The Road Warrior Report - Sugar Bowl Travelogue #1 - January 1, 2014

NEW ORLEANS, LA – Snapshots from New Year’s Eve/New Year’s Morning in the Big Easy: A forlorn high-heeled shoe, its mate nowhere to be found, sitting atop a trash receptacle in our downtown hotel’s lobby, it’s owner likely unconscious in an alcohol haze, oblivious to the cause of her (or his – it is New Orleans, after all) pronounced limp on the way to the hotel room in the wee hours of the morning.

A group of Sooners on a balcony on Bourbon Street, tossing Mardi Gras beads to anyone in the right shade of crimson, and bestowing a pair of bead strings the size of grapefruits on our pair of seven-year-olds.


Our seven-year-old son begging us for a red sequined pimp hat with flashing LED lights – and us getting it for him, along with a blue one for his brother who couldn’t come.


Our wife, half-jokingly and half not, interposing herself between said seven-year-old and the lighted signs outside the Hustler Club on Bourbon Street as we walked by.

A group of twenty-somethings, cocktails still in hand, straggling into the hotel lobby at 6:30 a.m. looking for the free breakfast, which wasn’t yet open. They were clearly not guests of the hotel. One young gentleman wore a backwards baseball cap bearing the words “Foxy Delicious.” While we do not pretend to be objectively qualified to judge such things, in our opinion, this description was not correct, as the gentleman in question appeared to be neither foxy nor delicious.

Sooner running backs coach Cale Gundy sitting down with a group for dinner at the next table over from us as we were finishing our dinner, on the second floor of a Bourbon Street restaurant with a unisex bathroom.

A gentleman with a tip bucket wandering down Bourbon Street wearing what could only be described as a giant purple feather Furby costume.

Some dude sparking up a joint literally right in front of a New Orleans cop, of which there were an abundance.
Alabama fans being their usual Alabama selves, which is to say, just like Oklahoma people.

A man soliciting donations for the “burial” of his German Shepherd, who he had trained very well to play dead on the Bourbon Street sidewalk.

Cab drivers from the Ukraine and Martinique.

The traditional “Boomer!” “Sooner!” call and response between Sooner fans on Bourbon Street.

Two pairs of kids’ tennis shoes, wet and stained nearly black from the filth of Bourbon Street in a light drizzle.

And all of this with us getting back to the hotel before 9 p.m. and in bed by 11. Good thing, too – no telling what the kids’ shoes would smell like if we were down there after the urine and vomit started mixing with the rain and spilled alcohol.

We departed Oklahoma City on Sunday, driving as far as Shreveport before settling in for the night to rest, armed to the teeth, as one must be in Shreveport. That town is about as sketchy as they come, and without the redeeming qualities of a sketchy town like New Orleans. Even the nice hotels in Shreveport are, by definition, sketchy.

Ours was even more so, as by pure random chance, it was the media headquarters hotel for the Independence Bowl, or as it was called for this edition, the Advocare V100 Bowl, so named for its admirably sketchy multi-level marketing health product sponsor. We stumbled across the media hospitality room, which was large, well-stocked, and completely empty, save for one gentleman watching the Dallas game on a big screen.

Monday morning, it was up and rolling into New Orleans, and a very nice dinner at Tomas Bistro. We would recommend it if you are in town.

Yesterday, after sleeping late, we straggled out of bed and headed out to tour a plantation house outside of town along the Mississippi River. And when we say along, we mean right on the other side of the levee.

Along the way, we saw people setting things up for New Years’ celebrations on top of the levee – bonfires being prepared for lighting, and a weird thing that appeared to be a semi-truck made of wood and paper, which also appeared to be intended for burning.



After about an hour’s drive, we arrived at Laura Plantation, and took a very interesting tour from a well-spoken young tour guide named Julia. By the time we were 10 minutes into the tour, our kids had attached themselves to her, literally taking her hand as we walked from place to place and standing beside her as though they were part of the tour themselves. Needless to say, she got a nice tip.

After trekking back to the city, we rested a while, then made our 6 p.m. reservation at Olde NOLA Cookery on Bourbon Street. It was pretty tasty, although the service was a bit spotty, with our dinner arriving some 10 minutes after everyone else’s at the table. The bananas Foster ice cream cake for dessert had to be the highlight. The unisex restroom was interesting, and Coach Gundy came in with a group of people and sat down at the next table just before we were done.

Then, it was a walk up Bourbon Street, with the associated interesting things that one sees on such a walk, many of them enumerated at the top of this article. Frankly, our kids were cold, and it was raining, and they were more concerned with getting back to the hotel and getting in the indoor pool before it closed at 10, so we cabbed it back and called it a night.

And that brings us full circle to now, resting comfortably in the hotel and awaiting the commencement of New Years’ Day bowl games. Yes, this is an expensive hotel room and yes, we are in New Orleans, but this is the last day of wall-to-wall college football for this season, and we are not missing it. It’s a long time to August.

The Superdome is visible out our hotel window, and the game awaits in less than 48 hours. Tonight, we will venture back to Bourbon Street for the big Touchdown Club Bourbon Street Bash. More later from New Orleans.