New Orleans, the conclusion
2005-04-11, 10:23 p.m.

Ok, day three. We took the street car to the Audobon Zoo. As I mentioned, this day was really rough on Amanda's allergies. When we get off the street car, we see a sign at what I thought was the zoo entrance. It wasn't - it was a park entrance. The sign said you could wait for the shuttle, generally a 20-30 wait, or you could walk a mile through the park. Puh-lease. A mile? No sweat. Better than sitting for 20 minutes. So we started through the park. Turns out, we should have waited. Amanda became a little monster about a 1/4 mile into the park. I won't even go into it, because my blood pressure is starting to rise again, but it was bad.

So, one hour later.....nah, just kidding. But it did end up taking about 35 minutes, after she sat down and refused to move. But I digress. The zoo in New Orleans is, by far, the cleanest zoo I've ever been to. It also has the absolute cleanest public bathrooms on the face of this earth. There were no smelly areas in the zoo at all. Awesome. As a bonus, they had white tigers. So very cool. Those things are just spectacular to view. (Still not the most awesome zoo animal I've ever seen, though - that award goes to the giant pandas in the Atlanta Zoo. Words cannot describe.) We also saw a white alligator. Not albino, but white. It was a huge letdown. They have it in a building, in really poor lighting. Plus, the glass was kind of fogged up. In the pictures on the wall the alligator has these gorgeous blue eyes, but in the dark you couldn't get that at all. The employee in there said it was because it's eyes are way too dilated. What a bummer. We saw the usual zoo fair - gorillas, jaguars, raccoons, bears, etc. The orangutans were the funniest. We saw lots of crocodiles and alligators. Oh, and nutrias. Ick, what horrible animals they are. They look like a cross between giant guinea pigs and beavers. They're like a plague down there. They were evidently brought in for some reason or another in the early 1900's, and proceeded to have a population explosion. Now they have $4 bounties on their little heads. Well, actually on their little tails. That's what you have to bring in to get your four bucks. Some guy down there is campaigning to officially change their names to water rabbits so that they'll sound better on a menu. Ewwwwww. Capt. Charlie said he'd be lying if he said he never ate one. I asked him if it taste like chicken. He said no, actually they taste like rabbit, lol. Anyways, two of the little rodents in the zoo were squawking at each other and it was the most horrible noise I think I've ever heard. I can't even describe it. But so loud we could hear them way before we got to them, and long after we left them. Nasty little varmints.

Ok, I guess that about does it. We left the next day, after one last trip into the French Quarter to eat. I wanted to eat at Bubba Gump's, but Amanda decided she no longer likes seafood. Sheesh. This from the kid that eats sushi with her dad every Saturday. And not just sushi, but salmon eggs. Ugh. Ick. Blech. Anyways, we ended up at Hard Rock, which is ok by me, 'cause I love their burgers.

The trip home totally sucked. We got to the airport almost three hours early. The flight to Pittsburgh took off on time and arrived on time, though, so that's something. The flight from Pittsburgh back home, though, weeellllll that's a whole different story. It was delayed. And delayed. And delayed. I was totally worn out by this time and just wanted to get home. I HATE flying at night, and by the time we finally left Pittsburgh it was 10:15pm. And the best part? The frickin' plane only had 37 seats on it. I was horrified. I couldn't stop staring at the propellers. Where were the real engines? And no stairs and walkway to get on the plane. The little door flops down, and the stairs are built right in. Sheesh. You have to get off the plane and then actually walk to get into the building. Oh joy. I almost lost it when the passengers that got off that plane started running across the tarmac, or whatever the hell it's called. Running? Are they that glad to be on the ground? I calmed down somewhat when I realized it was raining. Until it occurred to me that now we'd have to fly in the little plane-ette in the rain. I asked the lady at the booth if that was our plane. She said yeah. I refrained from asking her where the rest of it was. Lucky us, we got the seats right by the propellers. I spent the entire one hour and twenty minute flight listening to the bzzzzzzzzzzzz of those stupid engines. I started to think I was going to go insane. And any variation in pitch was nearly my undoing. Amanda, of course, thought it was hilarious that I was so freaked out. She's such an angel. It was during this flight that I decided I needed to rent the Twilight Zone movie for Amanda so that she could better understand my position. Because, I swear, I completely empathized with John Lithgow. It wouldn't have surprised me a bit to see a little goblin at the window. It would have been nice, actually, to get my mind off that stupid bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.