Charlie Brown dance?! Oh yeah!!!

Last time she was only here for three days, this time a whole week!!! Who am I talking about you might (or might not) be asking yourself? None other than Ms. Heidi Brown of course!

I picked Heidi up from the air port last Tuesday around noon and that's where our first adventure began; the last time Heidi was here I had lost the little parking garage ticket and had to pay for the entire day, which is unfortunate, but I was the one who lost the ticket, so shame on me.

What we found out when paying this time around (and no, I didn't lose the ticket thank you very much) was that regardless of a lost ticket I should've ONLY paid for the time I was parked. After all, I had spent the better part of a half an hour giving the last attendant all of Heidi's flight information, my driver's license, my plate number, etc. just to be charged a full day's parking fee. The lady that had told us was less than pleased, and in fact knew exactly who it was the charged me the $11 and had a few choice (and I mean really good choice) words about her co-worker! She explained that she would let her manager know, but because it had happened so long ago I wasn't going to be reimbursed; no big deal to me as long as justice is served I suppose.

So we go on our way, to begin Heidi's vacation! We spent some time on the beach, not as much time as Heidi had wanted sadly; it was a cloudy, thundering few days while Heidi was here. But we still had a good time! We did manicure and pedicures, planning, baking, eating, chatting, and laughing all while having a marathon of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" on in the background! Who could ask for a greater time?!?!

I absolutely LOVE this photo of Heidi!

Friday, Josh had to go to the ever so enthralling Drill Down; which if you read a previous post of mine, you'd know how much I love them. While he was busy with that, Heidi and I got ready for our trip to New Orleans! The one thing I wanted to do in New Orleans more than anything was to visit Marie Laveau's tomb at St. Louis Cemetery #1!

For those of you that live under a rock, Marie Laveau was THE voodoo priestess of New Orleans...look it up, I'm not wikipedia, but I do encourage the read it's quite interesting!

When we got to New Orleans we grabbed a bite to eat at "Bubba Gump's" which was fantastic, even if the trivia questions were ridiculous, though the debate over my ability to listen to the questions is still up in the air! After lunch we traveled toward Bourbon Street, but with the clouds starting to move in we decided to carry on toward the cemetery.

We finally made it to St. Louis Cemetery #1 and it looks like it wants to pour on us and on our way in a random citizen stops us to let us know that the storms are rolling in and that across the street we could seek shelter if the rain got too bad because it's the visitor's center and it has a video about the city on loop and there's air conditioning and it's the visitor's center and many other things I didn't care about oh and it's the visitor's center. This guy obviously knew that it was about to dump on us, yet he kept babbling on about the visitor's center! I just want to get in there and see the tomb-that's it, let me go man, just let me go!

There it was plain as day, almost as soon as you walk in you see it to the left and it was so stinkin' cool and if the Rain Man didn't stop me, the crazy circus folk weren't going to either. This group of three or four were... eccentric to put it nicely. Part of the legend of Marie Laveau is that you're supposed to complete a ritual and then make a wish to which Laveau grants if you're worthy (meaning you make an offering and it better be good and your wish is to be granted). The hooligans we saw were doing one of the many rituals I had read about so we kept our distance to give them privacy, that and I didn't want to be shanked.

When we thought they were done we went over and I wanted a few pictures of the tomb before I gave my offering and as I was taking a few photos I see the ringleader of the circus folk bent over with a plastic baggie in his hand scooping up the dirt and debris from around Marie Laveau's tomb! Umm, first of all isn't it bad luck to steal from a grave? Also, wouldn't it be double unlucky to steal from a renowned voodoo priestess' tomb? PLUS ALSO, it's illegal in this particular cemetery-so there. Here's the proof...

Creeper to the left

The rest of the cemetery was pretty sweet looking too, from a Google Maps view of the top, it looks like a bunch of houses that are really close together. Some of the tombs dated as far back as the early 1700's and the most recent one we saw (not to say there isn't one more recent) was 1999! It was such a fascinating place, I could've spent hours there and never got bored, I loved it!

Then the rain came. As we made our way back to our car this lady popped up out of nowhere and wanted some bus money so she could get out of the rain. She absolutely scared the crap out of me, I didn't see her coming at all. Of course, I was the only one with change. The lady was very nice but because she caught me off guard I couldn't help not liking her. If you need to know one thing about me, it's that I have an overactive imagination and being in this city for the first time and not knowing what to expect I make up my own expectations one of them being that I'm going to get mugged every ten feet.

She asked if I was from around there I said no and she said she'd keep me in her prayers and if she did ever see me again she'd have my back, which is sweet but makes me wonder if she thinks I'm going to get mugged too and then I just picture this little old lady with the super power of popping up out of nowhere and beating my attacker until they find themselves in the fetal position. Now I kinda like that lady.

That pretty much ended our day in New Orleans it was a lot of fun and I will return again someday! When I do go back I will definitely do the night tour of the cemetery, that will be the highlight of my life! I love that kind of stuff!

Saturday we did a little shopping and hung out with some pretty cool people! Sunday and Monday were pretty chill days. Tuesday was our last full day together so we went to the souvenir shop Heidi got some neat keepsakes and we got some ice cream and tried a recipe we completely made up on the fly and it was quite obvious-it was terrible! That's all you need to know about it...it was TERRIBLE!

Don't let the exterior fool you, it was an incredibly disgusting texture.

Wednesday morning we got up and got ready to take Heidi to the airport, but not before eating breakfast at "Cracker Barrel" and hitting up the Gulfport Outlet Mall specifically the Coach Outlet! Finally, it was time to say our good-bye's and send Heidi back to Omaha.

You'd think that's where this quaint story ends, but you'd be wrong! As Josh and I paid for our parking garage ticket the attendant asked if I was the lady she had spoken to about the overcharged ticket to which I said yes, she said her manager (who was standing right there) had remembered my car and was actually hoping to speak to me. So Josh had pulled off to the side and the manager came out and want me to recount what had happened.

The manager had said he thought the other attendant was pocketing the extra money from the overcharge (duh) and he wondered if there was a way for me to find out Heidi's flight number from the first trip as well as any other pieces of information to help this case so that this worker (who they think does this a lot but have no strong evidence) gets what's coming to her and to, of course, prevent it from happening in the future.

Okay, NOW that's the end of my story. I had a lot of fun this past week, and I will have hopefully brought this greedy person's wrongdoings to light! Liberty and justice for all? I think so.