommended restaurants within walking distance, he told us he’d make arrangements for us at Tujague’s, New Orleans’ second-oldest restaurant and a Decatur-street institution, right in the heart of the French Quarter. All we had to do was ask for “Steve” and tell him “Jess from Five Continents sent us.”

So, taking advantage of our bikes in a city which is perfect for cycling, we rode through a couple remarkably quiet French Quarter streets (like Wall Street on a Sunday morning) and found Tujague’s easily enough. Locked up the bikes, went inside, stepped around the waiting line, found “Steve,” and sure enough, “Jess sent us” was all we needed to say to get us seated immediately in the upstairs, colonial-style dining room where we were subsequently treated to a five-course, traditional Christmas dinner. Our dining companions at the table around us were a mix of fellow travelers and family regulars who seemed to enjoy the continuity of a traditional Tujague’s Christmas dinner as much as we enjoyed the novelty of it.


Afterwards, a night-mist dampened the asphalt and haloed the streetlights as we went for an easy ride past shuttered homes and festooned facades. And then we had our perfect moment in Jackson Square, where we happened upon a group of about twenty adults & kids, all huddled around what we learned was a “glass harmonica” – a collection of glasses filled to different levels and lit from below by tiny white lights, glowing in the misty Southern night and played by a jolly white-bearded fellow who, had he a belly and red suit, would have fit the “Papa Noel” image to a T.



And silently, reverently, stood all the revelers around him as he played a celestial “Silent Night” in the moonlight shadow of St. Louis Cathedral. It was the perfect cap to our journey, and we knew we had arrived.

The Big Drive

Packing up the car in the midst of a slight rain, our trips in & out of the house to load the gear in the car were punctuated with Mom’s reprisal as the WOWK-TV weather girl job back in Huntington, WV. “The rain should clear up in a few hours, they say…” Take the big black suitcase out & haul it onto the roof rack. “Clear driving through Texas…” Take the big blue suitcase & haul it onto the roof. “Should be misting in Louisiana…” Get the smaller bags for inside the car. “Looks like it’s gonna be warm in Tampa, when you get there….” Go get Butley & bring him out.

So – fully-loaded with luggage and meteorological data, we said our goodbyes and set the GPS for “Tampa, Fl.”



The first day of driving, December 23rd, took us as far as Fort Stockton, Texas. To the Motel 6 just off the I-10 Fort Stockton exit, to be precise. 580 miles of Arizona & West Texas sagebrush left us a bit weary and hungry, and the big blue & white sign loomed in the horizon like a Last Chance Saloon.



It was everything a motel needs to be, and absolutely nothing else. A parking space. Four walls. A bed. A sink. A shower. A chair. No artwork. $3 for internet access. A big industrial field next door for Butley to stretch his legs. We unloaded the car, fed & walked Butley, and headed out to THE TRUCK STOP RESTAURANT WE RECOMMEND THAT YOU, IF YOU ARE EVER TRAVELLING THROUGH FORT STOCKTON, TEXAS, AVOID AT ALL COSTS!

The Comanche Springs Restaurant. (Insert spooky Halloween organ music here.)


Where to begin?

• The salad bar with the enormously fat, smoking man sitting right beside (in between the nilla wafers & pudding and the organic remains of Peter Rabbit’s culinary orgy)?
• The menu whose items came with the waitress’ specific warnings about, “Oh, I wouldn’t get that….Yeah, and I’d stay away from that too…”?
• The “Texas Toast” which was simply two pieces of slightly over-large, under-toasted, Wonder Bread?


• The profoundly silent, and also profoundly smoking, couple who sat side by side in the middle table, with a stare that looked like they were trying to figure out where to bury the body in their trunk?
• The sadly-wrapped Christmas presents dangling on strings from the ceilings, begging the inevitable conjecturing as to their contents – a new carton of Pall-Malls? A set of shocks for the Chevy?
• The incessant refrain of the “Hook a Prize” game behind Angie’s side of the booth, relentlessly announcing to no one in particular, “There’s no LIMIT to what you can WIN!!!”


Let’s just say – to be polite – we suffered that evening. I think even Butley would have preferred to sleep in the car.

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December 24th – Christmas Eve Day

The next day we slept quite late. Now, for a Motel 6 off the I-10 in Fort Stockton, whose sole purpose is the necessary nightly repose for weary travelers who would just as soon be speeding towards their destination, an on-time departure means 7am. Maybe 8, if you shower, shave, and drink a cup of coffee. A late departure is probably 9am. We probably rose at 10 and certainly didn’t get rolling until 11am, so suffice it to say that as we stepped outside the room, what had been a packed parking lot the night before was now a splendid practice course for beginning drivers.

Hitting the road and typing “Tampa” into the GPS was a sobering event. Ten hours of driving the day before had yielded little more than a quarter of the drive we’d signed onto. We resolved to make it a solid day of driving, and though we never discussed it as a strategy, I noticed that we only stopped for sandwiches, gas, and restroom breaks. Meals were a mobile affair. Angie wasn’t quite finished sleeping, so I took the first shift of driving.

Two CD’s, three episodes of “This American Life,” and one Quaker-length session of quiet contemplation later, Angie took the wheel. I napped a bit and looked at the maps. One blessing about driving across Texas (and there are precious few blessings about driving across Texas) is the fact the Texans enjoy an 80 mph speed limit. So, while nonetheless being careful, we picked up the pace and by late afternoon I began to realize that we were making very good time.

On my next shift, Angie napped a little more as I did some quick mental calculation – we stood a fair chance of making it to New Orleans by midnight or 1am. As we’d considered the option of a just post-Christmas stop there, the fact that we might be in time for a Christmas Morning in the Crescent City was encouraging. But at that hour, we’d probably bunk down in another Motel 6 before finding a place we’d actually like to stay for more than a night. And mobile as we were, we had no real chance to find one. Angie called her dad, who did some online checking for us back at home in Denver, and we found a cheap place to stay, but not one in which we’d probably want to have a Christmas vacation, so we decided – after much weighing of options, to just finish getting through Texas and to finally come to rest in Lake Charles, Louisiana.

We stopped at another Motel 6 kind of place which would have been fine, as fine goes. But it turns out, the guy at the desk, having his Christmas Eve dinner of Burger King in front of an old episode of “MacGuyver,” was completely sympathetic to our suspicions of the rooms in his charge, and freely offered another option – the hotel across the road. “It’s a little more, but they just opened two weeks ago, and I’m tellin’ you man, the rooms there are AWE-some.”

Well, with a recommendation like that, we were practically obliged to look into it. And he was right – La Quinta though it might have been, it was surely the nicest La Quinta I’ve ever seen. Faux mahogany dressers, faux marble countertops, faux uptown O’Keefe-inspired photos of orchids on the walls…. And after our last stop, it seemed like luxury.

After feeding Butley and unpacking the car, we went looking for a late dinner. The only option was L’Auberge Du Lac Casino, where – after a light dinner by a fireside with a faux wood fire – we proceeded to peruse the gaming room. And we were hardly the only ones – all of Lake Charles, it seems, had decided to take part in the apparently long-held and well-respected Lake Charles Christmas custom of gambling. Because of course, when one thinks of Father Christmas, one thinks of craps tables and Plinko.



After a drink at the bar, we sallied forth. Angie had fair success at a slot machine and I managed to make a meager amount at video poker, and so – having made back the money we spent on our drinks – we spent the rest of Silent Nacht watching the rest of the gamers, playing complex casino games we couldn't hope to understand, amidst the holiday cheer of “Come on, baby, Daddy needs a new pair o’ shoes!”.

God rest ye, merry gentlemen…



In the morning, we rose late again (by Motel 6 standards) and packed up the car, after which we proceeded to the business center where we did some internet browsing and landed on a promising B&B with an advertised “Papa Noel” rate that fell within our modest “Christmas Indulgence” budget. And armed with a reservation for the next three nights, we headed out for New Orleans. Laissez les bons temps roulez!

Tucson & Denver

Immediately following our week in Tempe, we drove to Tucson to stay with my mom & her husband for a night. Then we flew to Denver for a few nights to see Angie’s family for Christmas (or what counted as Christmas in the Reed family manse), while Butley stayed behind with my mom for some desert R&R. The Reeds and Ogborns showed their customary hospitality and we ate, drank, were merry – in spite of the looming threat of Papa Reed’s karaoke machine. And we did a very good job of negotiating an early exchange of gifts and Christmas cheer. Santa was, no doubt, caught by surprise by our early celebration, but he would have been proud, nonetheless.

Back in Tucson, where a very enthusiastic Butley greeted us, having enjoyed some quality time with two newly-taken ill housemates and all the movies and couch potato time that comes along with winter colds. Mom & Jim unfortunately had to cancel their trip back East to Bethlehem with Marisa, John, Julian & Michele, but it was regrettably the right call to make. And again, we celebrated Christmas with Mom & Jim, if in a much more subdued way, with Chinese takeout & a copy of “Wall-E”. Mom, if you’re reading this, I’m wearing m new jersey & loving it.



And then began – THE BIG DRIVE.