Yesterday, I took a day of leave to do some sight-seeing in preparation for my departure. Unfortunately, I had to cut my day short because I wore the wrong shoes and suffered some pretty bad blisters. Anyway, I was able to conduct my St. Charles streetcar ride and spent a couple of hours just riding from one end to the other. St. Charles avenue was nothing new to me--basically, that's where I ran to train for the Mardi Gras half marathon. What the runners (and walkers) do is run facing oncoming streetcars. When one approaches, you hop over to the other side of the track until it passes then hop back over. I did this from Plum St. and Carrollton, to Lee Circle, which was 5 miles one way, then ran back. After the streetcar ride, I visited Lafayette Cemetery #1, established in 1833. It was at this point, that my feet started to protest so I didn't stay long. Anyway, it was a fairly interesting "city of the dead" and I'm still curious and fascinated by their burial customs down here. 
As a side note, and because I didn't update my blog after I returned from Camp Pendleton a couple of weeks ago, attached is a pic of a very mature bottle brush tree that was down the street from my hotel. Maybe one day mine will look like this: (click on the pic for a better view)
