The Big Easy

"Hey, how about that - the Big Apple and the Big Easy in the same day" Mary Elizabeth exclaimed as we landed at Louis Armstrong International Airport in New Orleans. Our journey included a 2.5 hour wait in Laguardia Airport in New York. The flypast in NY was awesome - we went the length of Manhatten Island and then turned to double back for our approach to Laguardia, along the way getting a couple of great views of the Empire State Building, Statten Island, Rykers, Lady Liberty and Ground Zero. (pics to follow)

Another 3-hour flight put us in New Orleans 15 minutes ahead of schedule (unfortunately our gate wasn't ready so that just meant sitting on the runway for a quarter hour extra). The temperature gauge in the airport limosine read ninety-two degrees fahrenheit at 1pm, and I think it went up another seven or eight degrees through the afternoon - with the high humidity here as well, I was wringing wet after an hour of walking the quarter. The Sheraton New Orleans is a really beautiful hotel and ideally situated at the very edge of the French Quarter where we spent our afternoon touring. A tribute concert to Sachmo at the old mint on Esplanade Street was our destination, and along the way we caught lots of jazz and blues jams, and a few local specialties including a taste of genuine Louisiana pralines.

A stop for supper at Hard Rock Cafe New Orleans and that was it for us for this day. Tomorrow the work continues on our presentation and we will have some touring to do as well - maybe get a chance to survey some of the damage caused by Hurricane Katrina and still not cleaned up.

Well, as the Hip wrote in their song "New Orleans is sinking man and I don't wanna swim".

S.