Day Two--On The Road Again

[FYI--we ran out of gas money, but we managed to fix the RV so it'll run off of comments. Help us along, won't you?]

We passed through Alabama, Georgia, Tennessee, and Mississippi. Not much of great incidence happened on the road, I'm sorry to report. Dad, Jimmy, Emily and I played 5-card draw and Dad cleaned us all out. However, we did stop at a Southern convenience story in Alabama. It was a whole 'nother world. For starters, there was an ice chest full of beer, wine, and Captain Morgan's in the very front of the store. It was all in to-go cans...which only let us to assume that it was meant to be drunk immediately after purchase, which is creepy when you consider that it was a gas station.

But the wonders of the Southern convenience store didn't stop there. There was, once again, a walk-in beer cave. In the CONVENIENCE STORE. And this was a nice convenience store, too, not some creepy place with drug dealers on the corner. They also had a jar full of "semi-boneless" pigs' feet right next to the beef jerky. Probably because of all the beer, the counter was protected by a sheet of bulletproof glass with closeable windows.

Jimmy had some money burning a hole in his pocket, so he bought me a stick of chapstick and bought some poppycock to share. Poppycock is like crackerjack but it has caramel-covered almonds instead of chocolate-covered peanuts. Don't worry, it's not some kind of alcoholic beverage...although think he could have gotten away with buying it.

[We have some pictures of the wondrous Chevron gas station, which we'll share as soon as we can figure out how to upload them.]

Life was pretty quiet until we reached Lake Pontchartrain. Then I amazed Jimmy by reading 200 pages of 'Salem's Lot in three hours and told Justin off for talking incessantly about Mardi Gras and immediately felt bad about it (though not bad enough to flash him.)

Once we got into the city, things started to get more interesting. There were abandoned hurricane-destroyed buildings sitting side-by-side with new developments. It was weird. But the weirdness of that was far eclipsed by us seeing a hooker on the sidewalk four blocks from our campground.

The campsite was not the best. It was pretty much a parking lot with trees, and there were people towards the end of the lot who were definitely residents. The owner had a long conversation with my mom, only some of which I heard. Apparently, he returned to his house after the flood and found it burned and looted. With the money he got from FEMA, he set up this campsite/trailer park. He was a really nice guy, and I feel very safe leaving our RV in his care.

We ate dinner and wrote the first of our postcards. (For those of you who donated to the cause, you'll be getting one sooner or later.)

After much debate, we decided to go into the city. As soon as we were out of the car, Dad warned us all that somebody would come up to us, tell us he could tell us were we got our shoes, then tell us we had our shoes on our feet in Louisiana on Bourbon Street, then ask us for money. I rolled my eyes. Then we passed a knot of people with one guy in the middle saying, "...on your feet, in Louisiana on Bourbon Street!"

"Oh my gosh, he's psychic!" we whispered. Then he started following us, which really creeped us out.

We walked around for quite some time looking for a restaurant to get dessert in the French Quarter. There were plenty of options, but not many that would admit under-eighteens. Jimmy and I found what we here sure was a hash den. It was full of low-slung couches and people laughing hysterically for no reason. Suspicious.

Oh, just so you know--the place was TEEMING with Lutherans. Everywhere you look, Lutherans. You could tell. The men were wearing bright Hawaiian shirts and sandals, sometimes with socks. The women were generally shortish and roundish and had shortish, roundish hair. The kids...well, they all looked, talked, and walked exactly like me. And they outnumbered locals twenty to one. Lutherans everywhere. It was strange. It was like walking into a city of clones. For the first time, I started to get really excited about the trip. We also ran into the W-boro Lutherans by pure chance, which was kind of surreal.

We got dessert, and Justin got a half-pound of shrimp. Then we headed home.