Monday, October 19th
Off to New Orleans, Louisiana! Another adventure! Hooray! Another adventure that has, technically, already ended. I decided, like last time, to simply keep notes in a journal while doing the actual traveling and write/post my blog posts a week after the events actually happened, so today is Monday, 10.26, but I'll be posting about Monday, 10.19. It just makes more sense to be able to spend more time on my vacation doing Fun Vacation Things and save the writing for when I get home! It makes sense in my head and that's all that matters as this blog is mostly a memory bank for myself!
So, departure day! As usual, Jess and I picked a late flight because that's who we are as people. So, we rolled out of bed around 10 or 11am, as you do. We have a busy day ahead of us, I need my rest. I jump into the shower and when I get out Jess reveals she actually got up fairly early (by our standards) to drive to work real quick and set her Out Of Office email because she'd forgotten to do that and you can only do it from the work computers. She also printed out next weeks schedule because she might as well just have that ready for people to reference. We basically just hang around the house for a few hours because we're already packed up, but we put a New Orleans Ambience Video on and do our Final Inspections to ensure we're all ready to go! I check some work emails and Teams stuff and so does Jess so we're sure we're in the clear to focus on the fun in New Orleans. While discussing flight time and landing time I mention that it might look a little confusing because we're going back in time and hour which is news to Jessica who did not even consider that despite the discrepancy between our departure, arrival, and flight time. Just didn't compute any of that at all. Incredible. We eat the last of the microwavable sliders from ALDI (so good) just to have a little food in our stomachs and have some coffee. Ya know, peak health aficionados over here. We call up our mother to say Hi and Bye before we go, and then I'm unplugging things in the house so we're ready to go!
We said we were gonna leave at 2:30pm, but because of who we are as people we ended up leaving at 2:45pm-ish, but not far off and still on schedule! It's a nice, easy drive up to Wally Park, no issues, and no problems getting in and parked. Well, no problems except the guy in the booth telling us our good was unlatched. I explained that it's not latched, it's just crumpled and looks like it is and he says we need to make sure it's latched (I just said it was) because it could fly up and wreck the windshield (I'm aware because I'm not stupid) and calls out car a Death Trap. Yeah, ok, thanks buddy, where do I park though?? Finally tells us to park in F and we go on our way. The van picks us up real quick, and then picks up two other people closer to the front.
The van stops after picking up the two other people, an older woman and what looks like her adult son, and waits, as they usually do, to see if anyone else will need to be picked up before it heads to the airport. But the woman goes up to the driver and is like "Can we not wait? I'm late for my flight." Like, ok yeah, guess that's not a crazy request, so he walkies that he's going and sets off. He does say he's going through the front gate because something is blocking the back, and Jess and I can see something blocking the path over there as we pass it. We joke about that time we got stuck behind someone who didn't know you have to scan the QR code to get out and accidentally will the same problem onto the driver in front of the van who has to physically get out of his car, pull his suitcase out of the trunk, and find the paper with the code on it to wave himself out. This whole thing takes less than 5 minutes, it's not a crazy amount of time, but about halfway through this little show the woman who's 'late for her flight' goes up to the driver and is like: "Aren't you supposed to go through the back exit?" with an attitude. Driver explains to her that he can't, that it's blocked, and she's like "Oh" and goes back to her seat. Like, girl? Chill? Do not tell a working person how to do their own job?
The old man finally gets himself through and pulls up to the stop sign and the woman goes "All that and he has to stop here??" Girl, it's a stop sign? She also sighed and asked the young man with her if "Jet Blue has emailed or messaged anything" and he just gave a flat "No." Like, he clearly did not care for her stressful antics. It is what it is. You'll get there when you get there, and if you were worried about being late, well you weren't worried enough. And also, not you've made things worse because I swear the driver went out of his way to drop us off at the Breeze terminal first just to tick her off! Don't know if she made it to her flight, but if she didn't it was her own fault, not anyone else's.
We have a ha-ha about the whole thing as we enter the airport and find out gate, #9, and get in the TSA line. We step aside for a second to chug our water bottle (as one does) because it was only a 10-15 minute wait for us, probably less honestly. We tried to be super-efficient at the TSA screening, but we did have to scramble a little to get the tablet out from the bottom of the bag because we'd forgotten that the MCO requires large electronics to come out of bags. We also both had to take off our shoes even though they don't really require that anymore because we were wearing out big boots. But, still, we were pretty fast I should say. I did still have to get my back patted down even without the braid because my hair is just so long and thick and luscious. It's so hard being me. We hit the tram to 1-29 and get EOG (Eyes On Gate) and we're... super early. Still have like an hour to boarding. But that's good, so we circle back to the Food Area that has TWO Starbucks and get a Caramel Macchiato, a breakfast burrito, and a breakfast sandwich. Our gate is pretty full so we pick a further gate to set up at to eat our food and chit-chat. I finally get around to brushing and braiding my hair and some kids in the seats ahead of us are just FASCINATED watching me do it. Happy to put on a show little dudes.
We head back to gate 9 about 5:27pm-ish for our 5:30pm boarding time. They do the pre-boarding then then call for Zones 1 and 2 to board. Which is everyone so it's just a free-for-all aha! We get on eventually and make our way to seats 20A and 20C which are together for some reason? Breeze just doesn't have a B seat? Strange, but it meant we were sitting together when we assumed we wouldn't be because we'd just selected for Breeze to pick our seats for us instead of paying to select our own! Jess's bag doesn't fit (lengthwise) in the bin above our heads, but the bin across from us, over the 3-seater seats, is apparently deeper so it fits there and life is good! We only had the two carry-ons and 2 personal purses and we did NOT want anything to have to get checked because we just don't trust checked luggage. Everyone else apparently feels the same cause we're all working together to get everyone's luggage to fit. Ah, humanity's willingness to help others not get charged extra by a business is actually quite heartwarming.
Nice easy flight. Got free black tea and coffee halfway through. Jess said the tea was good, just a tea bag in hot water, but the coffee was... oh boy, it was terrible. But it was coffee so I drank it. We landed and despite the captain saying to stay seated until we're stopped literally everyone stood up to grab their bags. People, chill? The flight attendants need to get through to check and unlock stuff. Calm down. When the pile-up of people in some kinda hurry finally pass us we stand up, wrench out suitcases out, and just carry them off the plane cause they're light and it's easier! Got us some chuckles from the Flight Attendants as we passed, suitcases in our arms! Jess had an ebook version of a New Orleans Travel Guide that let her know about a bus, the 202, that picks up at the airport and drops us off basically a block away from our hotel for only $1.25 each so we try to get our bearings and figure out where we think ground transportation is. Jess wants to go to the right, to the gates, but I say it's probably towards the baggage claim, like at MCO. We walk the direction I chose and I'm right. It's a small airport so it's a quick walk to the escalators and out the door to where the 202 is just pulling up! Lucky! It's pulling up slowly, because a Hilton bus is in it's spot, but it gets to where it needs to be and we climb on, having found exact change in our bag! Perf! The driver says it's gonna sit for like 15 minutes, as this is the final drop-off stop, so we settle into our seats, giddy to have been right on time and to have the right change!
The bus ride takes about 20 minutes, and the folks in front of us are tracking the stops on their phone just like us! We get off where Jess instructs us to and begin the walk towards our Homewood Suites! It's a quick, easy, 6 minute walk past a Dave and Busters and Jimmy Johns and mostly chain stuff that's in that part of town. We must've looked like such a pack of tourists, with our suitcases and Google Map up, but such is life given that we were, in fact, tourists. The hotel door is locked at night, but a guy opens it for us and jokes about charging a $10 service fee that we have a laugh about as we head to the front desk. We see him again in the elevator as we hold the door open for him and we have another laugh about us being even. Check in is nice and easy, it's 7:30pm/8pm so our room is ready and we just head on up! Nice suite, with a kitchen and living room and a little balcony! Jess makes some tea and we do a little light unpacking, the kind we usually do to get the essentials out but still keep most items in the bags, and I do a little writing in my journal while Jess lies face-down on the floor to try and settle her stomach.
When we're finished getting our bearings and land legs and whatever, Jess suggests we go to Chapin's Cafe right around the corner for dinner! Sounds good, so off we go! In the wrong direction aha! I had suggested that I thought we were supposed to go left out of the hotel front doors then turn left again but Jess had insisted we keep going straight. For the second time, I was right, and we did have to turn around after reaching St. Charles street because we were, indeed, supposed to make that second left. The sign for Chapin's is literally within eyesight when you turn down the street and we have a chuckle about that as we head inside. The waitress says we can seat ourselves, and we do in a cool little corner booth by a bunch of Mardi Gras decor. The waitress immediately forgets about us because we're hidden in the corner and only remembers us when she goes behind the bar for something. We tell her it's no big, we're in no hurry! We order the Cajun Mushrooms, a Muffaletta, and the 3 beignets for our first beignets of the trip! We also order a Hurricane, of course! The food is excellent, the muffaletta is HUGE and I got 7 stuffed mushrooms and the beignets were so good! Great beignets to start our trip with we decided! Hurricane is also good, but a drink is kind of just a drink to Jess and I, they're all pretty similar. We eat, and chat, and take pictures, particularly on my coolio heat-print camera so I could have photos immediately to paste in my travel journal with my writing! So fun!
We got a box for the rest of the muffaletta and 2 of the stuffed mushrooms, sucked down the last of the hurricane, and were out of there by 9:57pm, 3 minutes before closing! Go us! We take the short walk back to the hotel where there's a large crowd mingling in the lobby and we can't tell if it's always like that or if it's some kind of group. Either way, the energy is great! Everyone ready to have fun in New Orleans! We don't mingle, of course, but instead head back to our room to watch PBS Kids because nothing else fun is on the TV and Jess showers while I do some more writing. Then, at the late-late hour of 11pm, we settle in for bed. Up at 11am, in bed by 11pm, 11 to 11, that's who we are. Hey, it's New Orleans, we gotta follow the rules: Take it easy. Big Easy!
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