girlonahalfshill

It has been a full week and then some since my last post. Well, chronologically, it hasn’t been a full week yet, but it feels like a full helping of travel and experiences. Last report, we were finishing up our visit to Austin and heading on to Houston.

Houston gave me a chance to see my cousin and her husband and two year old before reconnecting with a friend who I hadn’t seen for over fourteen years. He was so welcoming and it was such a treat to be welcomed into his home after so many years. It has also been enriching to introduce my kids to so many of my friends. Many of them have met them before, but the boys have developed into “real individuals,” especially within the last year or so. Despite the challenges of having a teenager and a Spencer, I’m still enjoying their development and find their company increasingly amusing as they age.

During a moment of frustration yesterday, I accused my eldest of behaving like an ADD child; he has a tendency to make noise constantly. As an only child, I grew up in oppressive silence and, although I tortured my parents with incessant humming and occasional tap routines, I find myself missing quiet as an adult. Tyler repaid my comment with six hours of silence. I apologized and he accepted, but he maintained his abstention until close of day. This morning, I was delighted to find that he had regained his voice and was in a fine mood.

I, however, woke up at 5:30 a.m. to find my skull threatening to split in two, but there was no way that I was going to spend our only day in New Orleans hiding from the light with the covers pulled over my head. Three ibuprofen, water and a determined nap pushed it out of the forefront and we launched into a full day of exploration. Just two days ago, I was recoiling at my friend’s telling of his encounter with an alligator in a Louisiana rest stop, but after holding one, I find that I am rather fond of the little guys. (The jury is still out on the fourteen footers.)

New Orleans is a much bigger city than I expected. One sees the photos of the French Quarter and forgets that a modern city has grow up all around it. Canal Street looks like Los Angeles with its parade of palm trees. But the old part of the city is certainly charming and the heat really didn’t feel oppressive, the way that it did in Houston. Maybe we just got lucky, but it felt sort of velvety.

The swamp may be the best discovery though. It makes me wish that I had hours to explore it and was a better photographer. There’s a wildness to it that is only matched in my experience by Alaska. There’s actually something similar about the landscape of the two states. After mile after mile of manicured, industrial agriculture, Louisiana feels untamed. Tangles of trees, vines and grasses rise out of the dark waters. There are swaths where they’ve drained the land and we’ve seen rice fields and sugarcane, but those feel like the exception and surely can’t compete with the impression that the wilds make.

Tomorrow, we leave NOLA to enjoy the hospitality of friends of friends in Huntsville, Alabama. But for tonight, I am here with my sleepy children who walked the French Quarter until they thought their feet would fall off snoozing in the next bed at our Airbnb. Wishing everyone sweet dreams and a good night.