A Year In New Orleans

What difference does a year make?  When it's a year in New Orleans it can be your life.  New Orleans is like the fountain of youth.

This is what I looked like last year:

Your humble narrator in September 2018.

After a year in New Orleans, I look like this:

Your humble narrator today.

Always look on the bright side of life.

Even a week in New Orleans will put pep back into your step.  You are only as old as you feel.  A year in New Orleans is a tonic.  A week in New Orleans is better than a B12 shot.  Get your good self down here and be the person you were meant to be.  New Orleans is calling you.

Not everyone can spend a year in New Orleans.  We know that.  Lucky are those who live out their lives here.  Their hands are as smooth as a baby's bonbon.   You can tell a real New Orleanian as soon as they sit down at a bar.  A week in New Orleans, that's enough for you.  Increase your dosage gradually.  You know New Orleans is for you.

If you don't have a week, maybe you have five days.  Maybe you have four.  Maybe only three.  Visit for New Orleans as long as you are able.  New Orleans will give you a shot in the arm.  Wanna smile?  New Orleans is here.  

Nobody ever says their visit is too long.  Take it from someone who has lived here a decade.  After New Orleans, the next best thing is Heaven.  After New Orleans, there is nowhere else to go but up.  Welcome to the New Orleans state of mind.

If you are thinking about visiting New Orleans, we hope you'll consider staying at the small artisanal hotel that is our sponsor.  Experience New Orleans like you belong here.  You do belong here.   

New Orleans Crawfish Dreams

Even when the world ends, New Orleans will endure.  Stated simply, New Orleans is an eternal city like Olympus, like Asgard, like Heaven.  Where there is a will, there is a way.  New Orleans is a testament to resilience.  Come Hell or high water, New Orleans forever.

New Orleans forever.

Miracles happen so often in New Orleans that it is hard to separate fact from fancy.  If some good thing is possible, you will probably find it in New Orleans.  Catch a wish.  Fortune and luck are interchangeable in New Orleans.  Love makes New Orleans go, love of neighbors with malice toward none.

New Orleans has the lowest suicide rate of any city with over 100,000 inhabitants in the Western Hemisphere.

New Orleanians are well-mannered drinkers.  They don’t spit.  They sip and they swallow.  Ours is a cocktail city that knows the proper use for aromatic bitters.  Southern Comfort was invented in New Orleans.  So were many other things.  If you can’t find happiness in New Orleans then you are dead from the neck up.

Now you've seen him.

Scratch an itch.  Swagger.  Take a dare.  Take a double dare, even.  Every day has a reason to celebrate, even when the reason is a funeral.  Every day is a roll of the bones in New Orleans.  Even skeletons dance.

Sanguine serendipity is the order of a New Orleans day.  There are more seraphim than succubi afoot on any New Orleans night.  Go to the right neighborhood and dreams will come true.  It will happen to you.  There are angels in New Orleans’ details.  There is a whole mess of crawfish, too.  Mmmmmm——crawfish!

An ugly man married an ugly woman.  They had beautiful children in New Orleans.  The secret to fertility is crawfish.  The secret to New Orleans is love of neighbor.  Love, crawfish, and dreams.  What a way to go.

There are saints hiding all over New Orleans.

-You have two friends on Esplanade Avenue in New Orleans.  La Belle Esplanade is a small five hotel that has been rated the #1 place to stay in New Orleans since April 2014.  Visit New Orleans like you belong here.  You do belong here.  Check out our website to see what we offer.  

When you are visiting New Orleans, you can choose a lot worse---a lot worse, believe me.  Don't be a tourist in New Orleans.  Visit like you live here.  Don't be a stranger.

-La Belle Esplanade

Lake Pontchartrain monsters

Lake Pontchartrain is the body of water directly north of the City of New Orleans.  New Orleans is on the South Shore.  Directly south, by the compass is the Mississippi River.  New Orleans is on the East Bank of the Mississippi.  It gets complicated, the way most things are in New Orleans.  We live in a different world.

Lake Ponchartrain isn't a true lake.  It isn't self contained and it isn't fresh water.  Lake Pontchartrain is brackish because it opens to Lake Borgne, which is even less of a true lake, which is connected to the Gulf of Mexico.  Atlantic Ocean water enters the Gulf and it enters Lake Pontchartrain through the Rigolets.  I'd draw you a map but that would make about as much sense as this description or the picture above.  Just take my word for it.

Lake Pontchartrain averages about 12 feet deep.  It's shallow.  Blue crabs come from there.  They are the tastiest blue crabs you'll ever taste.  They turn red when they're boiled.

Manatees live in Lake Pontrchartain.  So do various varieties of fish that prefer brackish waters, a combination of salty and sweet.  Dolphins sometimes venture into Lake Pontchartrain.  A narwhal was once found in Lake Pontchartrain in the 19th century.  One of its ribs is on display in our lobby.

What about cryptids?  Is there a Poncho, the way there is a Nessie or a Champ?  Nope.  No sea serpents, aquatic dinosaurs, giant squid, or other unexplained creatures have been sighted in Lake Pontchartrain, unless you count the time Tammie the Housekeeper's Aunt Millie was found by a US Coast Guard patrol in the middle of the lake stark naked and singing "Sugar, Sugar," at the top of her lungs. 

Tammy the Housekeeper

You never know what you'll find in New Orleans but you can be sure that there aren't any unexplained creatures in Lake Pontchartrain.  New Orleans has enough mythology about it that the city doesn't need to add sea serpents to the list.  You can find vampires in the French Quarter, mermen in the Industrial Canal, fairy washer women off Florida Avenue, and all sorts of other things within city limits.  We don't have any need to make up things that lurk offshore.

New Orleans is full enough of surprises as is.  

LIFE IS GOOD IN NEW ORLEANS.

--- If you are looking for someplace to stay when you visit New Orleans, I happen to be an innkeeper.  I run the #1-ranked place to stay in New Orleans (it's been #1 since April 2014 according to TripAdvisor).  You could do a lot worse.  Believe me.  You can choose a lot worse.  If you are looking to experience authentic New Orleans off the usual tourist radar, you know where to find us: in the bright orange house with blue shutters on Esplanade Avenue: La Belle Esplanade.