Day 5 - Seeing the Sights

After showering, and taking several minutes trying to find some items in my luggage, we finally loaded up in two vans (all 26 of our group), and drove to New Orleans. We parked in the French Quarter and found a restaurant that had enough room for our group. After dinner, we split into smaller groups to see the sights. I was asked to join one adult and his group of ten teenagers. Since I was one of the adults in the group, I brought up the rear, with the other adult taking the lead. I did not see as many sights because I kept having to count heads, but it was still fun. We heard street musicians, saw Jackson Square, and then stopped at Cafe du Monde.

The waiter memorized all of our orders, shared his story of surviving Hurricane Katrina with us, told us how to see the sights of Bourbon Street without winding up in the bad parts of it. We drank our cafe au lait (I had mine iced), ate beignettes, and I noticed two of our group members pouring off all the excess confectioner's sugar. They funneled it into one iced cafe au lait and then achieved the ultimate sugar high.

Then we walked along the river walk. This was the farthest south that I had ever been in my life, only my second time seeing the Mississippi River, and I was amazed that my home in Ohio was all the way on the other side of the United States. We saw Bourbon street, including souvenir shops sporting t-shirts reading: "FEMA, the other 4-letter 'F' word," "Make levees, not war," and a variety of other political sentiments. I bought some magnets with the French Quarter street names on them, and a book with photos of the post Hurricane Katrina damage. Our 26-person group gathered together again after our sight seeing, and we had one large group photo overlooking the River again.

We returned to Chalmette, Hilltop Rescue, and bed. After all, we had another work day on our schedule before we could go home. Apparently, the sight-seeing had gotten our group too excited to sleep. Even after lights out, some people kept talking. Finally, I shouted:

"Hey, everybody! Let's take 'lights out' as a metaphor that really means 'sound out!'" After some laughs, that settled the matter. We did not realize we would be in for a special opportunity on Thursday.