Leaving New Orleans

Monday May 4, 2009

Almost everyone is making their way out of New Orleans. Brett is staying one more night. Otto and Virginia are going to San Francisco. John and Marion are going to Canada. Pat and Guy are going to LA. Sarah is off to Vegas. Phil B, Phil O and Ken are heading home.

Tim, Rob, Richard, Ken, Lise and myself are taking a road trip. We leave in two cars and immediately get separated on Rampart Street. We regroup then head off down the I-10. Our destination is the Cabins On The Bayou and we make it around 3.00pm.

I go to a laundromat a little out of town and do my washing. Obviously, not a lot of white folks here need to do this because I am the only one here.I have been directed here by some cajun guys at the laundry in town and now I wonder if they think it is a practical joke. Maybe the locals think I am just down on my luck.

This evening we all go to Mulate’s for dinner, music and to watch a cajun band. We buy beer at the gas station on the way back and end our night in the lounge at the Cabins.

Tuesday May 5, 2009

We drive into Lafayette, have a walk around, then go to Antler’s for lunch. CC Adcock and his friend Matt Wilkinson (who directed The Promised Land) meet us. CC is amazed that I almost cannot finish the smothered, stuffed pork chop. ‘What’s the matter with you?’ he asks. ‘Have you got cancer or soemthing?’

We leave around 2.00pm but get lost. I suddenly realise that I am heading west not east and have to make a beeline back into town. This takes up a halfd an hour on what is to be the longest day’s drive of the entrire trip. We have decide to go to Natchez and across the Natchez Trace Parkway to Jackson and then upo the I-55. This is to add hours to our day. The Parkway is magnificent but slow at 50mph. We stop at one of the historic sites. I seem to get reinvigorated. Tim is keeping me awake with a succession of really bad puns. We talk about everyone we know and dissect them minutely. No one is spared, including ourselves, who it should be said turn out to be the biggest losers of the lot!. It helps pass the time.

Later, when we stop outside Jackson for coffee, Richard points out the storm on the horizon and the lightning show. An hour or so out from Oxford we run slap bang into the storm and I can feel the guys in the car behind cursing me. I am amazed that I have been able to stay awake all this time but the thought of running off the road during a storm is quite an incentive to pay attention. We arrive in Oxfotd at 11.00pm, just in time to check in and rush to the City Grocery for some stiff drinks. As we leave we meet the chef and waiter for Bourre, a local restaurant owned by the chap who runs City Grocery. They recommend we visit them for dinner the next night.

Wednesday May 6, 2009

This is the most relaxing day of the trip. We all walk around town, then Ken, Lise, Tim and I have lunch at the Ajax Diner. The meatloaf is still as good as ever. tim has the pot roast but as soon as it arrives decides, as he usually does, that he should have had something else.

Later in the day, I spend some time producing my segment for the program this week. Then we go back to the City Grocery for a pre-dinner drink. Then we go to Bourre wher I have the best Pasta Jambalaya I have ever had. Tim orders something else and regrets it but I am not swapping.