NOLA Habitat for Humanity, Prologue

So, who’s been to the Quality Inn in Amarillo Texas? We’re on the first day of our road trip to New Orleans, and that’s where we’re staying tonight.  Which means one thing: another check mark on my bucket list!  Woo Hoo!

After a pretty awesome Christmas break, I flew back to Denver for a week of briefing/ debriefing before our next round of projects in starts up.  As I mentioned a while back, we're going to New Orleans to work with Habitat for Humanity building houses. It was all I could do to stay patient through all our meetings, presentations and sitting.  We recapped our last project and planned/ packed for the upcoming one, but my mind was in the bayou.

Between meetings this last week, few of us accompanied my roommate Erik to a bar called Crocs to watch the Sugar Bowl. Crocs is an Ohio State bar, and Erik is a Buckeye alum, so he taught us all of the cheers while Ohio State was beating Arkansas.  If you talk enough shit about Michigan it’s really easy to fit in with Buckeye fans.  After a few beers, the two of us ended up signing up for the halftime hot-wing eating contest.  Right after signing up I got cold feet and wanted to leave, but then I remembered that’s what some pussy Michigan fan would do. We stayed, and somehow I won.  We had to put back seven hot wings and a beer, and I had a come-from-behind victory to win $20 in bar money.  I practice eating every day, and it turns out I’m starting to get good at it. Erik got fourth, so all he won was some fiery discomfort and a hi-five from an eating champion.

Saturday, we left Denver in our big van, and we’ll be on the road until late Monday night.  We travel to all the non-Denver projects by 15 passenger van.  Here’s a picture of Guvvie Lovie, our green chariot, and my home until Monday:

Like I mentioned at the top, we’re in Amarillo tonight, and we’ll be in Tyler TX tomorrow, before getting to NOLA on Monday night.  Christracker has a breakdown of the trip:

The trip is going well so far, but we’ll see how I’m feeling about it after another two days of van naps, ipod games and rubik's cube.  When it's actually my turn to drive, there's alot to remember because driving government vehicles for Americorps has an ass-ton of rules (less than a shit-ton, more than a normal ton).  In addition to the usual “wear seatbelts” and “no meth” driving rules, we have lots of others. Here are but a few:

1. No driver can drive for more than 2 hours
2. Nobody can ride shotgun for more than 2 hours
3. No more than 8 total hours of driving in a day
4. No drive-thru’s
5. No Parking Garages
6. No driving faster than 65mph, even if the speed limit is higher.
7. No running yellow lights. Or green lights.
8. The driver can’t talk or blink

Those last two aren’t real, but still; Uncle Sam takes his shit seriously.

This coming week will be exciting. We’ll be finishing our roadtrip, starting work, seeing a Girl Talk concert, and getting to know New Orleans.  CANNOT WAIT!  I went on Google Maps yesterday to see where we’re living, and this is what came up.  

Veloceraptors live in the yard.  Hopefully they’ve fixed it up at least a little bit since this picture was taken. Or at least taken the boards off the doors and windows so we can get inside.

Giddy-up Guvvie Lovie! On to N’awlins!