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.