Dear Louisiana, please let me rant....

Dear State of Louisiana,


Our family is driving to New Orleans to board a cruise ship on Saturday.  I have a few issues I'd like to vent about.


Before I do that, let me just say there are a few things I LOVE about your beautiful state:

• The Pelican as your State Bird--freakin' awesome. I love pelicans, they are my favorite bird and I've collected various pelican "trinkets" over the years.  I wish my Texas license plate could have a pelican on it like your state license plates do.
• French language--I took 5 years of French and became fluent, all while living in states that border Mexico.  It was my little "statement" so-to-speak....and I love the language.  While I am no longer fluent I enjoy trying to show off my pseudo-french accent while speaking various streets, lakes, etc in front of my children.
• Beignets...... 'nuff said.
• Chicory coffee--I astound my friends by being able to drink a Venti drip coffee from Starbucks and not have an MI or look like I have Parkinson's Disease.  Best. Coffee. Evah.
• Raising Cane's Chicken strips and Texas Toast.  As my friend Kim would say "it's like they squeezed angels and whatever comes out of them is what they used to make this stuff"! Best. Chicken. EVAH!!!

Ok--those are just a few positive things I'll give kudos for.  Now for the rant(s).

• Who makes your roads?!?!? OMG from the second we crossed the state line our ride in the car went from smooth to FAH-THUMP FAH-THUMP FAH-THUMP repeatedly.  Unnerving. Very much like Chinese Water Torture.  For no reason I started snapping at my children and it was brought on by the ridiculous FAH-THUMPing of the road.
• Your State Troopers need to learn a few things about how to CLOSE DOWN A HIGHWAY AND DIVERT TRAFFIC!!! We spent 2.5 hours creeping (if I can call it that....) across 12 miles on I-10 over a swamp...so, ON A BRIDGE with no escape whatsoever because you closed BOTH SIDES of I-10 near Raham today.  After 2 hours and we finally reached the exit to detour around the closed section, your troopers at each intersection had NO IDEA how to move the traffic and it still took us another 30 minutes to get back to the open section of I-10  Were you overwhelmed? If this same situation were in TEXAS I assure you we'd have been through our detour in 45 minutes TOPS.  I have NEVER had to endure such a long detour.  It was maddening.  I still can't believe I didn't have a stroke.  I'm sure it drove more than a few people to "go postal"....the whole time I was wishing I was back on Prozac.  My sweet husband kept saying "this is terrible" and believe me...it is a big deal that he said it more than 3 times!  (Major kudos to our children who didn't really complain.  I'm still amazed.)
• I have never in my life come across more tire carnage than in your state.  I didn't have to worry about the teenagers texting while they were driving....I had to swerve to miss all the tire pieces in the highway. Seriously? Does your road sweeper avoid these deadly pieces of black rubber? Please fix this now.

We stopped at Raising Cane's for dinner after the detour from H-E-doublehockeysticks because I needed MAJOR comfort food.  I basically told my in-laws that's where we were eating because...well, too bad....I needed NOM NOM NOMs!!!


We finally reached our destination at 10:30 pm. I couldn't sleep until I blogged about it--that's how much my driving experience has affected me BWAHAHAHAHAHAAHA!!! (If you follow this blog you know I'm not that serious.)


Tomorrow we are going to the National WWII Museum and taking a bus tour of New Orleans. I'm sure to be the youngest person on the bus (besides my children, of course.)  Saturday we board our cruise to Belize, Honduras and Cozumel....I'll update more later.


Looking forward to more comfort food tomorrow---Cafe du Monde's Chicory Coffee and Beignets....NOM NOM NOM!!!


XOXO
Dana