I haven’t taken a vacation without Peter for almost fifty years. But when Jeremy and Katrina and our grandsons invited us to go with them to New Orleans for their spring break and Peter didn’t want to go, I couldn’t refuse. I’d never been there and I figured he’d be OK on his own for four days.

A million years ago, I had two roommates who had gone to school in New Orleans. I had heard about beignets and Bourbon Street. I had heard about brunch at Brennan’s and Cajun cooking. But I’d never been there. All of the above still exist, plus the fabulous National World War II Museum

Joined by my sister-in-law, Nancy, we walked everywhere. The Easter Parade went on through intermittent downpours, but the rain didn’t stop handfuls of beaded necklaces and fat raw carrots being thrown from the floats to the outstretched hands of onlookers. We walked Bourbon Street, Royal Street and Frenchman Street—jazz, galleries, pralines, crawfish—we tried everything. Our historic Hotel Le Pavillon served peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and hot chocolate with real whipped cream and marshmallows at 10:00 every night.

Leo and Jeremy walked 30,000 steps one day and the rest of us were pretty darn close. We went on a swamp tour. We saw NCIS New Orleans being filmed on St. Charles Street.

It was exhausting and wonderful.   And Peter did fine.