New Orleans

As I mentioned a few posts ago, I took some pix down in Louisiana last weekend. I meant to post them earlier, but my flight trouble Monday/Tuesday, combined with the official VM Mom‘s flight delays yesterday, left me with no time or energy to get to processing them.

Without further ado:

Here’s a streetcorner in New Orleans. I liked the color composition, but the day was pretty overcast and ugly.

This is the Cornstalk Fence Inn, which doesn’t seem to require much by way of explanation.

Jackson Square. It was, as mentioned, overcast and foggy.

Really overcast and foggy. This is the Mississippi.

Did I mention that fog?

AAIEE! Ghost ship! With gambling!

Another composition I liked. A local mentioned that it used to be a brothel.

Back to the home of the official VM girlfriend‘s parents in Des Allemands! Time for lunch!

I’m not joking here. It’s a whole table of boiled, seasoned crawfish.

Mason (official VM girlfriend’s godson) doesn’t know what to make of it all. I had some trepidation when they warned me, “Don’t eat the dead ones.”

“You mean there are live ones?”

Evidently, if the crawfish’s tail is straight, that means it was dead before it was boiled with the others. That means it might taste funny or have weird microbes. You know: as opposed to the ones that were pulled live out of the carcinogen-laced Mississippi runoff.

“You actually eat those?” Mason asked. I was with him. I ate the meat from the tail, but I was convinced they were just pulling my leg about sucking the juice from the front half. “But not too hard, or the other stuff comes loose.”

On Easter, Mason broke out the John Deere tractor.

He hauled ass for a while.

The tyke at rest.

It was a fun trip, even with the general trepidation that’s supposed to come with “meeting the folks.” My own can be pretty entertaining, so I never make a big deal out of meeting other people’s.

I’ll be in Dallas for a couple of days next week, and I’ll try to get some nice pix down there. As I recall, though, it had one of the most grotesque skylines I’ve ever seen. My other main memory of Dallas is jumping around a hotel room, blown up on Colt 45, cheering as Charlie Hayes caught the last out for the Yankees in the 1996 World Series.

Oh, and there’s the time I almost got killed in a sports bar in the hotel. I’ll save that one for later.