The Holiday Inn we stayed at was weird - very weird. It
looked like it was only at 30% capacity and that whole wings of the hotel were
never used. The bar was empty, the restaurant should have had a sign that
said "NO FOOD, NO CUSTOMERS, NO SERVICE" - because that was the case. The
weirdest thing was it looked like it had been very nice at one point.
Spanish tile floor, columns, fountains, etc. It was as if the town was
slowly dying and the Holiday Inn was tracking the towns decline with every torn
piece of carpet, every spiderweb or dirty window.
The hot tub was green
and farted - I kid you not, it farted. It was next to the indoor pool, was
about 40% full and had green moss in the water - and, as I mentioned before, it
didn't have bubbles, it just farted - like an old man in a dirty tub of water. BRRRRGLOOOOOOMMPH went the hot tub. Wisely, we didn't put on the bathing
suits and give it a try.
One more thing, the people down there creep the living hell out
of me. Without going into the level of detail that invites debate -
I will simply say that what I observed of "father/daughter" affection is more
than a tad different in Louisiana than what I am comfortable with.
Ok, back to the trip. One thing I have mentioned in the
previous trip is the managing of money. I don't believe in credit cards, I
think they are a plot by the United Nations to spoil and weaken Americans while
they secretly slip their army in through Canada and Mexico. One day, while
you sit in tears looking over your American Express or cuddling your
newest
electro-gadget that you can't really afford but 'had to have' because it looked
so cool in the Sharper Image catalogue - they will strike. Faster than you
can say "No Interest Till Next Year" you will be looking down the muzzle of an
AK-47 with some French Canuck on the other end - hearing the sounds of Muslim
Extremists as they slap a Burka on your wife and take your children for
re-education. You worked hard for it, you deserve it.
I on the other hand, don't do credit cards - if it weren't for
Debit Visa I would have to carry cash everywhere I go. The upside is
tremendous - and the moral clarity is nice too. The downside, however, is
that if I don't manage money carefully I run the real risk of being completely
broke and stuck in "DaughterF'er, Louisiana." Above is a picture of me
carefully counting how much money we spent and how much more we had. Tonya
bought me a phone for Christmas last year, and it had a calculator on it.
I nearly wore the numbers off that keypad adding and subtracting.
We spent Sunday toodling down to a kind of 'old town Hammond,'
the one with four policeman per block. We stopped and had
coffee
and 700 miles of highway came crashing down on Tonya. This was the same
place where the clearly gay coffee man was chatting me up. Here is a
picture of Tonya, just wiped out. We had slept a good sleep and had
plenty of time to relax, I was glad we were there a day before Garrett - but I
was ready to see him too.
Here is another shot from the coffee house. This is the
famous "Oh Crap" shot from when you realize that when you went to pick up the
camera, you grabbed it by the shutter release.
Think
of it as conceptual art - kind of like when you go into a museum and look at
stuff that you just KNOW was produced by the sleep deprived, or the insane, or
the retarded. I call this piece - "Fatigue and Espresso," will the bidding
start at $1,000 please?
One historical point of interest for this day in history.
A bridge on 1-40 collapsed. I know this because it was all over the news
and it was made more important by the fact that it collapsed about an hour and a
half before Timmy got to it. I was out washing the bugs off of the bikes
when Tonya called me from the hotel. I called Tim on his cell phone to
make sure he was alright - he hadn't even heard of it. Tim and Marliss
were something like 60 miles away from it when I called, and at first I don't
think he believed me. After scanning the radio they finally found some
info and were able to reroute.
Garrett arrived around 2pm, showered and we caught up on the
last year's worth of news. Here Garrett and
Tonya
share a Pizza in the indoor plaza at the Holiday Inn. Like I said, the
place was obviously nice at one time. Garrett had rode into Houston the
previous night instead of riding directly from Austin to Hammond. This
shortened his ride time on Sunday considerably - though he was still pretty
wiped out when he got in.
For the last story of this day I will tell you about Garrett and
I riding in Hammond. We decided to take the bikes out and toodle around
for a bit. Don't ask he how, or why, but Garrett got pulled over by two
very cute under-age girls who wanted him to buy cigarettes for them. Even
more confusing, he brought them over to where I was (I had pulled over to the
other side of the road) to discuss it with me. As tempted as I was to be
particularly e-vil, I settled on just buying the girls cigarettes and saying
goodnight. Just doing my part for both "big tobacco" and "population
control." If only I had thought to buy the girls condoms and ammunition I
could have greatly reduced unwanted pregnancy and
limited the number of abusive boyfriends in the girl's respective futures.
Tell Me More
Take me Back - I have had enough
