Stay away from New Orleans if.....

........ you're concerned that you will:

• Wreck your eardrums. NOLA means great music. Jazz, ragtime, rock, blues, folks, rap, gospel, Cajun, zydeco. It's everywhere—but it can be ear-splitting. Bring ear protection.

This is the famed Trombone Shorty, second from left,  at the legendary downtown Tipitina's.  He's  great, but to escape eardrum rupture,  I embraced my status as an elder and claimed territory in the sound booth, which was heavenly. Voices and trombones of angels! And one Shorty.

• Pop your buttons.  NOLA has the best food. Everything sizzles with flavor and dances down the gullet. Seafood comes in any way, shape or form—even dripping with grease, carbs if you choose— but always drenched with yum. Did I mention barbecue ribs! ? Or those doughy sugary beignets for which NOLA is famed.

. 

Shrimp salad at Mother's in New Orleans. $11! With the BEST homemade blue cheese dressing ever.

PK and I devouring hot beignets, steaming chunks of deep-fried dough dredged in powdered sugar. If you recall that I recently denounced sugar in any form, forget I  said it. This was vacation! 

• Trash your shoes and your feet. You gotta walk a lot for maximum enjoyment, especially at the Jazz and Heritage Festival at the dusty roiling historic fairgrounds. It gets messy. 



Not pretty feet after a day at the Jazz Fest. .Especially the foot on the right with a bone spur that has nothing to do with being tired and dirty.








• Be shot, mugged, or molested. During a late-night walk to our hotel, we strayed unknowingly into nearby"Projects." The street was deserted until a car drove by slowly, then backed up. A young white couple urgently advised us to, Run! Don't Walk! This is a kill zone! And they meant it. NOLA still seethes with violent crime. But we never saw it, and even with warnings, I couldn't get worked up. I am admittedly naive and optimistic and stupid and lucky enough to have never been a crime victim. I  think if you put out confidence and friendliness and the "I love NOLA vibe," you'll be OK. As far as I know, tourists are not usually targets but can be collateral damage.   



The Projects as seen from our hotel room. 

• Strain your credit card. NOLA ain't cheap. However, to save $$, you could stay up all night and nap on benches during the day. Instead, we choose a hotel near the Projects. I could include a photo of our Visa bill, but it's too depressing. 
• Be overstimulated. Constant music, art, museums, quirky shops, brilliant and not-so-brilliant street performances, tantalizing aromas, invitations to cheap and strong drink—all are ever present. Why resist?

Here we are at the Backstreet Cultural Museum in the Treme neighborhood, enjoying a private tour by the museum founder's son, who is also a Mardi Gras Indian and creator of costumes, which take a whole year to make and can be worn only five times. It was a delightful surprise. This tiny museum was founded and is curated by people deeply involved in the Mardi Gas tribal culture that includes Social Aide and Pleasure Clubs and other culturally rich aspects at the heart of New Orleans. It's pure and authentic and a treasure not to be missed. 

• Capsize your ship of time. If you stay long enough, you'll be carried onto the ocean of music til 3 a.m. in no time. PK and I ended up in a hard-driving show featuring drummer Stanton Moore and singer/songwriter/guitarist Anders Osborne that began after 1 a.m.. We were the oldest people in the room by a couple decades. We have many tales from that night, but the most noteworthy: A lush thirtyish woman sidled up to PK and inquired about our relationship. PK said we've been married for 35 years. She wanted to make sure he was still using condoms. 
• Have too much fun. When's the last time you monitored your fun meter and declared it close to maxing out? Is there such a thing as too much?
• Cause your ordinary life at home to seem, well, far too ordinary. Visiting NOLA is a menace to routine and contentment.  I'm  not quite over it. I suffered a stinging re entry into the humdrum. My most important advice about NOLA is to go there. The City can fire up the synapses and bump you a little off course, at least temporarily, which is always good. And NOLA needs you as it continues to rebound with exuberance from Katrina and the BP oil spill. More NOLA photos here.

The New Orleans experience—in photos!

Feasting on crawfish at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival. Steve Lambros, photo.

Your blog and NOLA photos had quite an effect on us, although not the one

you'd probably expect. We discussed it and decided we must each take a

camera with us so that not a single purely NOLA moment goes undocumented!

                  Long-time friends Laurie and Steve, AKA as "Seamheads."

Theirs was one of several comments regarding a recent post entitled Too Many Photos! written before PK and I joined Seamheads for a week of festing, feasting, and testing our endurance in New Orleans. While one reader kinda agreed with me about the absurdity of taking too many photos, most of which are worthless, everybody else staunchly defended picture snapping for reasons that included: preserving memories; sharing moments with friends and family; artistic expression, and on and on. Ok, ok. I agree. But still, I ended up with way too many photos once again and became mired in editing and sorting. I'll include some photos and observations in my next post about New Orleans. Seamheads, true to their word, each carried a camera in NOLA and snapped happily throughout the city, day and night. 

See the results of their quest to capture "only in New Orleans"  by clicking the link.

My photos compare unfavorably, and I'm not finished deleting the worst, so I'll leave them 'til next time.

Too Many Photos!

Baby Noah displaying his outrageous independence at almost nine months.  No cuddling, please!
Just feed me and give me toys and space. And can I pull your hair?

I lost my camera the first day of our March vacation to Death Valley and other places in California and Nevada. Fortunately, I managed to keep track of it while in Reno with grand baby Noah, and fired off a shot worthy of archiving, if not for technical proficiency, at least for recording the reality of  a baby who is not at all interested in being cuddled. Grandpa Paul enjoyed the hair pulling as he provided sustenance.

This is Death Valley as seen from the gravel parking lot-type camp at Stovepipe Wells. It is my last vacation photo before my camera  disappeared.  This was also before I determined to take only photos that might mean something to me in 10 years .... or more. Or to someone else. This shot, while pleasing, would not make the cut.

This is how our bikes look hanging off the back of our little Four Wheel camper.

Exciting, right? This is what can happen when you have a camera and feel compelled to use it and SHARE the photos.

This does not make the 10-year cut, and is for demonstration only. Others may be interested in your children, your pets, your vegetables,  your toenails. But your bikes, probably not.

Traveling sans camera was a revelation. First I realized that not taking photos is a vacation in itself. How many pictures does the world need? How many do I need? Pictures of Noah and other family members have a small but appreciative audience. Pictures of Death Valley and the Sierra Mountains, however, have been well documented by photographers who are a million times more skilled and better equipped than I am. We discovered Galen Rowell in a Bishop, California gallery. Wow! It's clear that my landscape photos are not needed. I secretly like some of my own shots, but I can keep them to myself. Maybe.

What happened to my camera? I thought it was stolen, or even worse, that I had left it by the sink in the campground restroom. Paul discovered it soon after we returned home beneath the bench cushion in our cozy camper. I was disappointed, as I had already selected a replacement. My pocket Nikon Coolpix has been obsoleted over the past three (four?)years with much-upgraded compact cameras. Why I need sharper, brighter images, and even more foolproof technology, I do not know. But I want them. I would have shot hundreds of photos. I'm not kidding. I would have snapped my way through Death Valley, then captured myriad scenes along the incredibly beautiful highway 395 skirting the eastern edge of the magnificent Sierra Mountains through Lone Pine and the Alabama Hills and Bishop and Mammoth Lakes and then onto South Lake Tahoe and our fabulous day of bluebird skiing with vast, crisp, magnificent views of the lake. Post trip I would have been overwhelmed with  images, editing like crazy to decide which shots were worth salvaging. And who cares? Key question.

Of course after Paul found my camera, I gradually resumed photography, but with more retrospection. I was once a "professional", shooting to illustrate articles for small newspapers and a statewide business magazine. That was when 35mm film came in rolls of 20 or 36 frames, and you had to think and frame and anticipate to use those few shots judiciously. It was a discipline that I, for one, have almost forgotten with digital photography. Temporarily losing my camera brought me back to something I'd all but forgotten: pre-editing. Think before you shoot. So here follow some recent random photos that mean something to me, and why.

Chris, the professional photographer, and I, took turns at the magnificent cactus in  our solarium.

What Chris saw. This could be enlarged 100 X and still look great.

What I saw. Don't make it any bigger, please.