Wednesday, May 2, 2012

May1, 2012. New Orleans

It was a long day yesterday but here we are in New Orleans.  We are in a hotel right on the edge of the French Quarter and can walk anywhere and everywhere, which is a good thing... the taxi ride from the airport was hair raising! The traffic! The noise! The heat! It was 86 degrees and the taxi van had no air conditioning, so the windows were all open. The ride here was like something out of a movie!
 We got to our hotel and there were about 50 young folks ahead of us checking in. They are from a nearby college and apparently are having a formal event here this weekend. Once we finally checked in there was such a wait for the elevators that the bellman finally opened up the freight elevator for us.
We did not even pick up our bikes from the storage room, just put our stuff in our room and went to eat. I had had a sandwich at Charlotte airport around noon, but Dianne had not eaten since breakfast. We walked to a little restaurant, checking a few menus along the way. We were seated on the second floor balcony overlooking the street below. It was closed off to traffic by now, and there were a lot of people walking around, a brass band playing on the street corner about a block away, and music emanating from bars and restaurants all along the way. This is one sweet place! And the food and wine were excellent!
Alas, we could not enjoy the night life--we had to put our bikes together--what are we here for after all? So we walked back to the hotel, got our boxes and put the bikes together in our room. I already arranged for FedEx to pick up my empty box Wednesday and take it home (Bill is picking me up at the end of the ride) so we did not have the option of putting them together today... Good thing we did it that way, since we'll be looking for a bike shop today--Dianne's bike needs a slight repair, and I need a couple of tubes for my tires. Besides, bike shops are always a lot of fun. We were so tired by the time we were done that we did not even play Scrabble! Seems almost sacreligious!

1 comment:

Rita Rowe said...

Great writing, Linda! I am looking forward to following your ride. Get to know Lea, JoAnn, and Mary, friends from prior rides!