French Quarter Fest - Day One: The Trashed Umbrella

So...

1.  I forgot my iPhone at home.  Yes, really.  Realized this little factoid when I was on the ferry.
2.  I missed some awesome pictures depicting some of our local flavor.
**Think of a very big-boobed granny dancing along with no bra on and shaking her money-maker.  Oh, yeah!!  Zexy!!**
3.  The weather went to shit.  My umbrella??  Will never be the same again.
4.  Scored a funky Crescent City manhole cover mouse pad.
**For the record, I've been looking for one of these for AGES.**

And...

Here's how the early part of today went down:

First off, the bastards at Yahoo Weather (or whatever the app is called) were actually fucking correct with all their storm predictions.  For the most part, I'll give them about a 50% accuracy rating...  but (unfortunately) they were spot-on today.

^^  100% chance of rain??  Usually, this forecast is not correct.

Of course, because it was the first day of French Quarter Fest, it accurate.  :0((

Unfortunately, one of the things Yahoo Weather *didn't* mention...  the wind gusts coming off the Mississippi River (40 - 55 MPH).  My poor umbrella didn't stand a cold chance in hell:

^^  Never to be restored to its former glory.  RIP, umbrella.

**Very happy that I didn't take my French Esponge Bob SquarePants.  Would've been a travesty!!**

However, during our stroll down Royal Street, I popped into a funky-looking gift shop (they had some really cool artwork that was decently priced) and found one of the must-have treasures that is currently gracing my list...  a Crescent City manhole cover mouse pad!!!  Score!!  I also want to pick up a round rug the size of the actual manhole cover...  I think I'll put it in my guest bathroom.  My happy item:

^^  I'm still using my Barbapapa mouse pad from France.  

This is right next to it.  I keep admiring it.  Yessssss. 

And, I took a picture of our bridge scanning over the Mississippi River - I took this the other night when I was driving home from visiting a friend in Gretna (so I'm on the Westbank - looking at the bridge that will take you to the Superdome, Central Business District, Metairie, Kenner, and the Louis Armstrong International Airport).  It just looked so cool - so I snapped a quick picture.  <3  <3  <3 

^^  View from the Bestbank...  looking towards greater New Orleans.

Anyhow, my apologies for forgetting my camera - I would've loved to have posted pictures of the concert we went to this morning (Blues Masters featuring "Big Al" Carson) and some of the tasting plates I sampled.  Tomorrow is another day and I promise my next post will be chock-full of Big Easy goodness.  We're planning on going to the Quarter for the next three days.  Whoo-hoo!!

x0x0