We had planned our February Royal Caribbean Cruise several months in advance and looking down the barrel of flu season, I got a flu shot in early December – my first ever. A week before the voyage, I began using hand sanitizer like I was avoiding the plague wherever I went around Annapolis – especially at work. Naturally, I caught some nasty bug – maybe the flu – two days before our departure. Such is life. Next time I’ll …
The day of our departure was unusually hectic. Inna and I both
went to work.
I tied up a
million loose ends,
left the required out of office replies on my phone and computer, and bugged
out by noon. Then
I ran over to my 92 year old Mother's house to make
sure she was lashed firmly to the mast before heading home to finish packing,
water the plants, and batten down the hatches.
My old friend Jimmy Martin picked us up
after Inna got off work and we were on the road by
4:45. We hopped on Route 50 and
immediately found ourselves stuck in I-97 traffic on the outskirts of
town. It was the Friday "get out of
Dodge" log jam on a Presidents holiday long weekend. Not a good
start.
Our flight wasn't for another two hours so we turned up the radio,
turned on the gallows humor, and focused our attention on the
ominous line of black storm clouds looming on
the western horizon.
Snow was in
the air and we were leaving town with little time to spare.
BWI Airport is the epitomy of efficiency and Southwest makes check-in as
easy one, two, buckle my shoe. And after we put
our shoes back on and the TSA folks were satisfied that my new hip that was
repeatedly banging their metal detector gong was not a hidden bomb, we were happily downing Pacificos with some salsa chips and
a salad at the Zona bar.
The Southwest flight to New Orleans was fully booked and I ended up
crammed together with two
other big men. And
the two hour flight that I had anticipated turned out to be three when I
realized that New Orleans is on Central Savings Time. Where does a lost hour go?
We landed in Nawlins by 9:15, trudged through the surprisingly tiny
airport and happily discovered that our luggage was already waiting for us on the spinning carousel in the baggage area. We had
heard that the Carnival Cruise to Hell had routed many of their passengers from
Mobile to New Orleans, so we thought we might be dealing with the walking
wounded, but they were
nowhere in sight. Mardis Gras
had ended the previous Fat
Tuesday. The
Baltimore Ravens had won the Super Bowl the week before and New Orleans airport
was pretty much a
dead zone, like the calm after a big storm.
We caught a cab/van for $16 with a big, friendly buck-toothed Cajun who talked endlessly about his dream of hauling big rigs to Baton Rouge and Plaquemines. My
multi-tongued Russian wife Inna asked me later what
language he was speaking. I had
forgotten how sweet the halting inflection of the Bayou Patois lingo can be.
But to Inna, it sounded vaguely retarded.
Our driver dropped us at the Travel Best Motel along the busy motel strip on Veterans Boulevard in Kenner, LA. It was snuggled next to the I-10 bridge on the edge of one of the airport runways.
As he unloaded
our bags, our driver said that the water line was 3-feet-high on our motel after Hurricane Katrina.
The Travel Best had seen its best days long before the big storm had
pummeled the Crescent City. It was a
sprawling, rundown motel complex with a leaf filled pool, battered palms, and tentative azaleas
adorned with tiny purple and red flowers. The state high school wrestling turnament was in town and the
place was filled with no neck youth running through the courtyard like big
dogs. We were the only
adults in
the place and mischievous mayhem was in
the air. But my blue
Obama '08 baseball cap that I had picked up at the Inaugural festivities in
D.C. a few weeks back was a big hit, so everything was cool.
Well, more like cold. See, it may
have looked tropical, but it felt more like winter in Maryland. The temperature was hovering in the
mid-40's and the wind was howling. Definitely not what we had
expected. But then, the whole journey
south had been filled with surprises.
In retrospect, it would have made more sense to fly to New Oreleans on
Saturday morning and just catch a cab directly to the Royal Caribbean dock, thus saving money on a motel and rushing around after work.
But at least the
Obama hat worked …
