damn this heat

So, I don't have a damn thing going on for the next two weeks -- no work, no school -- and so I thought that maybe I would go somehwere I could get to on the cheap. So, I was checking out Amtrak's site and theit weekly specials and found a ticket from Chicago to New Orleans for $36 plus one back (the day before class starts back up) for another $36. Granted, it would cost me $60 to get to Chicago and back home, but still...$130 for a train trip down the Mississippi River down to the Big Easy...

Until I remembered the heat that's been trying to kill me all Summer. The fucking heat. New Orleans, I remided myself, is on the Gulf Coast...where it's even hotter...and more humid. The fucking heat. And of course here could be a hurricane hitting while there (hot deal tickets being unrefundable).

So I go over to Lonely Planet and see what they have to say, especially on their bulletin board. It didn't sound pretty -- locals, I guess, get their August kicks by watching drunken tourists collapse from heat exhaustion; Bourbon Street reeks of hot, putrid alcohol; and no one's showing their boobies.

Okay, that last one was just to round out a trifecta of bad things, but still -- the heat and the stench...I don't know how much I'd be able to enjoy it. I don't know. I'm sitting here trying to decide if I should just wait to see if there's some time open in my syllabus or if I should just put off vacationing (YET AGAIN) until December (when tickets to Europe sometimes drop below $300) when the coldness factor will kick into gear... Ugh.