Checkout time is not until 11:00AM, so I'm able to sleep in this morning and go about packing up at a leisurely pace. I'm also able to catch up on my emails and post another blog entry.
Soon, they're bringing the Escape around front, I'm loaded up...and on the road again. I wish that I had another day or two to spend here in New Orleans because there are so many things that I missed during my short visit...a streetcar ride out St. Charles Avenue...a walk along the river...a drive down Magazine Street. And the restaurants that I missed...the Upperline, Cafe du Monde, Bayona, Commander's Palace, Parasol's...I could go on and on.
But now, I'm on the road...no more culinary adventures in New Orleans for me. But wait!...not so fast my doubting blog devotees...I've still got one last stop before I leave. A ten minute drive takes me deep into a residential neighborhood to the tiny little place called Domilises...the Temple of Po'Boys. Everybody in New Orleans has a favorite spot for Po'Boys, but Domilises is in everybody's top two or three. It looks so much like the surrounding homes that you would probably drive right by if you didn't know what you were looking for. It's around 11:30AM, and there is a line out the door and onto the street...so I wait. After twenty minutes or so, I've at least made it in the door where I grab a number off the wall.
The line moves very slow, but that is part of what makes the Po'Boys here so good. When you finally place your order for a seafood Po'Boy, the seafood is breaded and cooked to order...right in front of you. They use bread from Leidenheimer's Bakery...the best, and your freshly-fried seafood goes on along with some shredded lettuce, mayo and a little cocktail sauce. I opt for the "half and half"..half fried shrimp and half fried oysters. It's almost 1:00PM by the time I finally get my sandwich, and I am really hungry. It's about as perfect a sandwich to be had anywhere...even better with a draft beer.
Now I'm really back on the road...slowly out of the city to I-10...then over the causeway across Lake Pontchartrain...a few more small towns in Louisiana before hitting the Alabama border.
Just outside Mobile, I hit another "wormhole"...one minute I'm rolling along on I-10 in Alabama, the next minute I'm on Michigan Avenue...but where on Michigan Avenue?...Chicago?...Dearborn? Before I can get my "bearings", I hit another wormhole that sends me back to I-10. I'm often asked what it's like to go through a wormhole...well...the best way to describe it is a long narrow tunnel full of lights and mirrors. It only lasts a few seconds, and I often feel a "prickly" sensation on my skin.
I'm on my way to Fairhope, Alabama to visit my old Notre Dame buddy, Ron Buttarazzi. During our time in the Graduate Business School there, Ron and I were the best of friends. We had such great times...so many adventures...my own, in no small part, the result of my generation's rather "experimental" approach to a certain controlled substance of the leafy kind.
One thing that we loved to do is get in the car and just drive...no particular route...no particular destination. We'd take small roads through the farmland of Indiana and then into Michigan or Illinois. And, along the way, we'd stop whenever we saw something "interesting"...a bar...a restaurant...a gospel church service...a museum...a cemetery...a "Polka Club" (ah...the Polka Dot Lounge). We'd meet new people...experience new things...all great fun.
Around 4:00PM, I arrive in Fairhope and check in at the downtown Hampton Inn. When I tell the clerk that I've got a vehicle full of camping gear and ask her if it's safe here...she gives me a quizzical look and says..."Oh my, yes, I often have to walk home here late at night, and I don't give it a second thought".
And the people here...they're very friendly...people wave...people say hi"...it just feels comfortable here.
Ron meets me at the hotel around 5:00PM, and we head down the street to Tamara's Restaurant. A few Martinis later, and Ron and I are retelling all of our favorite stories...recounting all of our favorite adventures...it's called great fun. We order a pound of the local gourmet shrimp, "Royal Reds" that are caught far off the coast in very deep waters...they're delicious. Then, a couple of big rib eyes for dinner...and a few glasses of wine.
While we eat, we're talking about the time at Notre Dame when we were both broke and really hungry. My father had given me a gas credit card for Gulf stations, and I discovered that it was accepted at Holiday Inns. So, Ron and I, broke and starving, headed over to the Holiday Inn in South Bend for dinner. We told the waitress that we wanted a steak dinner and a lobster dinner...she thought that we wanted the single "surf and turf" dinner...but no...we each wanted a whole steak dinner (with salad and baked potato) and a whole lobster dinner (with a second salad and baked potato). She thought we were nuts, and we probably were, but we ate every single thing on our multiple plates...and left full and contented after weeks of subsisting on nothing but crackers, cheese and dried beef.
By 9:00PM, we're done...Ron heads home, and I head back to my hotel. We're meeting again tomorrow morning, but this has been a good night...a very good night.
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