The Cruise - Part One - Saturday

I'm going to tell about the trip in segments. First of all, we got on the interstate around 2 AM and drove to Memphis to catch Amtrak to New Orleans. This meant we had no sleep from Friday morning until Saturday night. Those naps on the train in a painful pretzel position weren't real sleep but helped a little. We were on the second (top) level of the train and walked down steps to the tiny, airplane-like bathroon and through several cars to the lounge and dining cars. As Charlie said, Amtrak food is not to die for but to die from! On the way back, some of our group said dinner was really good, though.

It took 3 hours to drive to Memphis and 9 hours on Amtrak to New Orleans. It's sort of like riding a bus on rails. It stopped several times and various places in Mississippi and Louisiana. I'm still not sure how I feel about traveling that way.

Our car.

Janie, Richard, and Linda - we rode down with Janie and Richard.

Tina, my rommate, but Linda was my seatmate on the trip down.

Louisiana scene from the window.

We ate dinner at Mulate's and ran into the others from Dickson who came down a day earlier than we did. What are the odds? You'll see them later.

Here are Tina and Janie being silly with the fish after dinner.


While I am also punchy from no sleep and look it! My hair did not travel well but looked better here than it did later in the humidity! Yikes!


Linda looks good. How did she do it?


After dinner we went back to the hotel for the free drinks. I had a very good glass of pinot noir. Here's a picture I took later on the next morning when it was empty, but there were Gators fans watching football in the bar area and a wedding getting ready to happen in this part. Not sure how that worked out because we were too sleepy to stay and watch. This is where we had breakfast the next two mornings. They had a buffet and a place to order what you want that went with the room, too. We were at the Embassy Suites on Julia. The Joneses were in the main hotel, and Tina, Linda, and I were in The Lofts on the next block. My bed was so comfortable, and the suite was roomy and nice.