I leave town and the whole world goes nuts. My sources tell me the tour buses weren’t this empty since the week after 9/11. And what’s this situation with the Chechens pulling the Mother of All Columbines in Russia? (I’ve been in a news vacuum so I’m only learning about this now.) And Bill Clinton is having heart surgery? Sheesh. I caught about 3 minutes of W.’s big speech. . .replayed late last night after hobbling home and Garrett forcing me to watch some Fox News. He was having fun shouting back at the TV but I just fell asleep. (It was, indeed, quite late and I wasn’t exactly eating salad and drinking Hi-C all night.)

Anyway. . . .check back to this page for New Orleans photos and commentary. I took many many many pictures and took a moment to jot down what we’d done the day before when I sat down for breakfast each morning.