Geaux Away Gustav!

I can't take credit for this. One of the web articles I read said that a shop owner on Magazine street in New Orleans had posted a sign reading "Geaux Away Gustav" before covering up the windows and leaving.

Even though we're just north of Dallas/Fort Worth and a safe distance from the immediate danger of Gustav, it's still scary to think about such a massive storm being on its way. I remember the masses of Katrina evacuees that flooded into Texas. Some people ended up staying, I'm sure, because they didn't have a home to go back to. I remember watching CNN back in 2005, and I couldn't help but wince when I saw that huge patch of swirling red off the Louisiana and Mississippi coastline. Gustav is now a Category 4 storm, and will likely gather strength as it moves over the warm Gulf waters.

I've been to New Orleans and I enjoyed my stay there. My ex and I drove for what seemed like days to New Orleans and stayed at a gay-friendly bed and breakfast that wasn't too far from Bourbon Street. I wanted to see some of the antibellum homes down along the River Road, but we didn't get a chance to do that. Some day, I'd like to go back there. New Orleans has such an interesting ambience to it. It's sensuous -- full of history and legends -- and it's set against a backdrop of jazz music and wonderful food. Our first night there, we had pizza. When I told a friend of ours about this, I heard her gasp in disappointment over the telephone wire. "Pizza?! On your first night in New Orleans?" We didn't know our way around and we were so hungry. Fortunately, it wasn't Pizza Hut. It was a local Italian restaurant and the pizza was homemade. I had beignets at the Cafe du Monde and I enjoyed a real muffaletta at Napoleon House. I sipped a frozen Hurricane drink while we took a paddleboat ride up the Mississippi River. We went to a voodoo shop and hit some of the gay bars on Bourbon Street. At one such bar, we were up on the open balcony overlooking Bourbon Street. We saw several young men and women walking together and one of the guys on the balcony shouted out, "Make the switch! Lose the bitch!" The couple looked up at the balcony stunned, and then laughed.

I know that there will be damage and destruction. There's no way around that when a hurricane of this size hits. But I hope that we're all better prepared now.