Vacation, Day 1, 10/21/2009, Part 2

We're home! We had a great time! We hugged and visited with family and friends and ate fine Southern food, home-cooked and in restaurants! I took loads of photos! Now I have to find time to get them to Flickr and pick some to share. I've had a mental struggle with myself, deciding how to post about our super vacation--by date, by category, randomly. Since I'm almost always also struggling to remember details these days, I'm taking the easy road out and continuing in date order. You'll find some after I explain things a bit--you know I can't help myself 'cause I love words!

So, in New Orleans we made our way from the plane to the gate where our friend Kay waited with open arms and a huge smile. Mama saw her first as a really tall man wheeled her along in the airport wheelchair. I caught a glimpse of her beautiful snow white hair and knew we had truly arrived. Later after he had retrieved our luggage, the man wheeled Mama out the door and across the street, voice booming at the slowly moving traffic to our left and holding out his left hand to get their attention--none of them dared advance until we had passed. Once we got out of the elevator to make those last few steps to Kay's truck, he was telling me how blessed I was to still have my Mama. "Yes," I agreed with him. "I surely am." "And she looks good, too," he said. "Yes, she does," I started to say. He quickly went on, "She looks better than you do!" Well, we all hollered with laughter at that one and I agreed with him wholeheartedly!

We realized from the get-go that we'd only have a few hours in New Orleans before hitting the hay and a few more the next morning, but at least we were there to do our part by spending some money and some time. Kay had printed out the direction to Hotel Place D'Armes in the French Quarter, so we set off in the warm, humid air to find it. Somewhere along the way a traffic direction sign had disappeared--honest--so we ended up going round about instead of straight there. Each one of us thoroughly enjoyed this serendipitous turn of events, seeing graceful wrought iron...


...enticing neon signs...



Be sure to read that exhortation in blue!

...colorful cottages and...




...mule-drawn carriages...




...and a St. Charles streetcar, turning right onto Canal.


When we arrived at the hotel, thank goodness I remembered to get this photo! Back at the airport when Kay attempted to latch Mama's seatbelt, she discovered that all four of our suitcases sat on one of the pieces, so she tied Mama into the seat!


I'm so glad to be blogging again! Tomorrow I'll finish with Day 1.

I hope you'll stick with me over the days to come as I share much more of our Southern bliss!