New Orleans

Two weekends ago Dave and I went to New Orleans for my friend from college Rebecca's wedding. It was Dave's first time in the city, so it was a lot of fun playing tour guide. We drove in so we could stop in a few places along the way. We went through Lafayette and stopped to see my aunt. Of course she tried her best to get us too drunk to drive any farther and be forced to stay with her. She made a good effort, but we finally managed to escape after a few glasses of wine and some cheese and crackers. There's really no describing this woman. She's nuts, but fun. And when I say nuts, I mean the bulimarexic with Munchausen and who knows what else type of nuts.

After leaving there, we went to Houma to see a friend of mine from high school and her family. She's pregnant with her second kid and her older sister just had her first a month ago. In high school I used to hang out at her house all the time so I'm close with her whole family. It was great seeing them. We eventually left and made our way to New Orleans. We stayed in a hotel on St. Charles that was two doors down from Igors, a great little bar that has some amazing bloody marys. So many good memories in that place.

After we checked in, we met up with the gang for some sushi. It was Chelli's birthday so we made our way out to Bourbon Street to hang out at Pat O's and Lafittes. Everyone was pretty tired and since the wedding started at noon the next day, we called it a night relatively early. We met up with Paula at the hotel as her flight got in very late and stayed up chatting for a while. Saturday we went to the wedding. It was at the Holy Name of Jesus Church on Loyola's campus. It was fun watching Dave sit through a full Catholic wedding. It gave him a little more sympathy for my years as a Catholic school girl.

While they were taking pictures Paula, Dave, and I wandered around Tulane's campus checking out new buildings and showing Dave around. It came time to go and we tried to call a cab. They kept promising one was on the way but they would never show. We had no luck with a few cab companies. We did see tons of police cars. They've really beefed up the police presence out there. It was hot as hell and we were aggravated, so Paula walked up to a young couple in the middle of trying to rebuild their home and asked if they would take us to the House of Blues where the reception was. Dave and I wanted to crawl under the house and hide at that point, but the couple was very nice and actually agreed. They missed a turn and we got caught behind a train. They were apologizing to us for the delay. They even refused money.

We finally made it to the reception and had a lot of fun. After that we freshened up at the hotel and headed to Port of Call for dinner. They have the best burgers in New Orleans and a signature drink that will knock you on your ass. We stayed until some of our other friends arrived and visited with them for a while. Eventually we headed back towards Bourbon St. We stopped at Cafe Du Monde so Dave could experience beignets and then got him a hand grenade. We tried to hit as many of the super touristy things as we could. We took him to see the Mississippi River and Jackson Square. Then we headed back to Pat O's where the bride and groom wanted to hang out with everyone. It had been a very long day so we didn't exactly stay out until daylight like the old days, but we still had fun.

It's official. I'll be heading off to Tennessee for another shoot with Oleg next month. Flight is all booked for the weekend of July 20th. It's been far too long since I've been out there, and I'm really looking forward to seeing everyone again.

Some of the pictures from past shoots can be found at
http://olegvolk.net/gallery/friendsandstrangers/lori/

I've been doing the journaling thing over at livejournal for 5 years now. Recently (and some not so recently) I've found several people over here that I really enjoy and thought I'd check it out.