We're Here and We're Bad to the Bone

Saturday 4/14 - 9:30 pm --

The team landed safe in New Orleans at 6:00 pm, although the wind seemed to want to push the plane off of the runway. Fortunately, the pilot won that fight. As we walked up the jetway we could feel the humidity in the air. A sign of the weather to come? I thought we were coming here in April to avoid the humidity! Good thing I packed all those sweatshirts. After picking up all of our luggage (no lost bags -- thanks Continental!), we met up with our contact here, Ken, who took us on a tour of the parking garage before leading us to our four vans. Here we met up with the 25 or so people from the San Diego district, and after packing up the vans, we headed east on I-10 towards Slidel, Mississippi where we stopped at an amazing barbeque/seafood joint called “Bad to the Bone”. (The adjacent seafood place was called “Good to the Gill”). As good as those puns are, the food was even better. John Heaner was thrilled to finally belly up to some deep fried crawfish and all-you-can-eat catfish, while the landlubbers of the group had to “settle” for smoked spareribs, brisket, pork, sausage and chicken with baked beans (the best I’ve ever had), potato salad, bread pudding, coleslaw and peach cobbler. Even though none of us opted for the “Belt Buster”, the house special which consisted of all of the above for only twelve bucks, no one was complaining about being underfed. So now we’re back in the van and should be at Camp Gulfside by 10:00 pm. A long day, but hey, we’re here and ready to start. We’ve already been informed that breakfast tomorrow is at 7:30 and church is at 10:30. So if the mosquitoes leave us alone we should all sleep soundly tonight. See you tomorrow!

And we're off!!

Here we are at LAX all fresh faced and ready to fly!

Right now I'm sitting on the hard granite floor of the Houston airport. We have a 2 hour layover before we catch the next flight to New Orleans, and then a one hour van ride to Waveland. It's a Methodist version of Planes, Trains & Automobiles.

More to follow!