Our Accidental Tour.

We had a tour booked today for the cemetary. Unfortunatly it was cancelled due to the fact that it is good Friday. A bus driver for Greyline took us under her wing and got us on a Gardenwalk tour. Before you say poor Dean, hear me out... The garden walk simply means walking in the district where the gorgeous big New Orleans rich and famous live. We passed by amazing homes, with history that goes back before the dawn of time!!! Along the way to appease my Macabreness, we passed where. Cat People was filmed, Anne Rice's house and for Dean where JFK was filmed. We also passed by the cemetary and thru the gate got some history as to why the graves are above ground. Not the first reason I assumed, the water level. It's in fact because your family owns the tomb and there are places for 2 coffins which are rotated and when you need a 3rd 4th ect. Your bones are tagged and bagged and put into the bottom, then the next body is put into the coffin area and so on, forever until your family wants to sell it.

(Over to Dean)
The tour guide said she hadn't done this tour since before Katrina and was a last minute replacement for a tour guide that didn't show up. Well, she needn't have said that because she spoke about the properties so passionately and eloquently, it seems liked she just gave the tour an hour before. Her knowledge of the area was stunning and she loves New Orleans and is very proud to show it to people like us.

Next, a twist of fate - one of the happy accidents that happens on every trip... The bus driver of the Garden Tour (who saved us disappointment and made our day by getting us on the Garden Tour) kept mentioning the Katrina Tour. We hadn't booked this one because we didn't have time. The tour was sold out anyway. Just at the end of the Garden Tour, Diane (the bus driver for the Garden Tour) grabbed my arm and said I should eat something
because the Katrina tour was 3 hours. I told her I wasn't booked on the Katrina Tour and she gave me a look as if she knew I was booked. That got me thinking and even though it was sold out - we needed to ask. When we got back to the Gray Line ticket office, we asked. And they had just opened up a second bus for the sold out Katrina Tour. A cool twist of fate that sent us on a heart wrenching taste of reality that was Hurricane Katrina. That, my friends, is the subject of the next post. Thank-you for spending this time with us and stay tuned for a Hurricane of a post next!
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