Monday, November 14, 2011

Escaping from life with Manic Mommies

New Orleans view from our room

After a lot of hemming, hawing and a little incentive from Chevy, i along with several people i know went to new Orleans for the Manic Mommies escape. It was an adventure. I've wanted to go to New Orleans for a while now and it did not disappoint. It was an experience, the city is just different.

After lots of tweets, texts and a few video chats with Tiffany and the aforementioned incentive where Chevy decided to give us a Traverse to drive there and back, i was fully committed to going on this Escape. I picked up C1 from school early so i could drive her down to the beach to stay with my grandma. I thought i would get a nap in before hand but well that wasn't in the cards. Around 8 we had all 5 of us int he truck and we took off for parts south. After dinner i moved to shotgun and stayed awake with the 1st driver until she got tired. Somewhere past Charlotte most of the truck was napping. When she hit her stopping point the next driver moved up from and i stayed to be the awake navigator. Granted i wasn't needed to navigate since we had OnStar it was more so that if your driving you have someone to talk to. When she hit her limit somewhere in Alabama i was ready to sleep having been awake since 6am the previous day and it was around 4am. I dozed off for about an hour or 2, the sunrise said it clearly wasn't meant to be. On a side note, i was the tallest person in the truck, the Traverse seats 8 and throughout the trip i sat everywhere but the back row. I had plenty of legroom in the 2nd row which is a big deal to someone like me who usually has to be in the front because of my height. After another bathroom and gas break i drove the rest of the way into New Orleans.

It sure is a good thing i have raging insomnia huh?

So what do we do after we check in at 10am? we sightsee of course. We walked over to Cafe Du Monde and had beignets and cafe au lait. I've never had Beignets before but they tasted exactly like Zeppoli. Seriously the zeppoli i grew up eating in Brooklyn. exactly.the.same. I wanted to ask for a bag to put them in and shake it up.

We walked around some more and hit up some voodoo shops. In hindsight i should have bought the lust candle i saw.

That evening there was a reception for all the roadtrippers. There were 5 teams who got the Chevy sponsored trucks, Tampa, Boston, Nashville, Atlanta and us.
Team RDU via ManicMommies

This pic above was taken during our welcome reception. I already had 2 glasses of champagne and a mojito in me. Of course i kept drinking because i'm in New Orleans! At the reception for everyone else i got a hurricane glass and after having a hurricane i went back tot he bar to fill in with straight vodka. I was completely ready to drink myself into a stupor and bare my breasts for beads. I was surprised to find out i got beads without the whole breasts reveal. Who knew?

The next day we were treated to a breakfast while we listened to the keynote. Considering how hungover i was it was nice to have this large egg cheese thingee to eat and insane amounts of coffee. The day was filled of various classes and clinics as well as tours of the Garden District and the 9th Ward. I also got to test drive a Chevy Equinox and a Camaro.
Rolling in a Camaro


That was one sweet ride.
That night we went to the Hermann-Grima house for a tour and a mixology class. I learned how to make the 2 signature drinks St. Charles punch and sazerac. The latter will put you on your ass if you aren't careful. That night after dinner there was a Marine birthday and a LSU game. Screw everything that can happen in New Orleans, our hotel lobby was buzzing with excitement. I ended up having down there with Olu and one of the girls from Team Boston all night.

We headed back on Sunday and we split up since Team Boston decided to not drive back. 3 of us headed home and drove straight thru, I took some pictures of the huge Kia plant on the Alabama-Georgia border and we almost hit a dear. By now my eyes had recovered enough to drive at night and i headed home with the Traverse. I drove it to the beach to pick up C1 and my grandma got a good look at it. She may be thinking of moving to that from her Dodge Caravan.

In all it was a good trip. a lot happened and yet i still missed doing so many things because it was a short trip.

Disclosure: The Chevy Traverse was part of a deal between Chevy, Manic Mommies and my group. While it was a free loaner for taking part in the Escape i was under no obligation to talk about it in anyway. 

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