Greetings from The Big Easy

I made it! I'm in New Orleans, home of beignets, boudin, crawfish etouffe, and so much more (some of it having nothing to do with great food--or Katrina).

Here's my route and highlights along the way:

Left Gainesville WalMart (probably the nicest one yet) headed for Tallahassee WalMart, where I did a quick tour of the capitol the following day and drove to St. George Island State Park for one night. I couldn't resist staying in a campground that, according to the map of Florida, looked as if it were at the very end of a little bitty spit-curl of land on the forehead of the Gulf of Mexico near Apalachicola.

Next day I was off to meet my new contact in Lynn Haven/Panama City. I had a great two days in her driveway, ran into three of her friends at brunch and attended a wonderful presentation on Bald Eagles by a woman who must be the foremost authority in Florida. She brought with her a 14-year-old Bald Eagle named Paige, who fell out of her nest at about 8 weeks old and had been raised at the Audubon Center for Birds of Prey in Maitland. Did you know that Bald Eagles can live to be 50 years old in captivity? She was an awesome bird.

Left on Sunday, Feb. 1, headed for Pensacola but since I never heard back from my contact there, I spent the a restful free night as the guest of the heirs of Sam Walton. Next day, on to New Orleans. I made three more states in one day:

Alabama: that's Mobile in the distance

Mississippi: here I am coming into Pascagoula. I'm sure it's there somewhere to the south of I-10.

And finally, New Orleans. That's a cemetery, in case you can't tell. I couldn't stop to get a better photo.

But I knew I had arrived when I saw this establishment in the WalMart parking lot the next day.


Toto, we aren't in Kansas any more. This is a drive-thru Daquiri stand. A more appropriate name might be "The DWI Store."

And they start very early in the day with just a little pick-me-up to get them to the office in good shape. Okay, I checked it out: a "Breakfast Shot" is a little bitty egg, bacon and cheese sandwich. Had you goin', didn't I?

Yesterday I arrived at my new temporary home and checked in with Melanie, my new boss. A very friendly warehouse guy helped me park the RV and hook up the shore line (that's RV talk for the electric cord). Today I soaked up some of the local color by shadowing Melanie as she worked with a group of school kids who were put to work sorting through several pallets of recalled food looking for "peanut butter" in the ingredient list. Sheesh, what next? It's not bad enough that people are going hungry...don't get me started.

This was definitely controlled chaos, or semi-controlled anyway: 17 fourth graders. But they worked rings around the 8th graders who were mostly standing around trying to look at each other without letting anyone else look at them, in another part of the huge warehouse.

Is this a great photo, or what? Newman is a private school that was founded as a school for Jewish orphans in 1903.

So that's where things stand. I have offered my services as an office assistant or project assistant or warehouse worker, whatever they need. Maybe tomorrow I'll get my assignment. Meantime, it's supposed to be 30 degrees here tonight, and even though that may not sound cold to you, I hope my water lines don't freeze. Today I am thankful for my sleeping bag.