New Orleans Inn: Sully Mansion Bed and Breakfast

We have been having biblical downpours for the last week.  It is not that unusual in Southern Louisiana in the summertime, that is how we nourish that thick tropical plant life which looks so beautiful curling around the wrought iron fencing and creating thick foliage everywhere you look.  When it gets real hot (another thing which is pretty typical in a Louisiana summertime) and it rains, once the  skies lighten the streets steam!  It is very romantic to be walking through the French Quarter past antique stores and the ferns are dripping and a light layer of steam rises up from the streets.  Over in Uptown in the Garden District where the Sully Mansion Is located, the oak trees overhang the streets forming a lush canopy and after the rain a little six inch coating of steam covers the asphalt.  It is like the soft sepia light that falls across the side of the stucco mansions in the late afternoon, it is so beautiful but hard to describe, just something you have to experience.    But like everything of beauty, there is often a down side as our streets are known to flood when it really comes down which was the case this Sunday.  I went out to play tennis hoping to get a game in in between the raindrops and after ten minutes the sky opened up(again!).  We waited for a while under the awning until it just was raining too hard.  As I was trying to drive home through the neighborhood of sweet Creole cottages and large bougainvillea plants the roads had become little lakes.  Rather than chance it I decide to call my truck driving hero husband to come rescue me.  Of course at that point I remembered my phone was on the kitchen counter back at the inn where I left it.  Still, I am watching passing cars create wakes down the street I decided to pull the car over and find some nice good Samaritan to let me use their phone, even though I was drenched from head to toe and my sneakers were making that water logged squishy sound when I moved I braved the deluge.  I parked the car and only had to walk a few steps where I spied through the rain two men sitting on their porch chatting with each other and watching the rain come down.  When I explained what I needed as good New Orleanians,  they immediately offered me a phone a towel and a drink!  I took them up on all three and passed a half an hour sipping a cocktail with my new friends waiting for my hero husband to arrive.  Gotta love this town, flooded streets and all!