After some more time in New England, I made a beeline for New Orleans, where I was to meet Matt. I did the drive from Boston to New Orleans in two exceptionally long days, making it to our AirBnb a couple hours before Matt's flight got in. We had a lot of fun walking around the French Quarter and Le Marais. I got a chance to exercise the new film camera that I had purchased at the Brimfield Swap Meet in Mass (how awesome that it actually worked!)
The beignets and coffee were delicious, the jazz clubs more fun than I thought, and the neighborhoods rich with history. In particular, I really enjoyed the cemeteries!
A definitely highlight of our time here was a chance encounter with Tom, the penguin keeper at the Audubon Zoo. He kindly invited us to the zoo and gave us a special chance to hold the penguins after he completed his presentation at the penguin exhibit.
While the penguin exhibit and Tom were awesome, other parts of the zoo were questionable:
Yes, oil industry, tell us more about how you care for the environment!
I wrapped up my trip with a visit to the National WWII museum. Stephen Ambrose, author of Band of Brothers, was a professor at Tulane University and was a strong advocate of the museum, so they built it there.