ROAD TRIP FROM HELL

CHAPTER THREE - Sweet Home New Orleans

We were behind schedule, by a lot. We drove into New Orleans at 11:30, much later than we anticipated. JC, in his trip planning, had already secured a reservation in a RV park that was close to Bourbon Street and all the fun it contained. Now we had to find that RV Park, drop off the RV, get a cab to Bourbon Street, and begin our debauchery. It's a good thing New Orleans is a city that doesn't like to go to bed early.

The RV Park was not in the best parts of town, but I'm not really sure if there are good parts of New Orleans. There's a scene in National Lampoon's Vacation where Chevy Chase takes a wrong turn in a city, and then stops to ask directions. If you know the scene I'm talking about ("Excuse me, bro?"), then you have a flavor as to what we were all thinking and feeling at the time. After making a comically large u-turn in the small parking lot of an abandoned store, we found the RV Park. Once parked, we called a taxi. And waited. And waited. Until finally the taxi cab arrived, and we were off to take on the Big Easy.

It was my first time on Bourbon Street, and although I never had the opportunity to experience it before, there were veterans in our group. Overall, the place is a party goers dream: open containers on the streets, women flashing their breasts every 3 feet, and drunken folks of both sexes looking to sin until they can't sin any more. JC directed us to the first bar to get a few "Hand Grenades". If you never drank a hand grenade before, let me tell you, drink more than 2 of them and you'll be out for the night. The amount of alcohol jammed into one glass of these babies is enough to fuel a jet plane. We each downed one, and ordered another. It was already Sunday, and as Jimmy Buffett says, "There's a fine line between Saturday night and Sunday morning". So we continued to slip into intoxication.

We headed to an indoor/outdoor nightclub, and stood outside with our drinks in hand. Every waitress there was peddling tube shots, so we decided to hammer a few down. Now the way to drink the shots was as follows: the waitress takes the bottom of the test tube and sticks it in her mouth. She then grabs your head and jams the open end of the tube in your mouth. You chug the tube and it ends up looking like the two of you are making out. Well, we felt that T-Mo and Scooter were in need of women companionship, so we ordered shots for them again and again.

We were all feeling a good buzz going on, and JC decided it was time to hit the hard stuff. He ordered a shot of tequila for me. Now, mind you, I had been on the RV drinking all day, then drinking hand grenades and tube shots right up to the point JC hands me the Mexican concoction. But I was without fear, and slammed the shot down.

You know that water-filled mouth sensation you get? You know, the lump you get in your throat, like you're about to heave-ho feeling? Well, my good friend Cuervo took me right there. I swore I was going to upchuck all over the place; I was not feeling right at all. I closed my eyes and thought happy thoughts, and after a few moments, the temporary feeling waned. Now a smart man would come to the conclusion that they were finished drinking for the night, but not me. I ordered another beer.

After a few hours, the party finally started to wind down on Bourbon Street. It was almost 5am and we decided to head back to the RV and get some much needed rest before our trip north. And although New Orleans was a wild time, we had no idea that Saturday night would be the tamest night of our trip.

{PROCEED TO CHAPTER FOUR}