Arriving in The Big Easy

New Orleans, LA

It was a very short trip today from Baton Rouge to New Orleans. Only 1.5 hours of easy driving, which is a very good thing since it was a rough night! After not being a happy camper about deleting my pics and so not dropping off to sleep until late, we had a whopping big thunderstorm with associated wind and torrential downpours. At about 2 am, although not sleeping because of the noise of the storm, I became aware of a dripping sound. Yup, in the middle of my bed, of course. The larger front window of my trailer was leaking at a steady drip. So out came a pan and a towel to dampen the sound and I tried as best I could to sleep around it. Sigh.

So, I haven’t done anything adventurous today aside from getting here, getting set up and getting some groceries. As you can see from the picture, my trailer is all set for Mardi Gras with it’s strings of beads in the traditional Mardi Gras colours of green (faith), purple (justice) and gold (power). The KOA has the “w”‘s covered, clean washrooms, virtually right outside my trailer door, and the wifi works reasonably well. I’m in a nice little spot at the end of a row with no one right beside me.

The KOA staff have been terrific about helping me with deciding how to spend my time in the next few days and booking me on a Grayline tour for tomorrow. It’s one that covers the city generally and also is a little Katrina focused. Hopefully it will help orient me.

As you can see from one of the pics, I have participated in another Mardi Gras tradition, the King Cake experience. This cake is a little different because it has a praline topping, whereas most of them seem to have the Mardi Gras colors in sprinkles or icing. The thing with the King Cake (aside from it being delicious) is that in each cake there is a little plastic “baby” and the tradition is that whoever gets the piece with the baby in it must buy the next King Cake for everyone. “It’s your turn, baby.” I fortunately didn’t get the baby in the piece I had.

BTW, to see why New Orleans is called the Big Easy, you can check out this link.

http://www.wisegeek.org/why-is-new-orle ans-called-the-big-easy.htm