Too Much Fun

I've been wanting to blog about our amazing weekend, but unfortunately I caught a flu bug on the flight home and have been completely out of commission. We will post clips and high lights from the trip in coming days. Let me just say the French Quarter is alive and well - I am told it is more like it was four years before Katrina. There is entertainment everywhere you look. People are having fun and we never felt unsafe within the quarter.

Our first day it poured rain, thunder and lightning. We didn't mind the soaking. It washed all of the humidity away so Saturday and Sunday were brilliant with deep blue skies.
The architecture and color are amazing.
A new found friend of mine, artist Joan Dagradi, gave me a wonderful day out. We painted in the quarter, put our feet up in a coffee shop, then a driving tour of flood areas and garden district. It is amazing to see how after all this time so little is really done. There are still schools boarded up, shopping centers closed, empty spaces where homes once were, many homes still stand with painted numbers on the side, water marks in view, shells of what they were. Here and there a new home, or restored home stands, but the damage is huge. The people feel that they have been forgotten. A huge portion of the homes were rentals, the property owners left and have not rebuilt so that leaves no place for people to come home to. It is very sad. They are hard workers though and generous. I was amazed that Joan should be so kind when I had only met her on the Internet.