|
|
|
We awoke the next morning totally refreshed and ready for the open road! After a skimpy bowl of hotel lobby cereal and listening to the gorgeous syrup-thick Louisiana accents of the hotel staff, we jumped in the car and got driving.
Suddenly, Mike was like, "Oh, my god! Look at your odometer!"
I looked down and almost got teary. My beloved little Ford Aspire, that I bought so tenderly only two years ago, was about to hit 100,000 miles! Woo-hoo! Mike got the camera ready and SNAP! The moment was captured. : )
It didn't take long before we hit New Orleans. Now, apparently, someone has filled my husband's head with all sort of stories about this being a scary town, and about the crime rate being very high. Because originally, I suggested we go here for our small vacation and he said no.
But as we drove through the city, it didn't seem too bad. It reminds me a lot of Houston, TX, in fact. Except for one major thing: all those creepy tombs everywhere! Now, I was not prepared for that! And when I say "everywhere," I mean, everywhere! The graveyards were on both sides of the Interstate, so everywhere you looked there were those foreboding tombs sitting there! It can startle you if you're not expecting it.
To pass the time, Mike and I had brought the trivia cards from our MTV game. Mike ruled the questions about early-80's rock bands like Styx and Rush, prompting me to tease him for being old. (Hee, hee, he's not really old, but since I am five years younger, I take sweet advantage of my bragging rights...) But really, we completely rocked the game. We are wizards of useless trivia, and I am especially insane when it comes to music trivia. I couldn't be on Regis' show, but if I were ever offered a spot on Rock N Roll Jeopardy, I would clean up!!!
So, then we hit Mississippi, and the NASA John C. Stennis Space Center. As a huge space buff, Mike was dying to go. So, we pulled off the road and headed into a very cool tour of the nation's largest rocket test complex where Space Shuttle Main Engines are tested.
It was an incredibly cool place, and our tour guide was so friendly and nice. We had to take a 25-minute drive through the 125,000-acre acoustical buffer zone of trees and land. She said that white-tailed deer would come up to the road since it was a non-hunting area, and I was so disappointed that we didn't see any that day!