A Taste of Mardi-Gras and a Wee apology

Happy Tuesday, everyone! Before we get into this week’s post, I must apologize…I missed my first ever blog last week. I know, I know. You were heartbroken. ;) Alas, circumstances conspired against me…a perfect storm of events that kept Heather’s Historical Hodgepodge from being updated.

First, my husband and I have no family in town, so if we want to go somewhere, we must first drive our son the four to six hours to either my mother’s or my husband’s…which inevitably means we must drive back and get the boy when we arrive home. Which I did, on Monday. Still, I should have been home on Tuesday in time to blog EXCEPT I caught the plague in New Orleans and was too sick to drive home from Mom’s. Which was nice in a way, because she was there to help me with the boy whilst I was feverish and semi-coherent. I would have just blogged from her house EXCEPT she lives in the sticks, where they’ve never heard of high-speed internet and the little local phone company has a monopoly so you can’t even get NetZero and the only dial-up plan they offer is so blasted expensive it’s completely not worth it. Normally, in that circumstance, I would have just blogged from my I-Phone, right? Right, EXCEPT Mom is so far out in the boonies, that not only could I not get 3G, I couldn’t get phone signal at all. Nor am I cool enough to have a guest blogger on reserve for just such an occasion. Therefore, no Tuesday post. So Sorry.

Anyway, I’m back, somewhat healthy and ready to go.

New Orleans…what a fun town.

If you’ve never been, and you are a history lover, I totally recommend going. New Orleans, the French Quarter in particular, practically oozes history (among other things!). There are homes, architecture and buildings older than most in our country . There are plantation homes you can tour just outside the city that are breathtaking and antique stores that will have you drooling. (One I went into this past weekend was selling King George IV’s secretary—the furniture, not the person, of course). There are ghosts (I say figurative, some say literal) of times past lurking around every corner and it is unlike anywhere else you’ll ever be. You should go, at least once.

I’ve been there several times before and one of these days, I'll take you on a historical blog tour of the city. Sadly, most of the trips were in the days before digital cameras so I'll have to dig out my old pics and scan them to share some of my lovely finds with you. But this is the first time I’ve gone without an agenda, without a list of things I wanted to see and do. This trip, my entire goal was just to Laissez Les Bon Temps Rouler. No laptop, no worries. (Of course, I did pack chapters to edit at the last minute because I couldn’t resist, but you’ll be happy to know I didn’t touch them.)

So here are just a couple of my pics. Next week, I’ll get caught up and become a good blogger again.


The courtyard of the hotel we stayed in, The Place d’Armes, just off Jackson Square in the quarter, behind the St. Louis Cathedral. Quaint, historical, reputedly one of the more haunted hotels in New Orleans if you believe in that stuff, and just out the way enough to be perfect yet on the same street as a fabulous restaurant, Muriel’s (home of the delectable shrimp and goat cheese crepes), and the Café Du Monde. Midnight beignets, anyone?

The Saint Louis Cathedral at dusk. I have better pictures of it during the day, but I just loved the color of the sky that night.

Alas, it was dark, cold and rainy half of the time we were there this trip, which may have contributed to my catching the plague. Still, cold and rainy in New Orleans is much more fun than some places.

But that didn’t stop me from participating in one of the first Mardi Gras parades of the season. This is me in my get-up. I’ll leave the rest of my outfit to the imagination. After all, what happens in NOLA stays in NOLA.

See you next Tuesday…Fat Tuesday, btw. Maybe I should have saved my Mardi Gras post for then…