Sunday, September 24th
2017
Destin, FL, New Orleans, LA and Los Angeles, CA
It’s 8am Central Time and I am officially
miserable. I don’t know what time we went to sleep last night, but it was
definitely too late. I have a major hangover and somehow manage to quickly get
myself together for the day. We have committed to visiting our Grandmother at
9am. Around 8:30am we are ready to leave. I call an Uber and we head back over
to Destin to pick up my brother’s FJ Cruiser. Our Uber driver is swerving
pretty badly and eventually almost runs off the road. “I fell asleep”, he says.
I look at Mike and we both buckle our seat belts.
After holding my breath for another
20 minutes our driver flies passed the parking lot at AJs. When he offers to turn
back we insist on exiting at the next parking lot. A short walk later we are at
the car.
From here I insist on Starbucks
again. It will make us late, but I am basically nonfunctional at this point. My
brother is driving very slowly. He must feel like I do. I run into Starbucks to
grab my grande coffee and I am all of the sudden overwhelmed with nausea. Uh
oh. I throw up in the bathroom.
15 minutes later we are walking up to
Grandmother’s room. We are a full 30 minutes late. My brother ducks into the
restroom on the way up. I know how he feels. We spend about an hour with our
Dad and Grandmother. The doctor comes in and says that she is looking really
good (yay!). Around 10:30am Mike and I say our goodbyes and vow to do a better
a job of calling.
As we get to the car my brother asks
if I can drive. I don’t want to, but I agree. We are off! The plan is to drop me
off at the New Orleans airport on the way back to Austin. I am hoping to hit
town a little bit early so that we can stop for some Cajun food.
After about 15 minutes on the road I
am still feeling terrible. I pull into a McDonalds for something salty. A piece
of sausage and 4 chicken nuggets later I am feeling much better. For the next 3
hours I drive and my brother naps. Somewhere outside of New Orleans I pull over
for gas and Mike takes over driving. As we get close to the airport he asks me
to find him a hotel. I find one a few miles from the airport and he asks if I
can take a cab from there. I am bummed there will be no beignets and coffee
with chicory root, but he looks very sick, so I agree.
After making sure that Mike gets
checked in I call another Uber. The driver is pretty curious about what I’m
doing at the Super 8 by myself with no bags. I want to remain mysterious but
the driver is really friendly so I explain my day to him. He advises that I eat
a late lunch at Dooky Chase’s before going through security and drops me off
right in front of it.
Lunch is friend chicken and collards
and it is delicious. I heavily consider a beignet but change my mind when I
realize they are only sold in sets of three. From here I make my way to my gate
and buy something called gooey cake and a cup of coffee. This combination of bitter and sweet is
truly mid blowing.
Once I board, I settle in with a few
bad movies from the Delta onboard entertainment system. Eventually I land back
at LAX and take the shuttle over to my car in Lot C. That was an eventful trip and I am looking
forward to doing it again next year!
