Monday Activities

There were sailboats and powerboats on Pontchartrain, but I was still more fascinated by the heavy equipment on barges and the heavy tugboat at the east end of the Twin Span.

Once again we make the crossover to the new westbound lanes just before the new highrise portion. We head for New Orleans on the new Twin Span.

Rod, Jeff and Ashleigh were dropped off to swim at the remarkable pool of the University of New Orleans. Set on "long course" it is 50 meters long. Swimming in it is an experience. Jeff swims here regularly, it being close to the Seminary.

All the swimmers had a good workout in this remarkable pool. Rod swam 1800m, Ashleigh a little more, and Jeff had an intense workout.

When we got Jeff out of the pool, we headed down past the downtown New Orleans area. It is a fairly concentrated area of highrise buildings surrounded by areas that rarely exceed three stories.

Taking the expressway downtown, we passed by the Superdome and through the maze of expressways that lead to the bigh Huey P. Long bridge across the Mississippi River. We were heading through the Garden District to Magazine Street, and I was glad Jeff was driving.

We parked on Magazine Street and walked along the street. Going left to right and then down gives the sequence in which we saw some of the houses along this famous Old New Orleans street. There were the wrought-iron balconies I remember from my first trip in 1959. The houses were mostly three story and narrow but deep from the street. Though old, the area seems affluent with lots of upscale shops, coffee shops and restaurants.

I didn't realize how close we were to the Mississippi River when we were walking along the street.

This was our first time to explore Magazine Street although we had been along St. Charles Ave several times. It is just a few blocks north.

We strolled along the street for some distance, looking at the shops and the houses. Antique shops were a big thing along this street. Lots of shops were closed for the Memorial Day weekend, which told us it wasn't a big tourist destination.

We had dinner at Byblos, a very nice Greek restaurant. The food was very tasty. I had a beef kabob meal with rice and hummus.

There were lots of interesting looking restaurants, like the outside balcony place at left. But we chose to stop at the Italian ice cream place, the Gelateria.