FINISHING UP IN NEW ORLEANS

At the reception on Wednesday night we were entertained by many stories from a gentleman who lives in Hollywood. I could have listened to him all night; I was intrigued. He lives neighbors to Erin Moran who played on Happy Days. Remember Joanie and Chachi? We turned in fairly early and were up and at it Thursday morning. Customers couldn’t wait to see if we brought anything new. Unfortunately, we underestimated our success and didn’t bring enough inventory. At lunch time while Karen was in a session, I made a quick change and moved our two tables of sparse inventory onto one. I quickly dragged the table off and waited to see how many customers noticed. It’s amazing to know that they thought we had added new things! Over all we doubled our sales from our experience in New Orleans last year! We were able to consolidate two boxes into one to ship home. That evening Karen and I were joined by Lois, Mary and Jan. We made our trek down Bourbon Street and definitely enjoyed the sites. (We were taken aback by a few!) Our destination was our favorite, the Red Fish Grill. They were packed and with good reason; it’s delicious New Orleans flavor. Barbecued oysters, seafood gumbo, blackened gulf fish to tempt our palettes … just enough that we couldn’t make room for their famous bread pudding. A hippie groovy store demanded our attention on our walk back to the hotel. I can’t tell you about some of the groovy stuff I saw as I’d get “bleeped.” The tie-dyed clothes took us back. My teenage girls love it these days. We did thoroughly enjoy the local talent along Bourbon Street. It’s amazing what these young musicians can create their tempos on. Who knew 5-gallon buckets made professional-sounding drums? The temperature was very comfortable for an evening stroll.

Friday morning was our travel home day. It started at 7:30 a.m. with a wild taxi cab drive. If I wasn’t awake before, I definitely was snapped into reality. I think our cabby drove 55 mph between stop lights slamming on the breaks at each light. I could handle that. It was the going 75mph on the 60mph interstate, weaving in and out that shook my dentures. I wore a hole in the foot board of the taxi when he took the off ramp doing 60 on the 35mph curves. Couldn't make my living doing that every day! I’ll stick to selling jewelry! We had time for a little breakfast before we took off. Holy Cow! One place had water for $4.50 and the other place for the same size was $1.99. Too bad I didn’t do my research beforehand. Gotcha! Our flight from New Orleans to Denver was eventful for me. I’m not supposed to tell you that I got locked in the restroom in the back of the plane for 15 minutes while our plane experienced a long stretch of turbulence. Karen wondered what happen to me - I had been instructed to “stay put.” (What better place to be if you’re scared to death! HA! HA!) In Denver we had a 4-hour layover. It was spent checking out the shops especially the jewelry stores. They have incredible gemstone jewelry. We studied the stones, designs and prices. It made us even more excited for our upcoming trip to Tucson, Arizona, January 31 thru February 7th.

Tootles for now, Kyla