Return

Yes, we're back. Yes, the family and the Williams Estate are fine. The Estate is fine because there was no hurricane. According to my people who stayed in town, it was a little breezy Thursday morning. No rain. Our power didn't even go out.

But better safe than sorry, right? We left the house at two on Tuesday afternoon. Seven hours later we pulled over at a gas station in Mandeville. Seven hours to go about thirty miles. It's not much consolation, but everyone else who left town at the same time we did had a similar experience. The gas station was overrun, though the thought of New Orleanians as gypsies, traveling in packs of hundreds and over-running small towns with their dogs, kids, strange accents and unquenchable thirst for beer is pretty cool.

We got on a back road after that, and traffic opened up a bit. About ten-thirty we made it to Interstate 55 in Hammond, and traffic was back to normal. But it was late at night, and we had a long drive to Memphis. I did, anyway. Sonya did the seven hours of stop and go traffic across the causeway, bless her heart. Not that she slept; Sonya is a bit of a nervous rider.

I stopped at a rest stop in northern Mississippi around three on Wednesday morning. Hundreds of cars parked everywhere. It had the same gypsy vibe of the gas station we'd stopped at six hours before, but this time the caravan was asleep. A few cigarette smokers and dog walkers wandered around, all presided over by Mississippi state troopers. I napped a little while, then kept driving. We made it to my mom's house at seven, just after sunrise.

John, little scamp that he is, slept the whole night through in his car seat. His mother tried to take him to bed with her. He was having none of it. It was morning, and that means he needs to get up and eat some Cheerios. So he and I stayed up. My brother got out of bed and my mom came in, so we visited with them for a while. Finally, blessedly, John took a nap. I took him to the bedroom and the family slept the rest of the day away.

We had a nice little vacation. The highlight was probably going to the zoo Thursday afternoon. It was cloudy and breezy and warm and John rode in his stroller, swinging his feet and studying the animals.

The Memphis Zoo is awesome, but it's very different from the place Sonya and I went when we were school kids. And that's interesting, because it hasn't grown that much - it doesn't take up much more land than it did when we were kids. But almost everything we remember has been torn down and replaced with something prettier, nicer and probably better for the animals.

For the record, John was equally impressed with the pandas, the bats and the goats. My kid, he don't discriminate.