New Orleans via Atlanta
Regrettably, I lost my camera (along with all the pictures on my second roll of film) in Rhythms bar on Bourbon Street the second or third night of the trip and I had not yet discovered the value of keeping travel journals, so I can’t provide complete details and the specific order of events might be askew, but looking at the few pictures I have and referencing some places online helped refresh my memory a bit when I finally decided to write this eleven years later.
The other three students chosen were Barry, Cory, and Greg. I didn’t know Greg, but Cory and Barry were classmates of mine and they were members of TEC and SGA respectively. Our student activities coordinator, Kelly also came along for a paid vacation.
Aside from a short aerial tour of Lake Winnipesauke in a seaplane a decade earlier, the flight from Hartford was my first travel by air.
Coincidentally, my landlord and her family were also on same flight. They were going to Atlanta to visit relatives and my group had a connection there. Inside Atlanta Airport looked like a super model convention! It was amazing how beautiful the women were south of Connecticut. I swear, as soon as we crossed some magic boundary around 37 degrees north latitude even the chicks on the plane got hotter! With an hour to kill before my next flight I took a walk through the enormous concourse with my landlord and to say “hello” again to her brother Donald, an Atlanta native, who was waiting to pick them up. I didn’t have time to explore Georgia at all, but I did step outside the terminal for a second just to smell the air.
In the cab from the airport to our hotel, we passed a large, interesting building and I said aloud, “I wonder what that big dome is.” With a raised eyebrow and a smirk, Kelly remarked, “Uhh… The Super Dome.”
Cory had a job at the Marriott in Farmington, Connecticut at the time, so he was able to get us free room upgrades. We ended up in neighboring rooms on the 38th floor. Cory and I had a corner room with spectacular views of the French Quarter and the Mississippi River. Berry and Greg had a suite with a nice living room, small kitchen, and separate bedroom. Kelly was on another floor.
