Last weekend I was in New Orleans for work. The 2006 American Library Association Annual Conference, which is about this time every year, was New Orleans' first post-Katrina large scale convention...and it appears to have been a big success for the city. For an idea of what this event meant to New Orleans, here's an excerpt from a column that appeared in the city's newspaper, The Times-Picayune:
"A friend of mine passed on to me a story from the Windsor Court Hotel, where, one night, a group of drunken librarians raced up and down the hallways in aOf course, the whole drunken thing is one of the reasons I kind of hate New Orleans. But so it goes.
juvenile thrall in the wee hours of the morning, raising a holy ruckus.
"I don't mean to read too much into this event, but it's a sign that New Orleans is ready to be, once again, New Orleans when drunken librarians in relax-fit jeans and plaid shirts cavort in the halls of fancy hotels.
"It's one small (wobbly) step for man, one giant step for New Orleans."
Anyway, hardly a chance to catch my breath before Scott and I hit the road to Poplar Tree Bay for the holiday weekend. We're leaving immediately after work this afternoon. Scott's car is packed full of stuff we're taking to leave up there, as well as my big ol' suitcase (because I always overpack). We'll drive as far as Port Huron, Ontario tonight; spend the night in a hotel; then continue on our way to Cape Vincent Friday morning. Can't wait!
We'll take more photos, which I'll upload to Flickr after we get back on July 4th. (Sorry, no Internet access in the trailer yet, so I won't be blogging in real-time.)
Have a Happy 4th of July, everyone!
UPDATE: More about the ALA Annual Conference in New Orleans...
"'You are pioneers, and you are sending a signal to the world that says New Orleans is okay,' Mayor C. Ray Nagin told librarians at the opening session of the American Library Association’s June 22–28 Annual Conference in the Big Easy, the largest convention in the city since Hurricanes Katrina and Rita devastated the region in August and September 2005. With 16,582 attendees streaming into New Orleans, the conference was an economic shot in the arm estimated at about $20 million."
