Over the River and through the Bayou

Day 2-3 am

Finishing the first of what would become a long string of drinks entitled “Hand Grenades”, and “Hurricanes” from the Tropical Isle bar. Our group began the night walking up and down Bourbon Street, talking with people from other states and colleges and of course yelling for beads. We stopped in miscellaneous souvenir shops and admired the innuendistic shirts and toys, some of which were extremely funny. You know the kind of funny only college students or maybe, maybe some really hip parents would laugh at. To tell you the truth there is not much else to do on Bourbon Street other than drink and yell for beads. “Of course the girls always do other stuff to get their beads.” I tried to limit myself to that particular exposure, since I have all the show I could ever need already in my one and only. Anyway our group spent the night just chillin out on Bourbon, until our 0100 curfew fan out and we had to be back on the bus.
Arriving back at our Hanger Bay Hilton we were unsurprised to see the Texas A&M MID’s had already turned in for the night. “Man those guys need to get out.” Most of us including myself hit our racks so hard that night, not even changing out of our dirty clothes. I fell asleep thinking “I hope breakfast is better.”

Four hours later I awoke thinking, “I’m never drinking again.” I rolled out of my cot hitting the gray hard cold hanger bay floor. Remarkably after waking up and showering I did not feel all that bad. The Plan of the Day called for Rice and Prairie View to visit the National D-Day museum in the morning, and right after that it showed Bourbon Street Liberty.
“Wow I’m not sure I can take another night of that place”........... I changed into my khaki uniform (the uniform of the day) and patiently waited for the bus to arrive. And waited, and waited, waited some more I looked down at my watch 0900. Good god where was this bus driver..................?
Never ceasing to amaze us our fearless bus driver had somehow managed to drive the bus through mud, getting stuck in the process. He was so stuck in fact that a special tow truck specially equipped to haul large vehicles had to be called in just to get it out.
Of course during this time of waiting, our unit hung-over from the night before and bored out of our minds took a tour of the base, which for al intensive purposes was the crappiest base I had ever been on.
Our glorious chariot of diesel, covered in dirt finally showed up around 1100. Back on to the bus we went, and headed for the D-Day museum.