New Orleans Conference and Adirondacks in the fall

Another one of those trips that plan you instead of you planning them.  The 2 year old grandson had pneumonia twice in one month while the mother (my daughter) had bronchitis.

This happened while we were in New Orleans for three days for a work conference.  New Orleans and Chicago are the alternating hosts of the annual 10,000 person worldwide WEFTEC conference.  Lots and lots of water and wastewater engineers, environmental engineers and manufacturers of water treatment products, pumps, pipelines, filter systems and chemicals.  It was HUGE.  Ten city blocks of geeks and engineers.  The old joke, "How can you tell an extrovert engineer?  They look at YOUR shoes when they talk to you."  Yep.  Not a lot of eye contact as I wandered with my Lindt truffles and business cards.  Fortunately some sweet Uber drivers and taxi drivers took them off my hands and promised to pass them out to the engineers they were driving to the airport that day.

We had a great time sampling fabulous food all over New Orleans. I got recommendations from everyone we drove with and friends who used to live here.  The patio at Court of the Two Sisters was phenomenal.  Their turtle soup was divine.  Pierre Masparo for BBQ shrimp, which is nothing that you'd expect coming from Memphis, a buttery sauce of deliciousness.  A lovely wine bar out in the Garden District.  We love Deanie's (owned by the fishermen) and had their Charbroiled oysters for lunch.  The Hotel Royal Sonesta for some live jazz and delicious appetizers.  And Gumbo.  Everywhere we went, we split a cup of gumbo:)

It was perfect.  We got home after a lengthy delay due to mechanical issues, but there was live music in the airport and I passed out two more cards to water engineers I met while waiting:)

Home late, leaving six hours later for Syracuse NY to assist with the daughter and grandson.  That was a brutal 48 hours.  Delayed out of Newark to Syracuse for some more waiting, this time on a bus on the tarmac.  We finally got driven back to the terminal after one hour on the tarmac in the un-airconditioned bus.  So I was able to nosh on some fresh oysters while we waited for a new plane.  Mechanical issues all day long for the plane we were assigned to.

Frankly, I am always happy to wait for a mechanically sound aircraft.  That never bothers me.  The lack of communication and the wait on the tarmac is another thing entirely.  United could have done a better job.  Frontier in New Orleans wins that debate.  Syracuse is one hours and 15 minutes south of Carthage/Fort Drum, where my daughter was driving from.  It was important to know when we would arrive, she had the sick two year old coming with her.

After consuming mass quantities of great tasting food, I switched to preparing mass quantities of great tasting food for my daughter and grandson.  I made a big vat of chili, cooking down tomatoes from the garden, then homemade toffee, then two batches of banana bread, some homemade banana pudding, Tortellini Soup and green chili enchiladas.  Shrimp scampi was up next but we never got to it.  Daughter's neighbors are great, they had been feeding her nightly while she was sick, so it was nice to return the favor.  I also got to teach them some family friendly games for the long winter that's almost upon them, Spoons and Mexican Train Dominos.

The area is close to the Finger Lakes and Thousand Islands of upstate New York and it is truly gorgeous with lovely maples, birch and other trees in rainbows of color, but I left before they were at 100% this year.  Very reminiscent of the Poconos that I got to see in October sixteen years ago.  I bought some maple sugar candy in the airport on the way out:)