Deb and I spent the week end on New Orleans. I had to go to the NADA (National Automobile Dealers Association) show for work. This is the place dealers go to see what is new and buy anything that they need in a dealership. This was a bad place to be if you were selling stuff (ME). Most years it is one of the biggest shows put on. This year GM had a booth with only 1 car from each division; Ford only had 4 cars in the booth. Mercedes, BMW, Honda, Nissan, VW and Audi did not even show. We were one of 3 car wash companies that came, out of the 20 that are usually there. 17,000 dealers are members of the NADA and only 2400 showed up. We got less than 50 leads in 4 days. That is for the entire country. Georgia got zero. I left the show a day early, no sense wasting another day.
Deb and had a good time in spite of the show. We drove down on Friday and got to the hotel about 3:30pm. We were about 1.5 miles from the French Quarter, so we walked over for dinner. We went to The Crescent City Brew House. This is my favorite restaurant in the city.
Deb and had a good time in spite of the show. We drove down on Friday and got to the hotel about 3:30pm. We were about 1.5 miles from the French Quarter, so we walked over for dinner. We went to The Crescent City Brew House. This is my favorite restaurant in the city.
We found it with Peg and Steve and Mike and Michel when we were on our cruise. I have been a few more times when I’m on business. From there we walked over to Bourbon St. They are getting ready for Mardi Gras, and was fairly quiet. As we were walking I saw a court yard with the gate open and some great Dixieland music coming out. A 3 piece group (Base, Banjo and trumpet) were going to town. The trumpet player sang and sounded just like Leon Redbone. We stayed for about an hour, and then headed back to the hotel.
When I was at the show on Saturday, Deb went to the Riverwalk and did some Christmas shopping. We met up after the show for dinner. My feet were killing me from being on them all day so we just walked to a place about 2 blocks away. The Sun Ray is a local place you have to look for but worth the hunt. On Sunday we got up early and ran over to Café Du Monde. This is one of Deb’s favorite places. 
Deb had some work to take care of while I was at the show so she just hung out till I was threw for the day. We found another great Cajun place, Mulats, for dinner. At 7:00 a band came out and made foe another outstanding evening.I went to the show on Monday but by 11:00 I knew it would be dead so I made the decision to head home. I talked to some of the folks who stayed and things never did pick up, so I made a good call.
When My ankle did that I had to get it fixed. That’s all for now, see you all later.
That’s all for now.
This is the 5th year for this trip and we always have a great time and enjoy the company. I have known Tommy (older fellow in the back) and Von (second from right) for 20 years. I met them shooting skeet. The other two Johnny (with beard) and Franck I met at AKC test and skeet shooting for 10 years. We stay in the Blue Bank resort on the banks of Real Foot Lake each year. We meet our guide at 5:00 each morning at the boat ramp and head out in the dark for our blind. We get to see the sunrise over the lake and enjoy every second of it.
This year our first day was 40 MPH winds and 3ft swells and no good for ducks. We did get a couple but that was just good shooting. (Wink, Wink) The second day was cool and beautiful. Our guides worked hard to call in the ducks and we bagged 8. Hunting ends at 3:00pm on Real Foot so we headed in and hit the road home.