I'm buying postcards, wading through racks of pictures featuring the familiar wild drunken revelers packing the streets of the French Quarter, overcrowding the balconies, and thronging the parade floats. You see the jazz bands with brass buttons, the red steaming crawfish on top of mounds of corn and potatoes, the nutty eccentrics in ludicrous costumes, the battered streetlamps. There's music, there's neon, and there's noise...and there's noise; above all, there's noise. Bourbon Street is a wall of color and sound. Those are the memories the postcards try to capture, and they're the same ones I'm trying to extricate from the swirling kaleidoscope that is my memory of last night. The coffee helps. The Handgrenades sure didn't. Drinking in New Orleans is a serious matter. You gotta be ready to play like a champion. Bravo Company ends ... read more

Whoever the Greek god of interstates would be, he's happy at the moment Now I'm in New Orleans. Not only was it the most uneventful drive on the US Interstate system I've ever taken, it was the easiest one I've ever heard of. If you've ever gone more than a hundred miles on I-Anything, the most vivid memory you probably have is the color orange. Orange cones, orange barrels, and orange signs. Slow or barely moving workers in orange vests, orange hardhats, and waving orange flags at you. Every state in the US claims the orange cone is their state tree, the hot planer is their state animal, and "slow construction zone" their state motto. Not this time. Not one holdup for construction, not one lane closing accident, not even any bad weather. The travel gods ... read more

Does Ann know how cold that water is? You may be wondering why I, a good SEC fan, am traveling to the Gator Bowl to see Nebraska play Clemson. A fair question, and one that I hope to make clear at some point; but for now, we’re in Jacksonville, Florida and we need a late night liquor store. I know, “who doesn’t?” but on this occasion it’s proving a little more difficult than it ought to be. Finding a late night liquor store should be easy anywhere in the Christian world, just look for the part of town with the discount tobacco, lottery tickets, massage parlors, bail bonds, and pawn shops specializing in jewelry. People traveling in the vicinity of Southside Blvd and Butler, however, will have to get their cellblock-ready body art elsewhere because it’s ... read more

Eagle Battle at Tracy Arm I know this one is way overdue and I've had all the time in the world to put up some of the Alaska pictures, but a lot has happened since July of 2008. At any rate, here is a teaser. Tracy Arm (a glacial fjord) is located along Stephens Passage, just around the corner from the strange little capitol city of Juneau in "Big Southeast" (which would be better called "Big SouthWet"). You can find it on a map, but don't Google it for driving directions or you might get something like, "...drive onto float plane." Juneau has plenty of roads, but they don't go anywhere and no roads lead to Juneau unless you're coming from Skagway. How you get to Skagway is via Juneau. Not that I recommend flying in, ... read more

Ancient Wonders and Wondering Where They Went The Palace of the Grand Master of the Knights of Rhodes is very impressive…or at least it was. In 1856, long after the Knights of Rhodes had shuffled off to Malta, a gunpowder explosion did by accident what the Turks could only accomplish by negotiation. The concrete, I am sorry to say, is not original. Most of what stands there today is a replica of a medieval castle as imagined by twentieth century Italian fascists. Fascists have no gift for subtlety and, oh , do they love concrete. The Parthenon in Athens suffered a similar fate when a Venetian cannonball bulls-eyed an Ottoman ammo dump (the Greeks blame the Turks for the destruction of the Parthenon, not the Venetians). The great mosaics on display in the Grand Master’s Palace ... read more