Visiting New Orleans
| Seth ended his internship and drove from Massachusetts to Urbana Illinois on Friday without fully drying his laundary. He took a short nap, we moved a few things out of his car, and we were off on the 14 hour drive to New Orleans. Things would have been better if I hadn't been up all night slaving away on our group's Argus Project web page. This would be a picture of said un-dried laundry. |
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| On the way there, I learned to drive with one finger using the amazing modern technology of cruise control. Guess this didn't come standard in my '81 Toyota. |
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| This building next to the Marquette House youth hostile should have been our first impression of things to come. The blurry words on the yellow sign read, "SLUM PROPERTY." |
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| Being naive youths, we plopped down our $100 for the week and examined our new temporary residance. |
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| As soon as we walked in the door to our ten man Room Z, we were met by a most unfortunate odor emanating from this pictured side of the room. In retaliation (though not on purpose since it was pitch black and there were 8 guys sleeping) Seth managed to step on every fragile item left on the floor on our way to the opposite side of the room. |
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| At least our beds had a window and air conditioner near by. While not the nicest place I've been in, we managed to avoid several possible catastrophes. |
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Our neighbor -- clearly not a youth. |
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| Once we began to explore the city, we were so happy to be free of the confines of the youth hostile that hugged each other out of pure joy. |
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Chillin' with the locals. |
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| This is a statue on the river walk dedicated to the immigrants who built New Orleans. To me, it looked like an angel yanked these people out of their home country and plopped them down in the new world and is now ready to find more victims. Nice sky and bridge in the background, though. |
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| These are complete losers who are taking a picture of the immigrant statue. |
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| I was less than a week away from my 21st birthday, so I had to stand outside and take pictures of the old cars they were giving away while Seth and Feliz made 75 cents off the slot machines at the downtown casino. |
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| Chicago had the painted cows; New Orleans had painted fish. |   |
| On the last day we were in New Orleans, we decided to take a trip to the zoo. On the map, it looked like it was across the street from Tulane University, where we had slept in Monica's dorm room the night before. Before the zoo, though, there is a mile long park we walked through when the sun was it's highest. This was a lady who works for Disney (yet another random person we met who was attending SIGGraph.) She is drawing the fake lake. How appropriate. |
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| Upon our arrival to the zoo, we were met by this elephant fountain. I wonder if the real elephants across the way are amazed that these guys can spit water out of their trunks all day long. |
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| Seth forced me to take a picture of every cute animal there. |
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| Seth with his new peacock friend. |
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| Jason with an emu. This was taken some time after we played in the sprinkler, but before I lost the map. |
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A famous bayou gator |
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| One of the very few "white alligators," so famous that David Letterman had a top 10 list for them, which was posted across the way. The alligator is not albino, but I assure you it is more white than my crappy camera managed to capture through the tank. |
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| Seth next to a giant statue of his favorite animal -- the Kimoto Dragon. So many signs and so much hype for such a little boring lizzard. I didn't get it. |
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The zoo's "New Orleans Fish" |
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| This was hanging up outside one of the buildings and we couldn't resist mocking the strange combination of laxative with thermometer. |
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It was a wonderful trip, but as with my trips, the photo journey must end with a peaceful sunset picture taken on the drive home. |
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The drive back home |
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