I think this was my fourth trip to New Orleans over the years; a couple times for business, once as part of the 30 day Road Trip and now a trip with my husband. I love my husband, he has become new favorite place. Because, quite honestly, wherever he is, life is good!
There were a couple of things I’ve always wanted to do in the Big Easy, this was the trip that I finally got to do them. First stop was the Metairie Cemetery. The cemeteries in the area are famous, because they just aren’t like any others. Because the water tables are so low here (hence why the hurricane damage is so severe) the bodies are stored in mausoleums. Many of the structures are over 150 years old, others hold generations upon generations of bodies. I found one mausoleum that held someone born in 1787; that was a little trippy for me.
The Weeping Angel is a famous sculpture in the Metairie Cemetery. With the help of the internet, we found the Hymas tomb with the angel inside, I had pictured a sitting angel shedding tears; what I found instead was a fully prone angel weeping. The natural lighting in the tomb, together with lurking sadness brought tears to my eyes.
Next stop was the Garden District, classic architecture, huge, well-kept homes, it was beautiful. Everywhere you turned were gorgeous homes, when I found one for sale, Rich just laughed at me. He didn’t even let me check the price, probably a good thing!
We took the mandatory walk around the French Quarter and down Bourbon Street, but our timing was bad. It was just getting dark and it was Halloween weekend, we discovered in Las Vegas a couple of years ago that I am just not designed for big, scary crowds. We beat a fast track out of there. We hiked the rest a couple days later; down to Jackson Square, through the Financial District, along the Waterfront. Our consensus is that New Orleans is an old, smelly, dirty city. Great for partying if you have low standards, but otherwise, just another busy place with way too many tourists, without a specific reason, I doubt we will go back.
I first heard the term “leaf peepers” just last month, talking with some New England friends. They were getting ready for the traffic, etc. that comes with an influx of tourists, you know, leaf peepers, those that come to see the change in the fall colors.
We totally had a conundrum today, we were cruising through Ohio on our way to Pennsylvania, and we had a choice to make: Pro Football Hall of Fame or Rock and Roll Hall of Fame? It was a tough choice, but today, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland won out.
In off roading there are some places that call us home. Moab, Utah. Rubicon Springs, California. Baja, Mexico. Crandon, Wisconsin. There are many others we love to spend time at, but if you are chasing mecca, these are the top four.
Speed touring should be an Olympic sport, we are getting very good at it. It’s what you do when you don’t have a lot of time and want to get a feel for a city. My son lives in Minneapolis, been here a little over a year and this is our first visit. When asked what he wanted to show us about “his” city, he kind of shrugged. So our first action was to google “Top 10 things to do” and then the goal was to do what we could in an afternoon.
Yay, the government shutdown is over, that means we can go to another National Park. Today it was Wilson’s Creek in Missouri. The site of another Civil War skirmish, only six and a half hours long, but involving over 20,000 soldiers. Wilson’s Creek National Battlefield is actually done pretty well. An extended museum is in the works, the staff is friendly (maybe because they just got two weeks paid vacation), the grounds are pretty awesome. Lots of trails for both foot and horse traffic. I really enjoyed our visit and the completion of another Junior Ranger badge.
Our lives have been non-stop since the first of February, the start of our “season.” I don’t expect it to slow down any now that we are in the off-season, but it will definitely change.
My birthday weekend was epic; for me at least: I got to dress fancy; be part of something bigger than myself; see 100+ friends; laugh loud and often; remember some folks I haven’t heard from in awhile; celebrate the 10/4 birthday club. It was awesome!
I’ve always been of the belief that you shouldn’t set people up to fail…I want my husband and friends to know when my birthday is, no subtly, no game playing. It’s MY BIRTHDAY, let me shout it from the rooftop. Today, I am 50, half a century, five decades, 18,263 days….I have a girlfriend who told me once that our lives are too important to celebrate on just a single day. But today is the day, the one I have been working toward all year, the culmination of my year of blogging.
I’ve always had a furry face; I come by it naturally – inherited from my mother. I remember when I was a child finding her at the dining room table in the full sunlight, the Kleenex box turned upside down with the magnifying mirror perched on top and tweezers in her hand. Years later, it was electrolysis for her. She always blamed some medication she was on, but looking around at my aunts, I’m pretty sure she inherited it too. Like the Wyns’ waddle under our chins and the Jarka thighs handed down to every female in my dad’s family.
A Life Unscripted 
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