I made it to the Big Easy today.

In general, it was a long day with lots of time on the road. I appreciated the changes between the heavy forests on the way out of Austin, to the farmlands, to seeing the amazing Big Beau, to the bayous of Louisiana.

I really dig going over bridges. I was surprised in Louisiana that (a) the bridges are much higher over the water than I'm used to in NY. Granted, the waterways that they're crossing are more significant than the Erie Canal, but these bridges seem steeper and higher over the water than the Grand Island Bridge, and the rivers definitely do not seem more significant than the Niagara River, and (b) that sometimes the bridges are sly. I was not expecting so much of my time on US-90 to be on effective bridges in bayou territory, but it was definitely fun to look to the sides and realize that I was up on a stanchion bridge and that there was a lot of water below the trees instead of dirt.

An exception to this was the Hale Boggs Bridge over the Mississippi. I have no objections or anything to it being comparable to the Grand Island Bridge!

I wandered around the French Quarter of New Orleans tonight. I enjoyed trying a sampler platter at an old restaurant (obligatory food photo), and it was fun to notice that the hotel I'm in is on the same block as the bank where the namesake of Dixieland originated. I liked going in numerous tourist trap t-shirt stores that all seemed to have the same merchandise. None had a "Busted Down on Bourbon Street" shirt, so none made a sale from me.

I enjoyed my elevator ride back to my room. A couple was talking about showing backstage passes at concerts (a la Wayne's World). She works at a venue and said that the backstage passes wouldn't impress anyone. I mumbled something about Milwaukee being the only town to elect a Socialist mayor (ok, so I got my facts wrong and it was three). Soon, though, Buffalo may elect one.