Brrrr, It's Time For a WARM UP

Santa arrives in Coeur D Alene via vintage fire engine.

Fireworks over Lake Coeur D Alene announce Santa's arrival. 

Last Friday evening, after standing in the freezing rain to watch Santa arrive in our new hometown of Coeur D Alene, Linda and I decided that maybe a dose of warm weather might help ease our transition from Southern California.  My old pal, the Skipper, no doubt full of holiday cheer and Jim Beam, had recently suggested that we join him and his wife Betty in New Orleans at the Work Boat Show for some laughs.  The Skipper owns a barge and tug company in New England and often attends the event to scout new equipment and catch up with other salt water reprobates.  Knowing that the broadcast business was another bum producing industry, (second only to the carnival business), he knew I'd fit right in.  

As you read this we are on our way back to the refrigerator that is Northern Idaho refreshed and re-charged from a week in the Big Easy.  We will warm ourselves all winter long on memories and calories that cling to us as we journey home. 

After settling in at the hotel and registering at the convention, we set out for Felix's Oyster Bar which features the absolute best bi-valves in this hemisphere.  I love the place.  Though I can no longer down ten or twelve dozen in an evening like I could in the 70's, it is still necessary to call Triple A to tow me away from the place.  Oysters this good are a religious experience; maybe even a tax deductible medical necessity. 

Can you say, "Welcome sailor?"

The Skipper pretends to be interested in a Boat Show display while he grabs a free shot glass.

When you die, you smell these on God's breath.

Mother's is another New Orleans institution.

We spent Thursday at the World War II Museum, a national treasure located on Magazine street in the warehouse district of New Orleans.  Thanks to good friend, Sue Lampton, we were treated to a sneak preview of the museum's newest pavilion, Campaigns of Courage:  The Road To Berlin section, which opens next week.  If you have yet to visit this magnificent salute to the generation of men and women who saved the world, put it on your bucket list.  You won't regret it.

Linda checks out the restoration of PT boat 305 an ongoing labor of love at the WW II Museum.

Bruce Harris, in charge of the restoration, shows the Skipper blueprints of PT 305. 

Just one of many planes on display in the Boeing pavilion at the WW II Museum

It was a fantastic week to be in New Orleans.  The weather was perfect and the food superb.  I'm thinking that we need to make this an annual event.  The Work Boat Show, the World War II Museum and a few hundred of the Gulf's finest oysters consumed with other aficionados bellied up to the bi-valve bar at Felix's seems to me  an unbeatable combination.  Maybe Santa will want to join us?  Men of size--Fats Domino anyone?-- are always more than welcome in "the land of red beans and pinball machines".

Always Felix's, not Acme, for oyster heaven.

Jackson Square, ground zero for whack jobs.