We left on Thursday and spent the night with Barbara Wright in Tallahassee, which broke up the trip and it was nice to see her again and catch up on "stuff."

We arrived in New Orleans in time to check into our nice accommodations at the campus-managed Providence Guest House and to link up with Rusty for our trip to Calvary Baptist School. Once there, while sneaking up to Anne's room, we got to meet the Principal and some of her teaching colleagues. All evidently like and respect Anne (of course).

Yes, we surprised her!! It was great. Her classroom is set up very nicely and we soon learned that bribery with ice cream is Anne's best teaching technique.

Before leaving, we learned that it was Restaurant Week in New Orleans, and we got a strong recommendation to go to the Commander's Palace, a very highly rated and recommended restaurant. Yes, it lived up to its billing completely. The food and service were unmatched.

The next day we visited Rusty and Anne's campus apartment. Who would know they could fix up all 535 square feet so nicely? We also got treated to a great breakfast.

Then it was off to our Swamp Tour, another highly recommended event, and that was a good time. The boat captain had gators he could call up to the boat! Afterwards, while in the area, we made a trip to the local fish market for a self-guided tour and to see if anything stuck our fancy. Yes, we liked the shrimp and crabs, but decided to wait for some other visit to cook them up.

In the afternoon we went to City Park, a huge piece of land with numerous things to see and do there, all of which made us ready for snow cones. That evening we ate at a nice restaurant and later linked up with Brandon and Emily Foottit at Cafe du Mond in the French Quarter for coffee and baguettes followed by some sight seeing in of the Bourbon Street area, where there were plenty of "sights." No one had trouble sleeping that night.

On Sunday we all attended church and had a very nice brunch at a local cafe. Then Bonnie had to have her Cemetery Tour, so we headed to Cemetery #1 in the downtown area, to find it had closed at noon. Luckily, we learned that the caretaker had a bit of entrepreneurial spirit and we got a very quick but interesting tour of the site. Then we headed out on our own for a second cemetery and our own self-guided tour. Later we went to a local pub, Dat Dog, for drinks and snacks and to watch the Saints-Bucs game. We closed out the evening at a good pizzeria. The Bucs closed out by losing in the last minute.

The next morning we headed back to Tampa - a great visit.