The day before the New Orleans marathon, the narrator and friends pick up their race bibs for 23,000 runners, explore the city, and grab meals at Gordon Biersch and Hard Rock Cafe. They notice heavy smoking throughout the city and struggle to find bananas at the grocery store to fuel tomorrow's race.
Kara and I are headed out for our last run before the marathon. Making friends in the elevator, just, uh, trying to have a good time and keep our spirits up. Away we go. So across the street we saw people spending the night last night, and the line has gotten longer and longer. It is to be in line to buy the new Air Jordans. How crazy. One of the coolest Starbucks I've ever been in. Big too. They have this big back room. It's awesome. So Starbucks gives you these little, uh, cardboard things to protect you from the heat from the cup, right? Well, when you're done, all you need to do is take it off and then put it up there like this, and now it has a little skirt. Isn't that cute? And it can stand up like that. See, a little skirt. Now I've got my selfie stick. I feel so official. We got selfie sticks! This is stupid. I remember, I remember I said I was never gonna use a selfie stick because I thought they were stupid looking, just like I was never gonna use one of those reflective vests that saved my life about 10 times since I've used it. So I guess they're not that stupid. I guess I'm stupid. That's got selfie stick. He's proud of his. We're out on the streets of New Orleans this morning. It's a beautiful day. Wow, what a pretty day. And we're just observing the culture and a lot of different dialects that we're hearing. We're impressed with the vitality of the city on a Saturday. I'll tell you this though, it's really, really interesting to see how many people smoke. It's just unbelievable. Lots of smokers, lots of people that are just here and tourists and stuff like that, I think we're all surprised by the smokers. Grant and I were out running this morning. We were surprised by the number of, well, we weren't too surprised by the number of people that were still out from last night and obviously suffering the effects of too much alcohol. But what we were surprised by is how many of them were women. Almost everyone that was out this morning was a couple of females together walking along or stumbling along. And it was really surprising that it was mostly women that were still out from the night before. It's a pretty city. Lots of palm trees and sunshine. The streetcars are cool. Short 8-block walk and we've made it to the convention center. You can see Shipoff in the distance. Mississippi River's right over that. Lots of people headed our way. We have arrived. We bypassed the bib number lookup because we have it on our sheet. Now we have to go find our corral. Always ask because, you know, some people don't want to be, but yeah, you look helpful. Well, I try to be. I'll bet you— I bet— are you gonna be smiling by the end of the day? Because it'll be over for you at that point, right? That's right. I actually have to go to church today, so I end at 1:30. Oh, good for you! Yes, yes, yes. Okay, great. 113. I got the right one. Thanks so much for your help. Moving 23,000 people around to get their information and their stuff. These guys are doing a great job. They really got this down. Beautiful. We get a bag too? Cool. Here we are, partying like a rock star. So we found some sunglasses for Grant and Tammy, and we are still only about a third of the way through this. This is massive. We're running for the bling. Yes, we are. So we were just discussing the fact that today we definitely have gotten in Tammy and Carson's walk. We've probably walked already a mile and a half, 2 miles. Before we get back to the room, be a little more than that, and it's been a pretty brisk pace. So feel good about that. They get their work in and we'll get ours tomorrow. Time for some lunch at Gordon Biersch. We had a very brisk walk back. Go on. Impressive skyline. Bernardo de Galvez. And there he is. Yeah, he's just one of the inhabitants here. And, uh, if you want to peek at the butterfly house, live butterflies you can walk through. Also, the Oscar Mayer weenie mobile is here. I'm so excited! Grant says he's found his hotel. Very nice. It's a beautiful building. Yeah. So somewhere at the corner of Camp and Poydras tomorrow morning will be the start of the race. I like that. After dealing with the rude woman over at the Holiday Inn Crowne Plaza Hotel Restaurant, we decided to come to the Hard Rock Cafe where we're appreciated and wanted. Well, we got ourselves some dinner, and if we thought New Orleans was packed last night, that was nothing compared to tonight. We're on a side street here trying to find some bananas at a— supposed to be a grocery store up here a little ways, and we're gonna try to find some bananas for tomorrow morning's run. I'm chilly, chilly, chilly, but I'm kind of getting used to travel. It's gonna be a little colder than this, right, for the start. Yeah. See Einstein back there? Where? Over here to the right. Come back here. Back in the room, it's Saturday evening, it's around 7:45. A short little trip to the start line to see where that was and some quick dinner turned into quite a long evening and a lot of walking. Not exactly the way I'd hoped it would go tonight, but we are ready for the race tomorrow morning. We did get some dinner. It wasn't what I wanted for dinner, but we ended up at Hard Rock Cafe and we had a good time there. And then we went and found a little local grocery store and got some bananas and things for tomorrow morning. And we are ready to go. So we're looking forward to tomorrow. I gotta tell you, the folks in New Orleans, the service people, it's a hit or miss. You either get great or you get terrible. We had a great waiter at Hard Rock Cafe, Cafe, and then the rest of the folks today have just been kind of rude. I feel like I smoked an entire pack of cigarettes today walking the streets of New Orleans. Everyone here smokes. I'm looking forward to getting this race under my belt, and quite honestly, I'm looking forward to Getting home. That wraps it up for day 27 of 28 days. Oh, I got my— got it going the wrong way here. Look at me.
