Sunday, June 2nd 2002

Atlanta, GA to New Orleans, LA

Weather:  Sunny, Hot and Humid....High of 95

Total Miles To Date 1,016 miles not updated

Money spent today:

$41.50 for gas

$7.25 on beer

$33.00 for dinner

$3.66 for bathroom odds and ends

Total Spent Today

$85.41

Total Spent To Date

396.42

averaging 66.07 per day

8:30 time to get up and pack and play with Arman a little and said bye to Mahmood and Pirya

10am...out the door

11:35 I cross into Alabama....from Atlanta to Alabama..there is nothing...I repeat nothing to look out...and so far in Alabama, there is nothing

ah, finally excitement...the time zone change....something I haven't put to much thought into...Ok, from now on, time will be listed for my local time zone.

11:35 Central time I'm in Montgomery Alabama and I switch from 85 South to 65 South.....Wow, isn't this an interesting day.

This so far is my most interesting part of the day...A local radio station is having their weekly top 20 show...and the number 20 song is Hole's Malibu....other songs on the list included Alien Ant Farms' Smooth Criminal and Pantera's version Planet Caravan.  I even heard Incubus' Warning which shows that this is at least a current show....very odd...I regret not being in the area long enough to find out what the number one song was.

1:50 pm hit Mobile Alabama and switch from 65 South to 10 West

2:15 central time and I enter Mississippi...

Another point of interest as you get closer to New Orleans a lot of the highways are actually built on the water....it's almost like going on miles and miles of bridges...and you keep going and you see marsh's river's..ton's of people boating, jet skiing, water skiing...

3:35 central time I'm in Louisiana... I go right to the Welcome Center and try to figure out where I'm going to stay.  They hook me up with a room in the French Quarter for $45 dollars...not bad for downtown when i saw Motel 6 on the outskirts costing 39 dollars...

I finally get to cross the final highway/bridge into New Orleans

4:30 Central Time and I enter the French Quarter and this is starting to look cool...

4:50 I check into my room...I am set up!!!  The Hotel is called the Prince Conti French Quarter Hotel on the corner of Conti Street and Bourbon Street...What's even better is that I'm lucky enough to get a room with a little balcony looking out onto Bourbon....There would be no way I'd get this if it was busy season...

I've got to check this city out...but, hey, what's the rush....It's been a long boring day of driving...time to relax a little, shower and then I'll go out....

by the way...another sign they take drinking way to seriously here...check this picture out.....this is right across the street

7:30 I'm not ready to venture into town....wow, what an intense party town....This place is dangerous for anyone who likes to drink...Once you're on Bourbon Street every single place is a bar.  Another thing you'll notice right off the bat is that it's ok to drink on the street...After passing a few of them I stopped by one to check out the music and I figure, when in Rome....So I decided to get a beer....Big mistake.  When you ask for a beer, they open 3 bottles for you and charge $4....I never drink, much less drink three right off the bat after not eating since yesterday....So, I decide this isn't so bad, I'll jut go walk around town with these beers....Another thing to learn...You can drink outside, just NO bottles...You're not going to believe this, but I drank all 3 in 15 minutes, just because I wanted to move to another bar....Not a good thing for me...For me, I think I'm pretty close to drunk and my stomach needs food.  

I walked around Bourbon Street some more and made my second mistake....I start passing sex shops and strip bars..you'd look in and see girls dancing on the tables...then kept walking....As I walked past one bar marked exotic dancing, I looked in and saw girl with a really thin and flat chested body...wait, oh no...it's a guy.....then I quickly looked around the block I just walked on and it was completely gay!!  This is not the section of town I want to be in...(not that there's anything wrong with it)...

Anyway, at this point I was just looking for a bar with food that was playing The Lakers game...After walking a little, I found a nice little place called Remoulade and tried some local foods.  I started off with a hot sausage w/ cracker and mustard appetizer.  And for the main meal, get this, I had some Jambalaya... That's pretty daring for me.  Finished it off with my favorite dessert Creme Brulee...I watched the 2nd and 3rd quarter from the bar before I took off....

I walked past some where strip bars and regular bars (because that's all there are in the French Quarter) and walked down to the Mississippi River.  I didn't make it to far before I made it back to Bourbon Street again to check out some live music....they're everywhere and it's free...I dropped another $3 for two beers (at least this place sells two beers at a time, not three)....

I hung out for a little while...but I'm really tired and I have a full day and night tomorrow...

notes:

Once again, thanks to Mahmood, Priya and Arman for making me feel so at home!!

Ron, thanks for calling

clearly, speed limits don't matter.....The speed limit usually is 70mph and I'm averaging 80-85mph and people fly by me like I'm standing still....A police car even blew by me when I was doing 85

If you're not into religious radio programming, then driving thru Alabama on a Sunday morning is not the place to be

If you're not into race car driving on the radio, then driving thru the south on a Sunday afternoon is not the place to be

about 50 miles outside of New Orleans there's a town called Gulf Port which has outlet stores that I know my mom would have loved.

Jason, ok...I'll work on getting pictures of the locals...

Total Miles Traveled Today 

I forgot to check the odometer before I dropped my car off....I'll update on Tuesday, but it was around 450