My personal Super Bowl experience will be returning to its roots Monday morning when I board an airplane bound for Houston, just as I did 18 years ago.

``Wait a minute, Farinella,'' you might be saying. ``Your math is all wrong. There's been only one Super Bowl held in Houston, and it was Super Bowl VIII, Miami's 24-7 win over Houston on Jan. 13, 1974.''

Right you are, folks. I was 20 years old and attending college when that game was played. I didn't say I attended a Super Bowl in Houston, only that my history of attending Super Bowls has its roots -- or should I say ``routes?'' -- in Houston.

In 1986, when the Patriots advanced to their first Super Bowl to face the Chicago Bears in New Orleans, I was there, proudly representing your Blue Ribbon Daily. But because of the quick turnaround between the conference championship games and the Super Bowl in those days, we didn't decide until very late in the process to actually send me to the game.

For those who know the ins and outs of travel, you're aware that the only real failing of New Orleans as a vacation or big-event venue is its international airport and the number of flights booked in and out of there. Getting to the Big Easy on short notice is not easy to do when nearly 80,000 other people are trying to do the same thing. But in those days, Eastern Airlines was flying something called the ``Midnight Special'' from Boston to Houston -- for $100 one way and with the restriction of just one carry-on bag, one could fly from Boston to Houston on what amounted to little more than standby status.

And they wonder why Eastern went out of business five years later!

So, that's what your intrepid reporter did -- flying in the middle of the night to Houston, renting a car, driving the six hours to New Orleans and discovering to my horror when I got there that my seat for the biggest game I had ever covered was going to be in a basement viewing room of the Louisiana Superdome, far away from the playing field.

If not for the assistance of the late Will McDonough of the Boston Globe, who vouched for me with the NFL bigwigs, I wouldn't have had a prayer of having my seat changed to an auxiliary press location inside the stadium itself.

All that, I might add, for a game that finished in a 46-10 score -- in the other guys' favor. The Sun Chronicle's headline on Jan. 17, 1986, shouted, ``A Nightmare in New Orleans'' -- and it worked on several different levels.

It's never been a walk in the park for someone from the smallest daily newspaper on the beat to get to the Super Bowl, but three times, I've managed to do it.

In 1997, the travel time was cut in half -- to three hours on the road, the result of booking flights to and from Jackson, Miss., instead of the inadequate New Orleans airport. Jackson's airport is an unassuming, out-of-the-way facility that, at first glance, could be mistaken for a small high school built in the 1950s. One wonders if the arrival of anything larger than a Cessna still evokes wonderment and awe among the populace living nearby.

Two years ago, we finally had this thing licked. We booked the flights to New Orleans well in advance, confident that the 2001 Patriots would advance past Oakland at home and Pittsburgh on the road. And, as you might expect, New Orleans was New Orleans -- crazy, crowded, smelly, inebriated and everything else you'd expect.

The third time was, indeed, the charm. For the first time, New Englanders got to leave New Orleans with more than just hangovers. We brought the Vince Lombardi Trophy home this time, banishing all the previous suffering to the deepest recesses of memory.

But I have to admit one thing. About four days into my last trip to the Big Easy, and not long after I somehow thwarted a pickpocket's attempt to separate me and my wallet on Bourbon Street, I began to wish that the Patriots would someday play one of these games in a venue other than New Orleans. The glitz and the decadence had grown stale, I thought, and it was time to move on. You know the old saying. ``Be careful what you wish for ... it might come true.''

So here we are two years later, once again heading to Houston with a Super Bowl on my mind. Only this time, as I depart the George Bush (the older one) Intercontinental Airport, I'll turn right at the I-10 exit instead of left, and I'll stay a while.

At least until the Patriots reclaim that shiny trophy, that is.

MARK FARINELLA may be reached at 508-236-0315 or via e-mail at mfarinel@thesunchronicle.com