Journal from New Orleans

      Well now that i have a few moments of free time i figured i would describe some of the things we did rather then just show you the pictures, by request of some people.   Our trip of course started in New Orleans, LA. at the hotel De La Post, our old Mardi Gras stomping ground.  And just like Mardi Gras we started at the hotel bar where we asked the bartender where all the hotspots were.  On a side note, we had left Dallas that morning at about 6am with each of us getting about 2 hours of sleep.  This did not slow us down.  We hit Bourbon early checkin out the streets hopin beads were still being tossed from balconys, they wernt but the streets were still pretty crowded.  We went to Margaritaville (Buffet's place}  and hung  out  with a cool bartender and a charming waitress.  After that we moved over to Harrahs casino, which is brand new to the city.  Since i was 21 I was ready to gamble legally and i guess i figured that sice it was my firt time i had to win.  not the case.  At the door we got ID'ed and Joey didn't want to use his so he asked if you could get in underage.  The girl looked around real nervous like and said just show me anything.  So he flashed her some card and she told him not to gamble or drink and let him in.  I dont believe wee payed much attention to her instructions but we did appriciate her nice gesture.  We spent the next couple hours at the machine poker games at the jazz bar slowly lossing a small fortune, but entertaining ourselves quite well.  When we realized we weren't going to break even we headed back to Bourbon where we found some huge Irish bar, which would become a theme of our trip, called Pattie O'Brians (or something like that).  We sang along with the piano players for awhile but they totally blew a great George Strait song so i was insulted and we left.  We hit a couple more bars and decided to call it an evening because we had to leave fairly early for a big drive to Nokomis Beach, Fl the next day...