I live in Atlanta. Earlier this year I was in Shreveport, and we contemplated a side trip to New Orleans for a couple days. I may have even couched the proposition in terms of "we should go again before it's gone". In the end we didn't go. I think it was 7 hours out of the way. Plus we had the puppy with us, so we would have had to find a puppy friendly hotel.

I thought we still had a few years. The way major hurricanes had always missed New Orleans in the past I thought there was some environmental reason they always missed, some force or cycle that the meteorological hadn't figured out yet.

That or magic.

It turns out it was just statistics, the same way you can actually win at a slot machine for a while but if you play long enough house always makes the money back.

So we didn't go. But we should have. My regrets would be amplified had I not been there once last year. I'm not going to pose like New Orleans is my favorite place or that I have a special connection, only that it was certainly a special place. It was genuinely weird for real reasons, it's multi hued cultural heritage and it's geographic predicament. And while I would not want to live there, it was a fantastic place to visit. And the un, she has never been.

(Sorry, I wrote this on Tuesday or Wednesday but hadn't had a chance to put it up yet)