During the first week of a much needed Winter Break off school, my mom suggested we do something fun. Normally, we save our vacations for the summer when we do our annual road trip to baseball stadiums. But, since she brought it up, I investigated. My first thought was to visit New Orleans.
Why New Orleans you ask? Well, my favorite basketball team is the New Orleans Pelicans. The Pelicans?!?! Yes, even though I live in San Antonio, home of the five time champion Spurs, I have remained loyal to the Pelicans. I became a full-time fan of the team formally known as the Hornets after the Spurs lost to the Mavericks in the 2006 Western Conference semi-finals. I already rooted for the Hornets because Chris Paul was my favorite player, but the playoff defeat crushed me, and I officially moved on to only rooting for New Orleans.
So, I had been a loyal fan of the Pelicans/Hornets for over 10 years now, but I had never been to a home game. I had attended many games against the Spurs here in San Antonio(which they have never won while I’m there), but never at home in New Orleans. Now that we were looking for an exciting, quick trip, I thought it’d be the perfect time to go. It was only an eight hour drive, which to many might be far, but by now our family had become expert distance drivers.
The first thing I did was check the Pelicans’ schedule to see when they are at home. They had a Wednesday game against Portland, and a Saturday game against Houston. Keep in mind this was Monday, so the Wednesday game would be pretty much pack our bags and go. I really, really wanted my dad to go with us, but his work schedule just didn’t allow him to miss for either date. I kept trying to convince him to come with us, but he refused. I mean, we weren’t sure we were going, but my dad would for sure not join us if we did choose to go.
The Wednesday game was ruled out, so the Saturday game was the only reasonable date left. Since it was a Saturday, I was curious to see if by any chance the Saints played at home as well on Sunday. A quick google search revealed the Saints would be at home on Sunday against the Jacksonville Jaguars! This made me even more excited about this trip, but it was cautious excitement because my mom wasn’t fully on board yet. She said she wasn’t a huge fan of New Orleans when we visited four years ago, and she wasn’t sure if she wanted to drive all the way there just for games. She argued there wouldn’t be much more for me to do apart from the games, and that’d we be driving there and back pretty quickly.
The week went on, and the trip really didn’t gain much traction. I continued to monitor ticket prices, hotels, and logistics on my own, but I avoided bringing much up because I didn’t want to bug my mom about it. On Wednesday night, I texted my brother Danny to ask if he would come if we did go. He was surprised by the idea, but said he did think he would go. As of now, my brothers Adrian and Danny would go with my mom and I, but still, I wasn’t positive that we would do it. The plan was set, my mom just had to agree.
It wasn’t until Friday that we got serious about going. Our entire family saw the movie “Concussion” on Christmas night which was Friday, and when the movie ended at around midnight, we decided we’d go. We went home to pack what we needed for three days away from home. I didn’t go to bed until 3:00am because I was so excited, and I set my alarm for 6:00am. I could sleep in the car.
In the morning, Danny arrived from his house at 7:30am, Adrian finally got ready, and after quickly eating bagels, we were off at around 8:15am for New Orleans. It didn’t take long for me to sleep. To keep myself busy in the car after napping, I kept an eye on the six bowl games going on throughout the day. I also kept checking tickets, hotels, etc. We stopped to eat at a Subway, which took longer then I would’ve liked, but I thought it wouldn’t be a big deal. Things then began to get interesting once we crossed into Louisiana.
To start, gas began to run low, and my mom freaked about because her map showed no gas stations for 15 miles. Luckily, we found one in the middle of nowhere, and I really do mean middle of nowhere. We had to drive two miles inward after exiting the highway, and there was only one pump. Game time was at 6:00pm, and this took off more time. Then, we got to Lafayette, and boy was there traffic. Bumper to bumper, no movement for a very long time, and I began to go insane.
Meanwhile, tickets kept steadily rising, making me nervous. After many attempts, I was able to reach the Pelicans ticket office, who told me that very few tickets remained. To not risk it, we bought our tickets then and there on Stubhub. I then turned to my favorite toy in the world, Priceline. Normally we do express deals on Priceline, but I decided to try “name your own price.” I got a great deal to stay at the Intercontinental in downtown New Orleans! Things were going great, except for time.
There was more traffic entering the city, and after rerouting to a quicker route, there was a jam right before reaching the arena. Even though I was mad we would miss tipoff, I told myself that just the fact that we drove all the way here for this was incredible, and I was happy we made it. We parked in the Superdome parking lot, and swiftly walked towards Smoothie King Center, home of the New Orleans Pelicans. We made it!
I was so amazed to be here. This was only my second ever NBA arena, and it was beautiful. We had good seats in the upper deck, and we only missed six minutes of the first quarter. We got to watch a great game, as the Pelicans continued to battle back from large deficits. A 12-0 run to end the half energized the sold-out crowd for the second half, and it was wonderful to see the arena so into the game. With one second left, the Rockets trailed by two and had the chance to win the game, but the Pelicans stopped them, sending the arena into a frenzy! Pelicans win!
As the crowd filed out, we said goodbye to our energetic friends who sat behind us, and made our way down to take pictures near the court. When we got down, we noticed the court was open to the public because it was a kids free throw shoot day, so we went all the way down there. I took lots of pictures, and even one with the mascot, Pierre! As we were leaving, Adrian noticed a hallway filled with pictures of players and told me to come see them. As we kept walking, we ran into an area that seemed to be a bar/lounge, which was right next to a door that led to the locker room. My mom and Daniel caught up, and we waited here because we talked to a guy who told us Alexis Ajinca, a Pelicans player, had promised to meet him out here. We decided to wait and see if I could take a picture with him.
Five minutes later, Dante Cunningham walked out the door and into the lounge. Soon after, Ajinca came out and spoke with his friend, and the I took a picture next to the French giant. I felt so tiny next to him. We went into the lounge to wait and see if any other players came out. We were about to leave when Kendrick Perkins and Anthony Davis walked out. Anthony Davis!!! There was a lot of family here to see him, so we respectfully let him see them, but then Adrian and I asked him for a picture. He even talked to us a little. I was so happy!
It was now time to leave the arena and head for the car. Things could not have gone better tonight at the game! What an experience! Following the game, we drove around downtown for awhile before checking into our hotel. After checking in, we were very hungry, so we went to a recommended restaurant down the street called Daisy Dukes. I had a basic burger, but Adrian went wild and had an omelet with alligator sausage. Our waitress was very friendly, and the table behind us had people who were super drunk. Anyway, we walked back to the hotel and went to bed.
We weren’t in a huge rush in the morning, but we didn’t want to just be in our hotel room. We walked from our hotel to a restaurant near the Superdome to buy our Saints tickets, which we got for a great price. Now that we had our tickets, we were calm that we would get in, and still had plenty of time until the 3:00pm kickoff. Downtown was already full of Saints fans, and it was a great environment.
We hadn’t eaten breakfast, so Adrian searched for a restaurant nearby. It was a crepe shop, and it was delicious! It was a very unique place, which we enjoyed. It was about 1:00pm, so we headed back towards the Superdome. We went to Champions Square, which is an area between both the basketball arena and football stadium that was packed with fans. There was a stage with a band, cheerleaders, and many booths for food and drinks. I loved this gameday atmosphere. Before entering the stadium, we ran into Kriste Lewis, who is the oldest cheerleader in the NFL. My mom was amazed by her, as she is over 40 years old and is a cheerleader. We talked to her and took a picture with her. Then, we went in the doors of the Mercedes Benz Superdome, home of the New Orleans Saints.
We got rally towels at the door, and then walked around the concourse, and then Danny and I stopped to watch NFL Redzone so that he could watch his Colts and I could monitor my fantasy football team. We only did this because there was plenty of time until kickoff. After a while, we went up to our seats, which actually had a great view. The crowd began to fill in and get riled up. I couldn’t believe we were at a Saints game in the iconic Superdome!
My hope for the game was to have the Saints win, that way the crowd was happy and loud, but also have the Jaguars quarterback, Blake Bortles, do very well because he was on my fantasy team. I know, I’m crazy, but I don’t care. The game began, and the Saints got off to a rolling start, and the crowd was great. It wasn’t quite full, but “Who Dat Nation” definitely represented well even though their Saints have a losing record. My wish actually came true because Bortles threw for over 350 yards and had four touchdowns, and the Saints won 38-27. Once again, just like last night, things could not have gone better.
We exited the stadium with the herd of fans, and walked towards the hotel. We were all very hungry, so we stopped at a restaurant called Reginelli’s. This was a pizzeria, and I had eaten a slice of pizza at halftime, but it was OK. I enjoyed my Margherita pizza, and my brothers enjoyed their meat lovers pizza. My mom was not feeling too well and she didn’t eat here. We wrapped up our meals and walked back to the hotel. Like I mentioned, my mom was not feeling well, so I stayed with her in the room watching the Giants vs. Vikings, and my brothers walked to the Harrah’s casino. I was totally OK with staying in because one, there’s not much for me to do since this city is all about nightlife, and two, my mom had already done so much for that I wanted to stay with her. We both went to bed before my brothers returned.
In the morning, we again had no rush, as we would be leaving back for San Antonio today. We did want to leave at a decent hour just to ensure we did get home today. Before we left, we wanted to eat some beignets at the famous Cafe du Monde, so we drove to the French Quarter. As we drove by, we saw people setting up the fan fest area for the upcoming Sugar Bowl. Then, at the Cafe, the line went back about three blocks! It was crazy! We decided to not stay and look for somewhere else to eat. My mom had seen someone else in New Orleans eat at a Kosher waffle restaurant, so we pulled up the directions and went to Uptown New Orleans.
On the way, we saw Tulane, and we were glad to see another part of the city. The restaurant we ate at was Waffles on Maple St. and it was a very neat place. They didn’t have the waffle I wanted, but I adjusted and got a great waffle and a smoothie. While eating, we noticed a guy who looked like he played for the Saints. Somehow, Adrian searched the roster and actually figured out he was Kasim Edebali.
We finished eating, and drove out of New Orleans. I said my final goodbye as we passed the stadiums, and they soon went out of sight. In Baton Rouge, I asked if we could stop at LSU. We did, and we saw the football stadium, which was huge, the basketball arena, and we we went in to Alex Box Stadium, the baseball field. It was cool that all the stadiums were right next to each other, and the campus was very nice.
We resumed our drive home, which is always more boring then the drive to your destination. Danny and my mom drove the whole time, with Adrian never driving for some reason. It began to get dark as we approached Houston. We stopped at a Chick Fil A drive thru, but we were debating on whether we should stop and sleep in Houston. After some discussion, we decided to keep on trucking and go home.
Finally, at around 10:00pm, we made it home. It was such a wonderful trip, and I’m so glad we chose to go. Sometimes, things work out better with not much planning. It was a spontaneous trip, and it was worth every mile in the Crescent City.
Great story!!