The look on Jeff's face. That was classic. Mike and I surprised him on a roommate weekend, by not disclosing the location, travel plans or any details of the three-day weekend that we were about to take. So when we got to the airport and got to the gate for Cleveland, the look on his face was priceless. Exotic Cleveland!!! heh.

Because Mike and I wanted it to be a surprise, Jeff didn't know until we were airborne that Cleveland was merely going to be a stopover before heading to our final destination, New Orleans. We sat in the airport and waited for the plane, but on the second stopover, the weather had held us so that we pretty much walked right onto the new plane without delay. It was pretty bumpy and shaky coming out of Richmond, but things got better coming into the Big Easy.

It was desolate out in New Orleans airport when we landed. No one was there. A single trumpet blared through the airport P.A. system. That was kind of creepy, but we walked to the taxi area. We made the mistake of stepping outside, which was quite a shock. It was dark (about 10pm) and oh my gosh was it humid. It felt like a steam room out there. We found a cabbie, who never shut up as he took us 20 minutes into the French Quarter. I'm kidding. He didn't make a sound almost the entire way. I guess that's better than yammering. ;)

We checked into the Prince Conti hotel, a quaint old-school style hotel a block away from Bourbon Street. We parked our stuff and walked out onto Bourbon Street just to see what that was about. Walking the length of the street, we toured the bars and restaurants. All of them seemed to have live music. The streets were loud, blaring tunes of all genres from the establishments. It was wild. We searched for some food and ended up going with a cajun place. I started with turtle soup, which was interesting but I wouldn't try it again. (too beefy- the stock used was too potent) For dinner, we all had the Jambalaya, which was excellent! We closed that place down, then walked more of the strip and eventually called it a night. We were all pretty pooped.

On Friday, we got up and had a bite before hitting the streets. We got lunch at Lombard's, another cajun place. We walked around to the pier of the Mississippi River and chilled out there for a while, watching the steam boats and cargo ships go by. It was sweltering hot outside, so we came back to the hotel to play some poker. Mike did pretty well, but we all had a good time. We came back outside to explore the area, and found a cool bar/restaurant on Bourbon Street that let us sit up on their balcony. We must have stayed up there four hours. We could see another balcony across the way, where guys were tossng beads down to women below who well, earned them. I think it's a crazy/stupid tradition, but hey- who am I to change tradition? ;)

Yep, it's pretty safe to say that things are crazy on Bourbon Street. Beyond the smell of trash and the tradition of flashing lies a culture of openness, and high-spirited jazz. That's the only thing we didn't do this weekend that I sort of regret- I would have loved to chill out in a jazz bar and just soak up some culture. The buildings are in a French/Victorian style, and, once off Bourbon Street, are really attractive, with porch ferns lining the balconies and really great colors.

We stopped for a photo on Conti Street, since it was too crazy on Bourbon to get any shots, and eventually found a casino! Harrah's casino was situated a few blocks from the hotel, and since Jeff had never been to one, we checked that out. There weren't any $5 blackjack tables, and the lines for the $10's were crazy. Mike and I played some slots... Mike won about $40 in slots. I made it out with half of my money, when I decided that my luck wasn't going to improve. Good thing I didn't lose it all.

We ended up coming back to the Casino after dinner, and finally got a table at a $15 blackjack table. Jeff cleaned house!! I broke even with my initial $60, then lost it all again. Still, it was a fun time. There was a flamboyantly gay biker next to the dude near me and we laughed as the drunk guy hit on the dealer and the stranger next to me. It would have been awkward if the dude wasn't so drunk. Security actually came by to whisk him away and ended up closing down the table as a smoother way to shoo the guy away. We left before things closed.

We got some Quake playing done too! I ended up winning most of the games, mainly because none of us had practiced at all. My last game was in October on the day before I retired, so my screen name for the character was still TruSecure related. Hell, we even played Quake in the airport on the way home Sunday! Geeks. The weekend was over before long, and I think while we had a good time, we were still really eager to leave the heat/humidity of New Orleans. It was cah-razy.

Good times, good company, great weekend.