Jacob and I are now tucked away in a Best Western off I 10 in Rayne, Louisiana. I have showered off the sweat that stuck to me as I walked through the sultry French Quarter, reorganized stuff in my suitcase, and checked my email. I am hoping for a good night's sleep. The pillows look inviting.

We left Greenville yesterday about 10 am. After a thankfully uneventful trip to Birmingham, we found Nancy and Bob's condo at Arlington Place. We didn't stay there long. They drove us around the area and to their daughter Sara's house. Three sets of "English villages" line sections of the curving streets between the two homes. Two years ago, Sara and her husband John bought a neglected 1927 English tudor house in the Mountain Brook area across from Birmingham Country Club golf course and have been renovating it and decorating it in the style of the classic rich. Jacob was impressed with the vault, the wine cellar, and the 1984 Mercedes convertible. Then, always hospitable, they took us to Chex Lulu, quaint and colorful with reds, yellows, lights, paintings, a French cafe in one of the villages. I got a tasty caramelized onion and eggplant thing. Jacob asked why the sofa in the bathroom? Maybe for the fainting French ladies? Then on to the Botanical Gardens - next to Alabama's biggest attraction, the Birmingham Zoo - where we spent most our time walking through the Japanese Garden. When we came back to their downtown condo, high on the sixth floor, Nancy and I sat by the pool and talked while Jacob swam as the sun set over the city.

This morning we left about 9. I didn't know how far we would get, only that it was to be a long day of driving. When we stopped at the Louisiana Welcome Center, we decided to visit New Orleans after all, not in my original plans. Lightning and rain accompanied us on the five mile bridge - it is officially hurricane season again - but stopped as we entered the city. I drove to the infamous French Quarter and parked in a lot near Jax Brewery at the Mississippi River. Would you go to Paris without going to the Eiffel Tower? Neither do you go to New Orleans without a beignet and cafe au lait at Cafe du Monde. It was the first place we hit. We took an outer table to hear the street musicians - a dark haired guy acoustic guitarist and his percussionist, a skinny woman adeptly strumming a washboard - playing old blues and other familiar tunes. Music wafted from open shop doors on Decatur and Chartres Streets, and Jacob saw the sights that caused him to comment, "This isn't a place you should take kids." We passed a "magick" shop with stained glass pentagrams hanging in the window, candy stores with praline samples, gift shops with crass souvenirs, and T shirt shops. One shirt bragged, "After Katrina, all I have left is this T shirt...and a new cadillac...and a plasma TV."