The Big Easy

Pat drove to New Orleans on Sunday afternoon for an educational event supposedly starting Monday. When I got to Hattiesburg I started noticing tall pines that the tops had been snapped off of. South of Poplarville, I noticed there were hardly any tall trees. Further south, I noticed the medians and highway rights of way were overgrown and unkempt. Looked erie. Somewhere south of Poplarville I noticed a field full of FEMA trailers. There must have been thousands of them parked in the field. As I continued to drive south, I noticed many businesses that had been damaged. They were somewhat cleaned up but still closed for business. After I crossed the east side of Lake Pontchartrain and drove into New Orleans I could see still see signs of destruction everywhere. Houses where in various stages of repair. I noticed an area that looked like a neighborhood had been bulldozed, all that remained were the streets, the lots grown up in vegetation. I got to my hotel, the Hilton on Gravier Street about 630PM. I figured I'd order a salad from room service but the Creole Catfish and Bread Pudding caught my eye so that's what I ordered. To my disappointment, room service called and said all the bread pudding was gone so I had to settle for Truly Decadent Chocolate cake instead. I really had my mouth ready for some bread pudding. Anyway, my food arrived. I should have taken a picture of it. It consisted of a seared catfish fillet smothered in crayfish etoufe. It was absolutely fabulous and I think it will be on our dinner table at home sometime in the near future. I was also not disappointed in the cake. It was delicious. After scarfing down such a big dinner, I thought I should get some exercise so I went downstairs and got directions to the Chateau Sonesta where my educational event is supposedly taking place starting on Monday. I decided to take the short walk over. I didn't realize that the street I was on turned into Bourbon Street. I walked on down there and was surprised at how lively things were. I came upon a balcony crowded with people that were throwing beads down to people. I noticed a young lady had earned the crowds attention and they seemed to be encouraging her to dance or something, then she seemed to show them something and they showered her with beads. I thought about seeing if I could get them to throw me some beads but decided there was too much else to look at and I didn't want to have to walk back to my hotel in the dark, wearing a bunch of beads, so I headed back to the Hilton. When I got back to my room I studied my educational agenda and determined I was a day early. What a boneheaded mistake to commit. So I slept in this morning. I went down to breakfast around 8AM. I had some good stuff. The usual eggs, mixed fruit and pastries. They had some really delicious sausage links and also some yellow rice that had mushrooms and onions and other spices in it. So, since it is a Monday I guess I will spend the day working in my hotel room. This is the view out my window.