Day One

Hello, Friends! I'm back, and on a new adventure... I am currently located in New Orleans, Louisiana, or as the locals call it: "Nawlins". Today began fairly early with breakfast then we jetted off to find the location of the infamous "Silver Bullet". This "vehicle" is a monstrous beast of a truck that is two years older than I am, and just straight ridiculous (pictures to follow). In fact- I could hear the "dueling banjos" playing as we approached this monstrosity. We had every intention of driving it from Slidell, LA, back to Camp Hope- which is where I'm calling home with my two partners in crime. We, with crossed fingers and many a silent prayer, attempted to start the Bullet (which has been sitting in a grassy lot of a storage facility for about 9 months), and much to our surprise and excitement, it started!!!! It wasn't until we realized the plates expired in May of 2009 that our trek back to NOLA would have to be postponed.

From this excursion we made our way back to Camp Hope to meet with the "powers that be" regarding our housing situation for Group 1, which is set to arrive on Sunday. Following this meeting, we went to another with Operation Nehemiah, which is the organization that we'll be working with for our construction projects during our duration in NOLA. Many a laugh and story was shared with the gentlemen who are in charge of helping us organize the work projects for our groups. Remind me, and I'll tell you some of them later.

Once we completed the work portion of our day we decided to see some of the sites. I found myself at Café Du Monde having beignets- which are French doughnuts. After consuming two of these delicacies, I am able to die happy and we decided to walk around the French Quarter to work off our treasures from heaven... =) Before concluding our time in the French Quarter we were walking along the boardwalk when all of a sudden, we saw a "hollywood" truck and cameras and several people with official looking lanyards blocking off a gazebo portion of the boardwalk. Upon further investigation we discover they are shooting a commercial for Wheel of Fortune and Miss Vanna White herself is on location for this. So, she does the commercial, and is walking away when my NOLA group and I ask her if we can take our picture with her. And we did. It was a good day. =)