OK, so first off - let me apologize for this post. I have fought with it for hours and I can't figure out the damn crazy format errors. So it is what it is with my apologies.

So Jim's injuries have continued to "cure" over the past couple of days. In addition to the right hand and right foot he now has a terrible bruise on his left palm, 6 bruises on his chest and a BIG bruise over his left kidney. We saw the sports medicine ortho doc today and Jim's Achilles Tendon is completely severed. Jim is scheduled for surgery on Tuesday. His doctor is the orthopedic surgeon for the New Orleans Saints so he should be in very good hands. After surgery he'll be in a cast for two weeks. Then the stitches come out and he gets fitted for an ortho boot. Unfortunately, he can't bear any weight on the foot for about 4 months. We're not sure how he'll manage getting in and out of the trailer. At the moment I am sick as a dog with a TERRIBLE cold. Wish I'd start to feel better, it's hard taking care of Jim when I am dying.

On our first full day in New Orleans we did the plantation tour thing. But before our first tour we stopped at little hole in the wall place for lunch. You know the kind - you look at it and think you're taking a chance. But we were HUNGRY!


 This place was the best example of "you can't judge a book by it's cover." I had chicken and sausage Gumbo and Jim had a PoBoy sandwich. The food was excellent! The restaurant was decorated with Mardi Gras beads and these alligators. Pretty funny.



 







First stop was Destrehan Manor.













This is the front of the house. The back of the house includes two cisterns that collected rainwater from the plantation's roof for drinking water. The ground water was so muddy that it was unusable for human consumotion








The house is surrounded by HUGE oaks. Most are covered in Spanish Moss. While the moss is pretty don't touch it! It's full of chiggers.

The HUGE diningroom is on the ground floor. In summer this room would be the coolest room in the house.










This is my favorite piece in the house. It's a locking tea chest. The little brick in the front is compressed tea. You would shave off what you needed and then place the tea brick back in the chest. The problem with this..... the chest is lead lined so your tea was eventually fatal.

After the home tour we visited the kitchen where this young man was doing a candlemaking demonstration. He is a professional history interpreter (who knew they had these?) His presentation was not only interesting, it was very humorous.

Slave quarters. The French had written rules on how slaves should be treated, housed, etc.

This bottle of wine is from Spain and it's about 30 inches across. To dispense the wine the bottle was hung upside down in a harness in the cooling room. The wine was poured into a decanter for serving.









My favorite plantation story is about pineapples. When guests arrived pineapples were placed in their room. Once a guest had outlived his welcome the pineapple was quietly removed signalling the guest to move on.









I am not sure but I think this pretty lady is Jim's first arm candy of the trip. I love the fact that he always sucks his gut in for these photos.