Our time in New Orleans has been a whirlwind. It went by in the blink of an eye. We had intentions of visiting all of our favorite restaurants and good friends, but work and unexpected home disasters got in the way. We have two condos in New Orleans, and each one had water leaking into it when we got there. What started out as a slow drip in one condo, ended up in a ceiling collapse. Luckily no one was hurt from standing under it or falling through! We were fortunate to be able to have contractors come and repair it before we leave to go back to Grenada. However, it has been chaotic living in the condo while the repairs are ongoing and also trying to pack for 8 months. There is a film of sheetrock dust on everything!
We also got to experience the joy of having our car towed last week. We parked in the French Quarter one morning to go see the USS New York as it rolled down the river on its maiden voyage. The USS New York is a brand new amphibious transport ship constructed at Northrop Grumman in Avondale, LA. What is particularly special about this ship is that it was built with steel salvaged from the World Trade Center towers. There was supposed to be a big send off for the ship with thousands of locals lining the levies of the Mississippi waving flags as it sailed by. Unfortunately, the morning was so foggy that it was almost impossible to see the ship. We patiently sat and waited for 2 hours for the USS New York. When it finally passed, we kept asking each other “is that it?” because we really couldn’t see it through the fog.
We left full of patriotic pride which was quickly deflated when we saw our car was no longer where we left it. Apparently, the City cleans the street we were parked on on Tuesday mornings between 7 and 9 a.m. and we didn’t get the memo. Any car left in the way of the street sweeper gets towed. We taxied to the City’s auto-pound and $250 later we had our car back. What a racket! They force you to pay all your unpaid parking tickets in order to get your car back, and don’t we all have a few of those!
We leave for Grenada this week. We are looking forward to getting back to the islands.
Gumbopirate 