I'm Back

nola in the round
Originally uploaded by mygothlaundry

1300 miles and what feels like 1300 drinks later, I'm back in Asheville, where my kitchen is a terrifying mess, my dogs are glad to see me, my kids are awesome and it's just possible that I really need a nap. It was an amazing trip and at some point soon I'm going to write up a really really long whole synopsis of it - I told the whole thing, minute by minute, to my poor daughter last night. At 2 in the morning. But for now, I just have a small list of things to say besides that I'm back.

1. Pictures are going up. I just spent the whole day working on the first two days of the trip and they're up on flickr; check them out.

2. New Orleans is amazing and two and a half days is nowhere near enough to explore it. I want to go back and stay longer. If I was ever going to leave Asheville, which I doubt I am, I might just move to New Orleans.

3. New Orleans is like a weird mixture of my two hometowns, Charleston and Baltimore and so walking around it was peculiarly dreamlike, everything familiar and unfamiliar at the same time. Or maybe that was the fact that you can drink on the street and everybody does. No, I think it was just dreamlike.

4. The coffee at Cafe du Monde is fantastic and even the can of coffee that I brought home, dutiful tourist that I am, is wonderfully delicious.

5. Seeing the Lower Ninth and the levee where the barge broke through and speaking to a woman with friends in the neighborhood was really sobering, eye opening, harsh and intense.

And that's it for now, kids. There will be more. Much, much more.