This is how the morning was supposed to go:
Wake up, enjoy the continental breakfast provided by our hotel, take a leisurely walk down Esplanade Avenue to the Mississippi River. Ride the Riverfront Streetcar from Esplanade Ave to Canal St. Take the St. Charles Streetcar from Canal Street to Washington Avenue. Arrive at Lafayette Cemetery No 1 by 10:30 for a Save Our Cemeteries tour.

We got the waking up and having breakfast part right, including a good chuckle over the packages of Quaker Instant Grits - grits are inherently funny. The walk down Esplanade went pretty well, except for when we passed the mailbox on Royal Street, and had to walk back two blocks to mail the postcards we had diligently written out the night before. We arrived at the end of Esplanade Ave, and saw the train tracks on the other side of the street, but nothing seemed to be going on there. Unsure of whether this was one of the streetcar stops, or just a train station, we walked a little way through the French Market. At the streetcar stop at Ursulines Street, we stood waiting on the platform for somewhere between 10 and 15 minutes (neither of us had a watch, so it's hard to say for certain). The streetcar was stopped at another station a few blocks away. It sat there, mocking us. A few other people wandered up to the platform, waited a few minutes, and then wandered away again. We decided that having wasted this precious bit of time, we had better just walk the 10 or so blocks to Canal Street, in the hopes of still catching the other streetcar in time to get us to our intended destination. We had walked about 4 or 5 blocks when I happened to look up...
"And there goes the trolley."
Stupid trolley.

There are streetcar tracks running down the middle of Canal Street. It seemed logical to assume that a streetcar would pass by there, but we encountered some difficulty in determining where, exactly, the streetcar would stop to pick us up. We considered taking a taxi to the cemetery, as the hour was getting late...but the taxis were all empty and the group of men gathered at the curb seemed a little sketchy. Finally, we inquired of a police officer where we might find a streetcar, and were told that the streetcars weren't running down Canal Street yet (the line is still under construction), but we could pick up the St Charles Streetcar on....St. Charles Ave. Go figure.

The streetcar that didn't come.

And the one that did.

Once pointed in the right direction, we found the car stop without too much trouble, and only had to wait about 10 minutes before the streetcar rumbled around the corner and pulled up to the stop. There was quite a crowd waiting at the stop, and just after we boarded, the conductor waved the remainder of the crowd off, telling them to wait for the next car. Relieved to have made it on board, we headed for the rear of the streetcar where we could stand and look out the window. The trip to Washington Ave was estimated at 15 minutes, and we began to think that we might make it to the cemetery in time for the tour after all. We were on our way! The gods didn't hate us after all! All of our planning was not going to waste! We sat back to enjoy the ride through the Garden District, marveling at the beautiful homes we passed. Here, too, was more evidence of the recent festivities of Mardi Gras:

The trees (and everything else) along St. Charles Avenue were still draped with Mardi Gras beads (though some intrepid tourists with long sticks were helping to relieve the trees of this burden).

Of course, we arrived at the cemetery at around 10:45, and didn't see any evidence of the tour in which we had hoped to participate. We made our way around the cemetery, admiring the tombs and taking pictures, but after about a half hour of wandering around, it became clear that although the cemetery was really cool and interesting, neither of us was getting much out of our visit. We decided that our best bet was to head back to the Vieux Carré, and return to the cemetery the following day for a tour.

---The architecture of the tombs was pretty amazing, and varied. I liked these gothic structures. Many of the tombs had urns or small statues placed in front of them, and I thought this little angel was very sweet.---

The streetcar brought us back to Canal Street, and we headed down Bourbon Street towards our next planned destination: the Musée Conti Wax Museum. Wax museums are great, if a little creepy, and this one was pretty interesting and contained a pretty wide variety of figures. The exhibits there depicted events of cultural and historical significance: the signing of the Louisiana Purchase, the Battle of New Orleans, a Mississippi Riverboat, Napoleon in a bathtub, a voodoo ritual.... One scene depicted a duel, and another showed a woman visiting the house of Marie Laveau for a voodoo potion, and there were scenes of gambling, the opera, and prostitutes picking the pockets of their clients. Finally, in the "Dungeon" we found a collection of scenes from horror novels and movies: The Pit and the Pendulum, Phantom of the Opera, Dracula, Frankenstein and, my personal favorite....

The Creature From the Black Lagoon!

The next stop on our tour of New Orleans was the New Orleans Historic Voodoo Museum. The museum was small, but packed with really cool stuff (if you happen to be into displays of animal parts, skeletons, coffins, and snakes). This was one of our favorite places in New Orleans. We spent some time examining the carefully collected and meticulously described artifacts in the display cases and on the walls, and were then treated to a "tour" of the museum's two cluttered rooms by the owner, a voodoo priest. In one glass case, were various items which could be used in gris-gris bags (snake skins, alligator teeth, bones, herbs, etc.) to bring their owner luck, health, love, money, or power and domination. Voodoo themed paintings of snakes, rituals, and Marie Laveau adorned the walls of the museum, along with the preserved remains of a cat, and a manta ray, and representations of various voodoo gods. At the "wishing stump", we followed the prescribed ritual for petitioning Marie Laveau to grant our wishes: we dutifully wrote our wishes on small pieces of paper, wrapped them around a monetary offering, dropped the paper and money into the hollow stump, knocked nine times (1-2-3, 1-2-3, 1-2-3), closed our eyes and envisioned our wish coming true, and offered a prayer to Marie Laveau and the spirits.

---The alligator-headed L'Acallemon provides protection against le loup-garou (a female, werewolf like creature that preys on children and lovers). A Black Cat Juju is hung on the houses around the Eve of All Saints' Day and the Day of the Dead to protect the houses from evil.---

Leaving the Voodoo Museum, we wandered down Dumaine St. toward Jackson Square, stopping in a few of the ever-present souvenir shops to look for gifts for our friends and family....

...and take a few pictures, of course. I finally got a good shot of one of the many mule drawn carriages, and we decided to make a carriage ride a part of our day.

Outside of a gift shop, we experienced a brief return of our earlier bout of bad luck: Lori dropped her camera. To test its functionality after this mishap, she tried to take a picture of one of the fortune tellers in Jackson Square, but nothing happened. Thinking that at the very least we could salvage the pictures that had already been taken, she tried to rewind the film. The camera acted as though it were performing this function, but didn't make any of the associated whirring noises that would normally accompany the process. Unsure of what to do at this point, we made the mistake of opening the camera, exposing the film that had not, in fact, been rewound. At this point, we decided to consult the professionals. A quick trip to a nearby camera store resulted in the successful removal of the film from the camera, and we left it there to be processed with the assurance that if none of the pictures came out, they wouldn't charge us. To pass the time while waiting for the photos, we went to the Café Beignet to have lunch. Or maybe it was dinner.

Either way, we concluded our meal with an order of beignets. Mmmmm beignets.

We headed back to the camera shop to pick up the pictures. As it turned out, only 1 or 2 of the pictures had been badly exposed, and they were able to print 8 photos. With this little adventure out of the way, it was time for our carriage ride. We checked out the line of carriages congregrated in front of Jackson Square, feeling dismay at the prices listed for the tours. Then a carriage driver who already had two passengers called out to us that we could take a ride for $10 each, and we hopped in. We were soon joined by 3 other women and with a full carriage, we set off on the tour of the Vieux Carré. Milo and Mercedes took us on a leisurely circuit of the Quarter. Our guide provided a running commentary on the architecture of the buildings we passed and the history of New Orleans, and made a stop at Lafitte's Blacksmith Shop, where one of the bartenders came out to our carriage to take orders for the "best hurricanes in New Orleans", and then brought us back to Jackson Square. It occurred to us that we had not yet seen the Mississippi, so we crossed Decatur Street and headed for the river, where we spent several minutes sitting on a wooden pier, enjoying the sunshine and breeze, and watching the riverboats make their way through the fast moving currents.

---Mercedes says "I'm the star of this travelogue." View from the pier---

The sound of cheering drew us toward what turned out to be a performance of the Calypso Tumblers. This group of guys entertained the audience with acrobatic stunts and a well-rehearsed comedy routine. The show was just getting started, so we stopped to watch and enjoyed a half hour or so of some pretty amazing displays of gymnastics, balance and strength - to give you an idea, one of the performers did a handstand on the cement steps which served as seating for the audience, and then proceeded to hop up the stairs on his hands, and the finale included having one tumbler somersaulting in the air over a line of 9 people who were bent at the waist, landing safely on the other side. They even performed the task of collecting money from the audience in an amusing way. At one point, one of the men took a cell phone from an audience member, and quieting the rest of the audience, and said into the phone "Hello? . . . This is Sugardaddy, who is this?" at which point the person on the other end presumably hung up, because Sugardaddy shrugged, closed the phone and handed it back to its owner. Another performer asked a small child who had just place some money in the collecting bucket if that was all he had, and then proceeded to pick up the boy, turn him upside down and shake him. A few coins dropped out of his pocket, eliciting laughter from the audience and tears from the child. The performer quickly put the boy back down and apologized.

---The Calypso Tumblers demonstrate their balancing skills. After the show, I convinced Lori to have her picture taken with Sugardaddy...not that she needed much convincing.---

At this point, we decided to wander back toward our hotel for a little break. Back "home", we dropped off the various packages we had accumulated throughout the day. Examining the options for our evening's entertainment, we agreed to embark on one of the many "Ghost Tours" of the city. So, after a brief rest, we headed for The Morgue, the bar which served as the starting point for the New Orleans Ghost Tour. However, when we got there, we were told that The Morgue had "died" and that the tour was leaving from another bar across the street. We went into Flanagan's Pub to buy our tickets and have drinks. Although the name suggested that we would find a guitar player picking out "Danny Boy" in the corner, we instead found a small, dark bar, with a pool table crowded into one back corner, graffiti on the walls outside the bathroom, and two goth/industrial bartenders grooving to the Beach Boys.

The bar soon became crowded with other people waiting in line at the box office and buying drinks, so we went outside to wait. There we found a man handing out buy-one-get-one-free coupons for drinks at the bar, so we grabbed a couple and headed back inside for drinks. Thus prepared for our tour, we went back out to the sidewalk and congregated with a few other people who were also wearing green tour stickers (the city regulates how large the tour groups can be, so they issue different colored stickers to help divide the group). I was starting to feel mellow and sociable, with the result that when one of the tour guides came up behind me and lightly touched my scalp with his long, pointed fingernails, I didn't leap out of my skin, though my spine did tingle. The guide, Chaz, was decked out in true vampire-gothic style in red velvet, black vinyl, and a top hat.

Chaz graciously allowed Lori and I to try on his top hat and take silly pictures of ourselves, and then posed with us for a few more shots. It quickly became obvious that this was the tour guide to have, and we set about convincing him (with the help of our green-stickered companions) that if he had any choice in the matter, he should take the "green" group.

We got our wish, and our group embarked on a wonderfully campy/creepy tour of the city. Our tour guide led us to several residences where strange or supernatural occurrences had been reported, and would then spin the tales of these ghostly/vampiric happenings for our amusement and/or horror. The journey also included a respite at a bar called The Whirling Dervish, where the members of our tour group were again given buy-one-get-one-free coupons to assist in the consumption of alcohol. Among the stories we heard was that of Delphine LaLaurie, who once beat a girl so badly that she leapt from a third story balcony to her death to escape further punishment (apparently people occasionally report seeing a girl falling from this balcony to this day). Also, during a fire at the house, it was discovered that the LaLauries had been performing some pretty nasty experiments on their slaves, and chaining them to the walls to prevent escape.

"Can you imagine the young man brought home to meet the girl's father -- and there I stand."

The evening concluded with Chaz performing a bloodletting for our entertainment. Now there's something you don't see every day, huh? Although the pamphlet for the tour claims that over 50 people have fainted during the bloodletting portion of Chaz's tour, our group was apparently pretty jaded because only one girl seemed mildly bothered and had to sit down...so our only injury for the night was that of a very drunk participant who stumbled over a hole in the sidewalk (even though it was helpfully spray-painted orange) and got a pretty good cut on his head which necessitated the calling of an ambulance. At the end of the tour, we were given an opportunity to buy books and cds featuring the stories we had heard over the course of the evening, and have them autographed by our guide. This piece of business transacted, we thanked Chaz, wished everyone a good night, and headed back to the Rathbone Inn and our comfortable and inviting beds.

Thus endeth our second day in New Orleans.