Houston, New Orleans and Atlanta

The trip from Dallas to Houston took 4 hours. Met Tor and his lovely wife Anna at 3:30. They have a guest room where they let me stay. Their townhouse is very nice! We watched "There Will be Blood" on DVD, then the 3 of us met a friend of theirs in town from London at a very nice Italian restaurant where we ate outdoors. It was nice, about 70 degrees. We had good food, good wine and good conversation.

Tor, Anna and I got up, headed to Memorial Park, and we walked 3 miles in the mild morning sun. We went back to the house, cleaned up, then met Tor's mom for brunch at another great little restaurant (Named the "Hobbit Hole" I believe...). Some Astros tickets fell out of the sky into Tor's lap, so we headed to Minute Maid field where we watched the game vs. the Florida Marlins. Let's see: Twice on this trip free baseball tickets have come out of nowhere for me, and both games featured the Astros. Am I supposed to be an Astros fan?? After the game we got some very good Gelato near Rice University. Back to the house, we relaxed, watched another movie (a French film called, "Russian Dolls"), Anna's brother came over and we all had a bar-b-que dinner of hot dogs and hamburgers.

On Monday morning, I packed up and cleaned up, then followed Tor to a Starbucks near his office. We had coffee then said our goodbyes. I left Houston around 8:00 AM. I hadn't planned on it, but I ended up on the road to New Orleans. Since I had a little time, I went with the flow. I found the French Quarter, parked and walked around for 2 hours. I love old buildings and history, so I really enjoyed my walk, and was glad I decided to stop. At least I got a taste of New Orleans, an unplanned treat. Driving east on I-10 out of town, I saw some of the devastated areas of town... the scale of it all was amazing. But, I hear the city is progressing well. I drove on, stayed the night in Evergreen, Alabama. I visited 3 states I never had visited before on Monday: Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama. My goal of visiting every state is getting closer!

Got up Tuesday, took advantage of the hotel's breakfast, and then hit the road. Right now, I'm in a downtown Atlanta Kinkos writing this. I'm heading off to Athens in a few minutes to visit another High School friend, Michelle and her family. I'm still having a great time, and am well (except I cut my left big toe in New Orleans... I'll tell that story later : )

Till the next post,
Greg