Killing Time In Louisiana

Yesterday was quite an active day, the first day in a while we weren't bored out of our skulls. We started off the day by showering, doing some laundry, and then we headed across the street to a diner straight out of the 50's. I felt like I was in an episode of Happy Days, and half expected Potsie to come walking in. They have a large statue of a pelican by the door dressed as Elvis, and they call him Pelvis.

Cute.

After we ate, our strike team leader let us go out for a couple hours on our own to get stuff. We went to a huge sporting goods store to get some more shorts and other stuff. After we got back, we learned we were going on a field trip to catch a movie. We went to see 'Traitor' and when the manager learned we were from California on a FEMA trip, she treated us to the movie. We almost finished the movie, but we got called back because we had some missions.
We reported to the headquarters of Acadian Ambulance in Lafayette for our assignments. We were to take a couple of patients from a facility in Baton Rouge to their home facility in Kenner, Louisiana, about a 140 mile trip total. On the way to Baton Rouge, we got caught in a hell of a thunderstorm. Oh, and about that time we got a flat tire. Someone must have spilled crap on the causeway, because dozens of cars also got flats. Changing a tire in the middle of bayou country, with thousands of mosquitos trying to help certainly sucked. We got the tire changed, and were on our way. The transport was uneventful, and we cleared Kenner at about 10:30. There was another crew close by, so we drove about 12 miles into New Orleans and had dinner. We ate at this killer burger place called Yo Mama's Grill. Best burger I've had in a long time. We walked around Bourbon Street, bought some goodies to bring home, then headed over to the Cafe DuMonde for some beignets and coffee. My partner bought some to bring back for the crews that didn't get to enjoy 'Nawlins' with us. We got back to Lafayette at around 3:30am. Best day of the trip so far. I slept pretty well until these two backwoods country redneck yahoos started making noise again at 7am. Argh...