Day 08-09: New Orleans, LA to Dallas, TX


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North America » United States » Texas » Dallas
December 25th 2009
Published: January 11th 2010
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Note: Havent been able to update the blog over the past few days.. Hotels without Internet, more hours of driving as we dropped off people along the way, and weeks of travel through changing weather, different altitudes and shifting time zones caught up with us eventually. Unfortunately, that means that I dont remember all the fun, whacky moments from the trip that made it such an enjoyable holiday 😞 Its those stories, those anecdotes that defined our trip, but nevertheless, heres an overview of what we did end up doing.

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Day 08 in Dallas:

Started our drive from New Orleans after our jazz show at about 8pm.. Plan was to see how far we can get before pulling in at one of the motels along the way and calling it a night.. At around 1am, we figured that since none of us 3 drivers was feeling particularly tired, we could do the whole 12 hour drive in one go without stopping anywhere along the way.. Could save one night of hotel expense that way, and I wanted to spend more time in Dallas with Jiya anyway.. Dhiraj got the first shift, me the second and Akshay did the final leg of the drive.. As always, we were hit by bad weather on this stretch of the drive as well.. Snow and cross-winds of upto 30mph made it a tough drive, but by 7am we were pulling into the icy (!) driveway at Jigna's place... Everyone was up by then, so it was nice to see Jigna, Jatin, Jiya and aunty as soon as we reached...


7am: Jiya was an instant hit with everyone.. Its a good thing that she doesnt cry and goes to whoever is willing to play with her.. And of course, being the cutest little thing doesnt hurt either. Think she liked Sanak the most amongst my friends - maybe coz the big, round guy felt like a giant teddy bear to her.


9am-2pm: Spent the first half of the day sleeping in and attacking our first home-cooked meal of the trip.. For the veggies on the trip, it was a welcome change from all those cheese quesadillas..

After a week, today is also laundry day! Out came 5 truckloads of clothes and socks.



3-6pm: Dallas was where Sapna and Gattu would join us from London. We were so looking forward to seeing them after such a long time. Flight was supposed to land at 8pm, we decided to catch 3 Idiots before that while Neha stayed back to prep for her upcoming job interviews. Dhiraj wanted us to book the tickets online, but we headed out thinking we would get them cheaper at the window anyway. After all, who would want to see a Hindi movie in Dallas on Xmas day? Apparently 500 other people wanted to. The show was fully booked when we reached the theatre. Should have listened to Dhiraj earlier. Or maybe Akshay, Sanak and I should just have looked into the mirror to see the 3 idiots.

Headed to the nearby Gaylord resort to check out the Xmas festivities. Spent a few hours there before finally heading to the airport.


9pm: Sapna and Gattu finally arrive!! Now we were a complete 😊 Couldnt have asked for a better holiday - Xmas with family and friends in snowy, white Dallas!


10-3am: Neha and Dhiraj were to leave the next day.. So this was the only night with all of us together.. None of us were in any mood to hit the bed anytime soon. This was the night for fun and games. Out came cards, Taboo, Pictionary etc.. For those who dont know, Taboo includes getting your team to guess a word given to you, without you using the word itself or five other similar words. Pictionary involves communicating a word to your team through drawings.. One of the things we all love doing is playing games like these.. None of our get-togethers are complete without playing Taboo or Pictionary.. In fact, Sapna got her set of Taboo all the way from London so that we could play it on our trip.. Always takes us back to the good old days in Singapore when we used to pass our time having some clean fun playing board games at home or in cafes.. We play, we cheat, we fight, we have fun.

Jiya also satyed up to keep us company. She tends to get passed around as often as the cards.


Day 09 in Dallas:

10am: Dropped Dhiraj and Neha to the airport, but not without first rushing to a restaurant so that they could finally have some of the famous Texan steaks. Said our goodbyes and took enough group pics at the airport to make the security guys a bit suspicious.. Dhiraj and Neha's departure marked the end of the first leg of our trip


11-2pm: Visited the Kennedy museum in Dallas.. Been there before, but I love history and feel that this museum does a great job of chronicling the life and time of JFK.. With all those videos, newspaper articles, pictures and audio clips, you are transported back in time to Friday, Nov 22 1963 when JFK was shot and assassinated on the street below...

4-7pm: Finally succeeded in getting tickets to 3 Idiots.. Spent an enjoyable 3 hours at the theatre..


8pm: Back home for some more playtime with Jiya.. Last night in Dallas 😞

Had another round of gujju food.. So Gattu's first couple of days in Dallas were spent eating gujarati food, getting none of those Texan steaks, watching 3 Idiots and meeting some more Indians - he got the complete Texan experience.



Day 10 in Dallas:

9am: Had a full breakfast, said our goodbyes, and headed out. Destination Las Vegas, but we will make a couple of stops in New Mexico and Arizona first before we hit Vegas on New Years Eve.

Bye Dallas! Bye Jiya!




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