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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!!

One of the joys of time travel is to be able to celebrate things for more than 24 hours. Last evening we received our first wedding anniversary greetings from Brian & Gillian and we had to wait 30 mins before celebrating it in French time. Then today we carried on in USA time. Thanks to Gillian at Audleys, the hotel in New Orleans greeted us at reception with “happy anniversary”, and then in our room we found a bottle of champagne & some lovely chocolates.
We had to chat to Ray, the concierge, about our 2 things pre-organised in New Orleans, and we mentioned our WA and asked for a restaurant for tonight that did NOT do deep fried shrimp, chicken, ham, pork, elephant, alligator etc (you get the picture!), and we got a recommendation. When we arrived, and got settled in, we were greeted with a complementary glass of champagne for our WA, courtesy of Ray!
Is there another time zone and we can carry on celebrating? It doesn’t feel like a day over 34 years!

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!

          

Today is Memorial Day—- a national holiday. A lot of places are closed even restaurants. We went out after breakfast to see the one Museum dedicated to the Native American Indian & guess what, it was shut. We did, however, find a supermarket open & we were able to replenish our supply of sparkling mineral water. It was one of the few shops that we had been in that actually had fresh products like fruit, vegetables & meat!

We managed then to find the one road that got us down to the riverside & what was probably one of the oldest parts of town. A bit of light refreshment & then we came back to settle in for a lazy afternoon on the porch in the shade. Incidentally Jerry Lee Lewis played in a bar on this waterfront when he was only 15yrs old. He originates from these parts.

I’m going to post some photos of the main house & grounds. There are 26 acres here. This whole area is well known for the number of houses that survived the Civil War. Apparently the area was predominantly French at the time & they decided not to oppose the invading forces, consequently the houses remained intact.