To New Orleans via Florida. Yes, a catchy title!

Following Choc Lit’s success at the 2013 Romantic Times Booklovers’ Convention in Kansas City, Choc Lit’s Marketing Director, Lyn Vernham, plus six of her authors, including me, went to New Orleans this May, the location for the 2014 RT Convention.

 

It’s amazing the people you meet when you step out in New Orleans. Here I am with The Greats of the past: Antoine ‘Fats’ Domino, Al ‘Jumbo’ Hirt and Pete Fountain

 

And some of the greats of the present day.

Lee Child signing a Jack Reacher novel for my husband

With one of my favourite authors, Rachel Gibson

E.L. James

 

Fellow Choc Lit authors Christina Courtenay and Beverley Eikli have already written blogs about our visit to New Orleans. You can read Christina’s blog here and Beverley’s here.

As they’ve so ably and entertainingly covered the basics of the week, and as I don’t believe in reinventing the wheel, my contribution to bringing the convention alive for you will mainly take the form of captioned photos. So here we go!

Since there’s no direct flight from Heathrow to New Orleans, and since I had a cousin in Florida, a State I’d never visited, I opted to change flights in Florida and spend a few days on Florida’s west coast with my cousin before flying on to New Orleans.

HELLO, FLORIDA!

 

Pride of place goes to the alligator. This was what I’d expected to see in Florida, and this is what I saw on my first morning there. Walking across the wooden bridge to Siesta Beach, I peered over the side and lo, there it was. Having only ever seen an alligator in the zoo prior to that, this was an exciting moment.

 

Now you (almost) don’t.

Now you see it … 

Now you really see it …

 

 

Three more shots of wildlife in Florida.

A white heron

A roseate spoonbill – a member of the flamingo family

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Whistling ducks with their brilliant red bills

 

Sadly, I don’t have a photo of an anhinga. Anhingas, also known as snakebirds, don’t have oil glands so they can’t waterproof their feathers. This means that after they’ve been in  the water, they have to come out on to the bank, spread their wings and dry out thoroughly for a long period of time. If they attempt to fly while still wet, they can’t get off the surface of the water.

All too soon, it was farewell, Florida, with its miles and miles of wonderful fine white sand beaches …

 

At every turn there was a stunning beach

 

… and HELLO, NEW ORLEANS, with its vibrant night life, unforgettable jazz and tasty beignets.

 

The wide Mississippi, which winds crescent-shaped through New Orleans. Though the river water – the water upon which the city depends – is muddy, the purifying system is so effective that the city’s drinking water is the fourth purest in the US

 

A box of the iconic beignets. We had breakfast most mornings at the famous Café Beignet

A New Orleans streetcar. Riding from one end of the line to the other is a great way to see the city

 

The Café Beignet. Note the trumpeter outside the café, which is typical of the New Orleans scene

 

 

And now to the hotel…

We stayed at the New Orleans Marriott, the hotel on the left

Posters like this greeted us in the hotel lift

The key to my hotel room. Of course.

 

 

 

I think it’s time we had some people in the photos.

 

What better way to start the day than with breakfast at the Café Beignet? Lyn and Paul Vernham and Beverley Eikli

Strolling along the bank of the Mississippi, Lyn Vernham, Pia Fenton (Christina Courtenay), Sue Moorcroft

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Samhain Saints & Sinners party. Red balloons float above the Sinners, and white balloons above the Saints

Me at the Saints & Sinners party

Beverley Eikli and Rachel Daven Skinner at the Saints & Sinners party

 

Sue and Pia with a Stormtrooper. Naturally.

Lynne Connolly

 

Here I’m admiring the interesting floor decoration (ahem)

 

On my last full day in New Orleans, I went first to the main cemetery, and then I took a swamp tour.

In the cemetery, I learnt about HAINT PAINT, a blue paint. It’s believed that the dead can’t pass through the blue paint, hence you see blue throughout the city. A number of the TOMBS are painted blue so that the dead are kept within the tomb.  Shells and pieces of brick are left around the top of the tomb to be used as currency in the afterlife. People place items used by the deceased when they were alive in front of the tomb on the bottom left hand side. The items are then broken in order to symbolise the transition between life and death.

Blue paint was also used to keep the dead out of the houses.

 

Haint paint is seen on a number of tombs

Reputed to be the resting place of Marie Laveau, the ‘Voodoo Queen’. The voodoo cult is a mystic cult of African origin that flourished in the 19th century.

Burial crypts serve as a cemetery wall. Because of their arched shape, they are known as ‘oven vaults’

 

 

The blue door kept the dead out of the houses. They also painted the porch ceiling blue for that purpose

And there’s a whole lot of blue on this house

There’s quite a lot of blue on the front of this house

 

 

No, there’s no blue on this, but there’s some lovely wrought iron, which is frequently found on New Orleans’ houses

 

One of the last things I did in New Orleans  was go on a SWAMP TOUR.

 

There was a tremendous variety of the foliage

There’s a real serenity to the bayou in the swamp

Wild hogs

 

During the tour, I cuddled an alligator.  Well, perhaps ‘cuddled’ is a weeny exaggeration.

 

Surprise and horror …

… gave way to smiles when I remembered the camera, and also when I realised how soft-skinned and rather sweet the alligator was.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Well, that’s it! It’s over and out, and farewell to Louisana.

  • How wonderful Liz – a real flavour of your trip. I love all the photos – yes all of them (ahem, too!)

  • Henriette Gyland:

    Fabulous photos from both New Orleans and Florida. Wish I could have been in New Orleans with you.
    Hx

    • Liz:

      I wish you could have been there, too, Henri. I’m sure you would have enjoyed it as much as we did. Another time, maybe. Fingers crossed.

  • What a great pictorial trip – so fun to revisit those wonderful few days. And thank you so much for linking to my blog. I’m off to do the same for you, Liz. A good idea for us all to cover different aspects.

    • Liz:

      I’m glad you enjoyed the blog, Beverley. As you say, with yours and Christina’s blogs, we seem to have covered many of the aspects of the week. Annoyingly, I’ve discovered some photos of the Choc Lit stall that I’d forgotten I had, and I’ll tweet them throughout the coming week.

    • Liz:

      Many thanks for your comment, John. Re your final remark, what a mind reader you are!!

  • John Jackson:

    A great report – it really is a super city!! And you all said you’d be far too busy in the evenings to see anything LOL

    Surely the caption for the last photo should be:

    … gave way to smiles when I remembered the camera, and also when I realised how soft-skinned he was and what a great handbag or shoes he would make!

  • Thanks, Liz! Lovely to see some more photos of the event.

    • Liz:

      I discovered some forgotten photos this afternoon – they were on my iphone, not my camera – so you’ll see some of those later in the week. They star the Choc Lit stall and a number of Union Jacks!

  • Amazing pictures and now I really want to go there. The convention looked great too. You all look as if you had a fabulous time.

    I love the blue paint tradition!

    • Liz:

      Many thanks, Carol. I, too, was really interested in why there was so much blue paint in the city. I love the idea that the dead can’t pass through the paint. There’s a book in there somewhere!

  • What a fantastic trip – hope you sold shedloads of books in one of the best US cities.

    • Liz:

      The trip was a huge success in terms of Choc Lit promotion and sales, Linda, and was such fun. New Orleans is such a vibrant city; it certainly lived up to all the great things I’d heard about it.

  • Makes me want to go back to New Orleans and eat beignets right now!

    • Liz:

      I didn’t realise that you’d been there, too, Angela. I wonder if you, too, ate the beignets made by the famous Cafe Beignet. We were lucky that our hotel wasn’t far from it and it was able to be our most frequent breakfast destination.

  • Your blog makes me want to visit New Orleans, Liz. What a fabulous city!

    • Liz:

      Thank you for your comment, Emma. We had a wonderful time there. The hotel was right next to the French Quarter – it couldn’t have been better placed.

      May was the perfect month in which to visit both Florida and New Orleans – it was hot, but the humidity that besets both areas hadn’t yet set in. It was just perfect.

  • Barbara Alderton:

    Blue paint to keep the dead from out of the houses – fascinating, and, as you say, a story scene in the making. I believe Anne Rice set her vampire books in New Orleans and you can see why. Fabulous post as usual, Liz!

    • Liz:

      Many thanks for your comment, Barbara.

      I don’t know why I haven’t yet read Anne Rice’s books, but I haven’t and I must do so. They’ll have an added interest – apart from the fact that I loved Bram Stoker’s Dracula, the only vampire novel I’ve read – I will have seen for myself the streets in which Anne Rice has set her stories. I can certainly see why she chose that location.

  • I loved looking at this fascinating collection of photos – sounds like an amazing and varied trip!

    • Liz:

      It certainly was that, Clare. New Orleans lived up to everything that I’d expected it to be – and that’s saying something!

  • Fabulous Liz – thanks for sharing the photos and your amazing trip!

    • Liz:

      I’m so glad you enjoyed the blog, Janice. Thank you for your comment. It was such a thrill seeing my first alligator in the wild, and a real surprise at how cute the little alligators were with their soft tummies – when their mouths were taped shut, that is!

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