Time in Austin

We'll, we have been on the move. Thursday,Tom drove us to his other favorite breakfast nook, Marguerita's. We ate outside, had a nice meal, while watching the Grackles swoop in and steal food, bold and brazen. Tom headed for work,Karla and I descended on the Wrench-a-part junkyard, in search of more Vanagon pieces. Karla really did want to go. This time I had more tools. ( Eileen, you would never see Jim again if we had one of these places in Vermont). You can learn a tremendous amount about the workings of a vehicle when can unabashedly tear it apart. I found the brake fluid reservoir is behind the speedometer??? Weird.....I was removing the odometer at the time....ours does not work....... Karla was tasked with removing the curtains, rods and snaps....most of the items we were looking for had already been retrieved, so I began searching for parts for Karla 2005 VW convertible beetle. They had two, both were remnants of terrible front end collisions, there was very little left.

       After wet-wiping ourselves down, we came across an outdoor Mexican pottery & metalwork vendor on the side of the road. They had wares spread out over a large area. Pots, Mexican figures (lizards,cats,turtles,fish,birds,etc), all brightly painted. The were large figures of minstrels, horses, cow, ostriches, too many to name. We walked & weaved here and there, eventually finding colorful number tiles, to mark the entrance to 219 Sutton Hollow Rd. Karla dickered the price down to what seemed fair...and we were off. Showered,we waited for Tom to return. Matt and Tom were treated by us to dinner.

       The next morning, at 5:30 AM, we'd departed Austin for the long journey to New Orleans.

 Long and epic, a story of grit & perseverance, we encountered traffic jams, (1-1/2 hours Baton Rouge), rain (windshield wiper malfunction..had to remove passenger side wiper)....GPS misguidance (11 miles of traffic lights), rainstorms over Lake Pontchartrain that looked like tornados ready to brew), but we made it.....6:00PM
       The air BnB is beautiful....situated a trolley ride from the French Quarter....it is a stand alone bungalow that sits behind wonderful old house.

The place is sweet..........

with an old school fifties kitchen

Made plans to have dinner with Hillary, Francesca and Jess (Fran's sister). We were to meet them half-a-mile away at 7:00. We'll walk.......bad idea.....the skies opened (3.5 inches overnight)...thoroughly drowned we met the crew. The plan for a fancy French restaurant was discarded. Italian pasta & pizza fit our soaked look much better.

Fed, wet, and imbibed, out into the deluge we plunged. It is a spooky feeling, plodding through flooding streets, below sea level..........
   Back home.........we stripped, showered, crashed.............