A beautiful, crystal clear 70° morning; light north breeze remained, but gone was yesterday’s humidity and overcast skies. Instead of backtracking two miles on the busy road, Jerry found a pleasant neighborhood that spared us the highway for a few miles.  The bike map had recommended a river trail, but we’d been fooled by the levy road once and that was enough.  The highway traffic was not bad, well, except for this….…. so able to check out something other than the road in front of us; fisherman and the never ending refineries along the Mississippi.Halfway into the ride, we picked up commercial business andtraffic increased.  Then, as we reached the top of an railroad overpass, we were at the airport (practically on top of it).  Traffic was heavy, our shoulder was on and off, but everyone was courteous.  We passed a mixture of ball fields and buildings including the New Orlean Saints training facility.  As always, the exits on to the interstate proved a challenge and an uphill sprint; thankfully it was the weekend, so traffic was light.  As we approached the city, we were happy to have a designated bike path, plus some amazing buildings.

Our two day stay in New Orleans has many purposes.  One to rest, two we had to make up for our last trip here, that did not go so well, but the best reason was to reconnect with old friends.  We had made a point to get here in time to catch Kurt before he headed home, but Thomas and Angie was a last minute surprise.  Thomas (whom we had not seen since 1995) took us to a place we would have never found or even considered going to.  A cool and quirky backyard bar with live jazz, fabulous wine and amazing cheese trays.  We spent several bottles of wine there then moved on to a delicious dinner in another part of town; thank goodness we were not driving.  It was a good afternoon/evening with great friends; one we will not soon forget.