Author: Louise Riley

We walked down to the river after a very late breakfast to get our tickets for the walking tour & meet our guide. We were a small group (8) & it turns out we had a great guide, Libby. She was born & bred here & her family have been here for several generations. She is a history buff & started off by giving us a history of New Orleans & all the exploits & wars that led to it being the place it is today. It was a story of Indian, French, British & Spanish heritage together with trade of sugar & cotton. The creole tradition is local but the Cajun people originated in what is now Nova Scotia (Arcadia at the time) in Canada.

We then started our walk, finding the shade at all times ‘cos today is very hot & the forecasted rain did not materialise.  She showed us the flood gates that are closed in the event of a storm swell blowing up the river from the Gulf of Mexico. This led on to the inevitable discussion about Hurricane Katrina, 10 yrs ago.

In the end, last night, we gave up on our Ceole experience as Doug was not feeling the best. We settled for a simple salad instead & then had an early night. Doug fell asleep straight away & I was able to do some reading—something we haven’t had much time for during the holiday. 

Today is another day & hopefully weather & Doug permitting we will do our walking tour of the French Quarter this afternoon. 

We went down to the Mall by taxi, had a quick walk around & I made a little purchase in Gap. This was an ‘outlet mall’ so my purchase had 40% off, a snip!

On the way there we spotted another Mall  that looked a bit more upmarket with Sears as the anchor store. It was very quiet in here. I didn’t find my jeans but Doug did find a Tshirt of the type he likes. No discounts here, though. 

By the time we wandered back to the hotel the weather had improved & right now we have late afternoon/early evening sunshine. In consultation with Ray, our friendly concierge, we have chosen a Cajun restaurant for tonight. 

We had a lovely evening at the restaurant & came back to follow it with a good night’s sleep. Doug has been suffering a bit with a sore throat & because he can’t afford to let it worsen we decided to seek medical help. On the advice of a pharmacist we went to a drop-in medical centre several blocks away. They were very efficient as well as friendly & half an hour later after having seen a doctor we came out armed with a prescription. 

We were due to do a walking tour at 1pm but the rain arrived along with strong winds, not very conducive to walking around. In addition, it is very warm & as soon as you don rainwear you begin to melt. A phone call later & I have managed to postpone the tour until tomorrow, when the forecast is better. 

So, this afternoon it looks like the dreaded shopping mall!! There is one down by the river which affords splendid views of the Mississippi apparently. I am quite curious about the shopping that will be available since our brief walk through town yesterday, revealed nothing more than tourist/voodoo tat. I am on the lookout for some jeans & this will be my last chance. We haven’t hit the shops anywhere during the whole trip—too busy doing things cultural!!

Our lazy afternoon outside was cut a bit short by an almighty thunderstorm which forced us indoors. We have been on the edge of a weather front for a few days now & have had storms & heavy rain. Most of the time we have been indoors so have not been directly affected. Yesterday the temperature plummeted to the mid 60’s however by the time we went over for something to eat, the rain had stopped & the sun was shining again. We had a relatively early night in preparation for our last drive down to New Orleans. All was going well until we were woken by another thunderstorm together with an alarm sounding on my phone warning us of flash flooding in the area. There was torrential rain but we didn’t think that we were in any danger of being flooded out. I did, however, work out a contingency plan in my head before going back to sleep.

This morning it was evident that there had been a lot of rain together with debris from the trees etc. however, after breakfast we packed up & set off South & then East for New Orleans. We made the journey easily enough on relatively quiet roads. Some of the rivers that we drove over were raging torrents but the roads were debris-free. I drove the majority of the way & Doug took over the last part. We headed for the airport to drop off the car & then head downtown via a taxi.  We have driven about 1446 miles (2310 kms) in total over last 3 weeks travelling from Chigago to New Orleans. Again today’s bit was a very easy process & we got into the hotel at about 2pm. It seems that Texas has not got off so lightly with people missing in flood waters.

It is our wedding anniversary today & we have just come back to our room to find a bottle of champagne on ice together with some chocolates. Love & thanks to those of you who knew & have sent anniversary wishes. We are going out for a nice meal tonight (concierge recommended), 34 years needs celebrating!