By This morning I woke up to a sunny day with lots of potential and the promise of sleeping in my own bed tonight. This evening I’m hoping that my airline is able to send us a working plane some time this evening that will at least get me back to Canada tonight and home tomorrow before bad weather snows us in.
I had the BEST morning. I checked out of my hotel, left my bag with the bellhop and asked for a breakfast referral. Where does my bellhop eat breakfast? Daisy Duke’s. Across the street and a block over, the place was packed and we had to stand outside to wait for a table.
As it worked out, the seats at the counter cleared all at one and I ended up sitting with a really neat couple from New Jersey. They were in town for an art gallery show/fund raiser for the SPCA and as the conversation picked up we covered everything from dogs to wine to Niagara On The Lake, to both US and Canadian politics, the social determinants of health, and heart transplants. Solid people who graciously paid for my breakfast when the waitress assumed we were all together and put our food on one bill.
Before I get into the food, at this point I have to say that this has been my best visit to the US ever. At the course and outside of it, I happened to meet some great people and have some genuine conversations. I’m leaving with both a sense of gratitude for a great visit and a profound sense empathy for the real anxiety and concern the thise I met have right now about the pending changes. My original intention was to avoid all things Trump while I was here, and I endeavered to be gracious and navigate my conversation to neutral territory but it kept coming back around. These are really difficult times for some people and I felt genuinely bad about their almost palpable feelings. I had no words or platitudes, just a nod and a listening ear.
Now back to Daisy Duke’s, I had coffee and the spicy sausage omelette, honestly I’m looking forward to a salad and fresh fruit after three days of gumbo, jumbalaya, and shrimp, but I wanted to squeeze every last drop out of the Cajun experience. So good with hash browns and a fresh biscuit.
After breakfast I headed down to the river and walked the path along the banks. Fresh air and sunshine on a chilly day was awesome.
I ended up back at the French Market by Jackson Square and took in all of the artist displays and more live music. This city is so unique.
I took some time to tour the church, check out a few shops and headed to the airport early because Im excited to see my family.
Guess what?
My plane has been delayed as of this moment, 6 times. Mechanical issues then crew issues but it’s coming not it’s not coming and everyone has a different time estimate. At this point my money is on being eventually cancelled and staying over but who knows?
That’s travel for you.
contentedkitchen 