Lots of traffic from roadwork and accidents slowed me down some today in New Orleans.  But I banged through most of my list.  Just a few hours left I think for tomorrow.  Then, lots more LA to accomplish after that.  I’m hearing something about rain tomorrow afternoon.  I’ve had a good run lately.  There were just a few cloudy hours this morning and then more blue skies after that.

The dogs spent lots of time outside the van today.  Water romps at a state park and in Slidell.  Then I managed to sneak in a couple legit dog parks in New Orleans.  One in the French Quarter (Cabrini Park) was surprisingly big and had a hose and kiddie pools which was a really nice.  It was HOT today for dogs that run a lot.  In the afternoon, we checked out the “park” (not fenced) at Broadway & Leake.  There were some big bullying dogs that kept stealing my dogs toys.  Both Nik and Grem got roughed up.  I even got knocked over by a Doberman that sailed into me from behind.  So we were not there long!  We’ll stick to our own improvised vacant lots & such as I find them.

I ended the day with meeting Terry Toler who runs the Frostop in La Place.  I’ve long been fascinated with this chain and this location has been in her family since the beginning (1958).  Their recently restored, revolving giant neon mug is worth the schlep westward if you’re ever in the New Orleans area.  So now I’m extra late in getting stuff up to Flickr & the blog — but it was a very fun visit.

Let’s get to it.  I was told that this cute Snow Castle ice cream stand in Lacombe, LA was a fireworks place for many years.  I imagine those pointy corner pieces were originally painted to look like rockets:

 

This sign was in or around Michoud, LA.  The bottom of the sign was unremarkable, trust me.  I can never get enough of mortar & pestle signs:

This place had been on my list for awhile:  Blaine Kern’s Mardi Gras World in Algiers (New Orleans).  They are most famous for the fiberglass stuff they make for Mardi Gras parade floats.
http://www.mardigrasworld.com/

They let me walk around in a couple buildings and I took some photos — this is just a sampling:

Moving on to New Orleans stuff for the rest of this post.  I don’t believe this is an old painted sign — but I could be wrong.  I don’t think they even have “Little Debbie Snack Cakes” down here — but I could be wrong.  This is sort of an inside joke since I HATE being called “Debbie”:

Two impressively huge neon parking signs on the same block:

A pretty but sad theatre.  But that’s not the main reason I’m posting this one.  Do you see that dark spot in the sky to the left of the sign tower?  Well, this has been making me nuts for about a week now.  I have cleaned, with solution and microfiber cloth, my filter and my lens many times and this thing will not go away.  I have been photo-shopping the dot out when it’s in an obvious place.  I’ll have to get this looked at or fixed when I get home.  I hope I haven’t damaged the lens somehow.  I always  have the UV filter on.  But I have been getting a lot of rain on this trip.  Maybe I just need a cleaning – hopefully, not a new lens.  Although I do have a 5-year warranty or something.  Any ideas what the cause of this spot might be? 

I like the delicate detail of this building, the big sign, the variation in curtains — oh, just everything:

Last one for the night.  A lot of people have already shot this for Flickr I think – but I’ll include  it anyway.  It’s pretty massive as these painted signs go.  And I’m pretty sure it hasn’t been messed with and is authentic: