Dream Trip 2009

Great Travel Moment

New Orleans, a thick gumbo of passion, creativity and sensuality in a rich roux of mystery and spirituality. Stroll the old streets and look in the shop windows: a world of beads, dolls, masks, disguises, art, antiques, jewelry and other tools of magic. Look again and see the reflection of the past, ironwork balconies, ivy, flower boxes, shadows, vague moving forms that might be real or passing clouds or someone passing or someone trying to catch your eye. Ahhhhh...New Orleans, a living legend always welcoming strangers as old friends, comfortable in a t-shirt or a tux, happy to be old or young, beautiful or plain and always living easy somewhere between what was and what is yet to be. Ahhhh...New Orleans gentle, kind, gracious, so intent on savoring each moment, jazzin' it up, steppin' gaily, a life-long second-line marching for a date with Marie Laveau on Rampart Street. Someday. But not today.