It’s been mentioned before that CRACKER BARREL is the unofficial sponsor of the chick road trip. Apparently the waitress
that we had, some town on the outskirts of Texas, was unaware of this fact. And here’s a little secret, Sylvia is no longer a
CRACKER BARREL virgin. We did her up right. We made her order the hashbrown casserole, and just like everyone else, she is
now hooked. While exiting CRACKER BARREL we finally came across something that we had hoped to run into during our two-
night stay in Houston, some cowboys. We were so thrilled that we stopped on the road where we spotted them. Yes, Nikki was
the driver, why else would we stop? She was probably the spotter too. This poor guy, who had a trailer of cows or horses
hooked up to the back of his truck, had apparently just woke up and he finds himself being summoned to the other side of the
street so that some out-of-staters can gawk at him. Of course we took pictures. Although, I don’t think he quite got it, but it
was definitely a highlight of our Texas trip. Nikki told him that he was the first cowboy we saw during our stay in Texas, and we
were only about 15 miles out of Louisiana.
So what is there to do with four girls on a four-hour drive from a city in one state to a city in another state? There are lots of peeps
to make friends with. Well, we passed this one truck when we were in Louisiana. It was a very nice truck, expensive too. The guy
driving it had a very exquisite pinky ring on. For some reason we thought he was some NFL player, not sure why, I am writing
this a month later, but we definitely thought he was somebody. So as I stated before, Nikki is driving. Nikki and this NFL guy
start talking to each other as they are both driving. Then he asks for her number. So she gives it to him, holding up her fingers for
each different number. Now make sure you have a good visual on that. She’s driving, he’s driving. She keeps holding up
her hands to give him ten different numbers, so that he can then call her, which somehow he did. We never did find out who he was.
Now Lafayette isn’t that far from Houston. I believe it was supposed to be a 4-½ hour drive. I really couldn’t tell you
how long it took, but we didn’t get to the venue until after 6 PM. By the time we got inside the venue, I got to hear Dierks sing
the very end of his ‘WHAT WAS I THINKING’ song and then he was gone. We started to head to our seats. Sylvia had a
single seat; Nikki, Jen and I were sitting together. We passed where our seats were. We needed to find Sylvia for some unknown
reason. While looking for Sylvia, we found Becky and Joyce instead, and we decided that they needed some company in their row
with all the empty seats. Becky and Joyce were more than happy to have us there.
The five of us enjoyed Keith’s set form the sixth row where we had found six empty seats. Two songs into Kenny’s set,
not that I remember that, but that’s what I’ve been told, two people finally came to claim two of the seats we were sitting
in. We made sure that there was plenty of room for them. No one said anything to us, not the two that just arrived or even anyone
behind us, but shortly after, security decided to check tickets. Nikki quickly jumped into the row in front of us to hang with the
couple she had been befriending. I quickly offered up my ticket, since I had already been kicked out of that row while Keith was
still on stage. Jen showed her ticket also. Jen and I both got an escort to our rightful section and correct row. In other words, we
had to walk back about 16 rows to our fan club pre-sale seats.
Apparently throughout Kenny’s show so far, I had been making phone calls to friends that couldn’t join us on this trip.
Now that I was in my FAN CLUB seat, I couldn’t see the stage. So, I did the only thing I could do, I sat down. Good thing,
too. It wasn’t long after that I decided I needed a nap. So I put my head on my lap and took me a little nap.
The next thing I hear is BUM BA DEE DA, BUM BA DEE DA, HAPPY TRAILS TO YOU….. And the sound of chairs
closing. I tired to open my eyes, but the lighting was so bright that they hurt. All the while I can still hear BUM BA DEE DA,
BUM BA DEE DA, HAPPY TRAILS TO YOU….. TILL WE MEET AGAIN. Then in the distant background I hear, â
€œALLY, ALLY, ALLYâ€�. As I pick my head up I see that it’s Nikki calling me, from the sixth row. The house lights were
on, the roadies are singing HAPPY TRAILS and the venue staff have most of the chairs on the floor folded and put away. The one
thing I didn’t see was Kenny.
Yep, slept right through Kenny’s opening night. Didn’t even remember him being on stage at all. Not until I was scrolling
through the pictures on my digital camera and came across a picture of the blue star guitar. Jen made a very good adult this time.
She was the best babysitter I ever had. The only thing now, I wasn’t feeling so good. Nikki helped me over to a concession
stand and asked for some water. They offered an ambulance instead. Nikki told them that wasn’t necessary and then asked for
some ice, to which the obliged. I sucked on a whole cup of ice and started to perk right up.
After we had some fun hanging out in the parking lot and then at some dance club, we headed back to our hotel. We noticed
someone going into the pool area and Nikki asked the attendant at the desk if the pool was still open. He naturally said that it was
closed. Without even missing a beat, especially after seeing someone just entering the pool area, Nikki asked if he was looking. His
reply was, “well, are you gonna raise the roof?� And she said again, “well are you looking?� Without actually saying
so, since it would get him into trouble, he was permitting people to use the pool and hot tub as long as they were quiet. Shoot, he
didn’t really know this bunch, or did he? It was this night that I discovered something even better than a long, hot, steamy
shower for when I’m in non-sober way. The hot tub was much better than any other shower. Once we were done, I slept like
a baby. That is until I woke up the next morning with the world’s worst hangover. Yikes. Why does Jim do that to me?
Well, with the world’s worst hangover, before we started our trip to New Orleans, we needed to get me some food and some
other things to make me feel better. Just before we found the highway, we found Wal-Mart. Yeah, we started with just a small
hand basket. The girls left me in the produce department to go find some chips. I must have stood in the same spot for a good 30
minutes while they found themselves a full-size cart and filled it to near capacity. We loaded up the car with all the goodies we had
just bought and we were on our way to New Orleans.
Sylvia had scored us a really great hotel for a fantastic price. It was actually a suite with a stove, microwave and full-sized
refrigerator. Jen and I unloaded all of the cooler items into the refrigerator. When I was putting my bag of salad in the refrigerator, I
noticed that a small piece of lettuce dropped to the floor. I didn’t have a chance to pick it up since Jen was constantly handing
me something to put in the refrigerator. When we were done unloading the cooler, there was a pile of water on the floor. Naturally,
we both started to wipe it up with some papertowels. Jen found that piece of lettuce that I dropped, but thanks to her and her
phobia of bugs, she started screaming. She thought it was a gecko. I know, a gecko isn’t a bug, it’s an animal.
Once we were settled in and after I made some shello jots for our tailgating party for the Biloxi show, the four of us headed to the
pool. Yes, we do love our pools and hot tubs. When we were sufficiently pooled and hot tubed, we got ready to go out on the
town of New Orleans. This was the first time the four of us had been there. It was everything I thought it would be, and then
some. We found street bands, guys standing on balconies with beads, lots of bars, lots of slushy drink stores, lots of stores that
sold beads, cabaret places, male exotic dancers. You name it, this town had it. The best part was every bar had live music. This is
definitely the place for me, seeing as how I crave live music.
The next morning, we almost made it out of the hotel before checkout. We really came close this time. This day we were driving to
Biloxi, MS to see Kenny and to meet up with Donna and Curtis, and to hopefully find Becky and Joyce again. This was the
shortest trip of the week. New Orleans and Biloxi are only 93 miles apart. Before we left the hotel, we needed to re-stock the
cooler and find some ice. Plus, all of our luggage needed to be brought down to the car. Well, we had this really great bellman.
Somehow he fit all of our luggage, assorted bags, cooler and Wal-Mart handbasket all on this one luggage cart. He was amazing.
During the ride to the car, I mentioned something about needing ice. This guy was such a sweetheart. He took the cooler to a room
that was for employees only and jammed ice into every nook and cranny. We were now set. And somehow he also used every
nook and cranny of that van and got all of our stuff in there no problem. He did such a great job with ice, that the girls had a very
difficult time getting beer out of the cooler later. The ice froze over and Jen had to actually chip away at the ice to break free her
beer. So we were all set to head to Biloxi. It was Sylvia’s turn to drive today. She was no slouch there with the speed.
Actually, she was a bit faster than the New Yorkers. We were in Biloxi in no time at all.
Our hotel was right across from the beach. We all put our bathing suits on and caught some sun and a nap while we waited for
Donna and Curtis to arrive. Once we were all together, we headed to the venue. There weren’t that many cars there. It seemed
that most peeps didn’t have plans to tailgate. We weren’t there for long when Joyce and Becky arrived. We tailgated right
through the sunset. It was there one moment and then it was gone. By the time we headed into the show, Dierks had already
performed and left the stage. So, I still have yet to see his show. My only chance will be the Worcester show. Everyone had seats
in different places. We all went right to our seats. For some reason, I missed Kenny’s grand opening again, that’s another
thing I need to make sure I see in Worcester. Naturally after the show we tailgated until we were asked to leave, several times. But
not before we got to do some more parking lot dancing. I need to say that Sylvia has become quite the expert on this now. She is a
quick study.
As we were driving back to the hotel, Donna saw some restaurant that she wanted to eat at. Since Curtis was driving, he caved
very quickly, even though we all needed to get our butts to bed. I was the last one inside and to our seats. For some reason they,
or was it just Donna, stuck me at a table with just Curtis. Well, that is until the waitress found a table that would accommodate our
whole group. Shucks, and I could have had my way with him. Lol
After giving Donna what was left of the goodies in the cooler and the food that was in the handbastket, we finally made it to bed by
2 am. Jen, Nikki and I all had early flights out of the Biloxi airport. Everyone set the alarm on their cellphones to 5 am so that we
wouldn’t miss our flights. Nikki had to go home to do homework and see her kids. Jen and I had a very important date with
MONTGOMERY GENTRY. They were doing a concert at Seaworld Orlando. We needed to get there quickly so that we could
wait on the general admission line in an attempt to get good seats.