Happy Memorial Day weekend and welcome to summer:
I left town for a week and came back to the total greening of Vermont. The drive home up route 7 was breathtaking; a jungle of vegetation. With it has come a really unusual stretch of weather with highs in the low 90s…not very mountain like. The grass is exploding, the flowers are blooming, the pond is scrumming…all is good in Vermont.
Since I was gone for nine days, there are no pictures of the mountains in this week’s blog…only a collection of shots from my trip to N’Awlins (check out the Gators and THE Food!). I went down for a few days of work (talk about hot and humid) and met up with Tessa to honor her 30th birthday. Max flew down as a surprise for her, and we all spent five day together doing the complete tourist mega trip. It was great fun- an old fashioned, throwback family gathering for the three of us. They have gotten aged enough that I no longer have to separate them with rope and blankets. Even left them in their own room, which they could trash to their heart’s content.
So, below are the ZEN highlights of our time together in the Easy:
Thursday- Met up with Tess and headed out to dinner to be ambushed by a panhandling Max, hiding in doorway on Charters street; we both ran way from him before realizing he was our own prodigal (then we really ran!)
Friday- drop dead heated walking tour out to and then through the Garden district (even hotter in there), street car ride back, afternoon nap for kids, flirting for me at rooftop hotel pool with nurses’ convention, dinner with local friend Rachel at the Parkway Bakery (best PO boys in NOLA) and on to Bayou Boogaloo Fest. Late night trip to Café du Monde for beignets and short trip to Casino to make our contribution to the economy.
Saturday- Breakfast at wonderful little farmers market in Warehouse district. Three hour French Quarter walking tour in morning with temps approaching 95, street music abounds, afternoon trip to Audubon Park on St. Charles street car, quest for some/any shade, lunch in ‘Uptown Mexican joint, dragged asses via Lyft back to hotel for nap, dinner at John Besh’s Domenica, requisite stroll down Bourbon Street for smells of vomit, drunken kids and crazy Jesus folk competing with bare naked ladies.
Sunday- continued three day quest for juice bar for breakfast. Canal St. streetcar out to City Park for bike rental/ride out to Lake Pontchartrain (see the fools try the tandem buke before they traded in for old fashioned kind). Walk back down Carrolton Avenue to find lunch at Espis seafood joint (nothing but fried’) and return to simmering Bayou Boogaloo fest where we crawl round looking for shade (at least I did). Back to hotel to pass out and then late dinner on Frenchman street in the Marigny, where we are drawn to various snippets of street and bar music that you can only find in the Bayou.
Monday- Early morning trip to Slidell for the infamous Swamp Tour; Gators, fish, birds, snakes and quite the history of the Bayou. Back to hotel to get kids checked out and then onto lunch and the World War Two museum. Tess leaves. Max goes to an Airbnb, Stu goes to the gym. Dinner with Max and work colleagues at the ubiquitous Luke.
After that, I had to get prepared, adjusted and work for two days….which was quite the shift. It was good to get back to the Greens after eight days and a layover night in Albany -and be greeted by the same heat…now time to attend to the land and get the scum out of the pond.
More life in the Greens next week.. Be well as can be.
Love to almost all of you, Stu
