Day 20 June 17

Dear Readers,

It was a long drive into New Orleans. We stopped for lunch in Gulfport at a local dive called the Blow Fly Inn and had a selection of the local seafood. I wasn’t crazy about the fried catfish (no whiskers!), but everything else was excellent, including the view of the bayou (the restaurant is built on stilts).

Richard had booked rooms at the the St. Charles Inn in the Garden District and we arrived fairly early on Friday. After checking in, we went next door to relax over drinks. This area is beautiful. According to our guidebook, the lush greenery and trees are there as a result of a big flood in the 1800’s which deposited a rich silt on the earth as well as raising the elevation of the area above the normal flood level.

After drinks we took the St. Charles streetcar to the French Quarter. While on the streetcar, I talked to a woman visiting solo from Manhattan about Schwarzenegger and Wiener. As you might imagine we had a few laughs. We were prematurely interrupted when a collision between the streetcar ahead of us and a car forced us to transfer onto a bus for the few more blocks to the French Quarter.

The French Quarter is a true adult Disneyland. It was hot and the streets were closed off to traffic. Music was everywhere and the drinks were flowing. We stopped into a couple of the clubs and heard some great jazz, blues and old time rock n’ roll. Had we been two or three years younger we could have partied all night… what happens in New Orleans stays in New Orleans! Suffice to say, we caught a cab back to the hotel and collapsed into bed.

Nighty-night and Happy Trails,

Linda and Richard