We arrived after 10 pm last night, and Steve fed us boiled crawfish and beer before we got to bed, managing to disturb Elizabeth, slightly, in the process. (Naturally, they both had to work today.) Steve is planning to take Friday off and go to the Fest with us.

We've been sleep-deprived. We slept till noon, New Orleans time, and feel a lot better for it, but perhaps still not fully rested. Our one outing today, ventured in the mid-afternoon, was to the Blue Bird Cafe, our favorite local breakfast jernt. After five or six trips here (let's see, Hopper's bachelor party was my first time at the Fest, and that was '90; Briggs and I went for the first time in '92, I think; we loved it so much we went again in '93, I think that time going for the second weekend, for all four days; we couldn't get it together in '94, but we went again in '95, again for the second, long weekend; in '96, we went to Steve and Elizabeth's wedding in March but couldn't make it back to the Fest later that year; in '97, we went for the first weekend, so I could attend my fifteenth hgh-school reunion in New Jersey the next weekend; this time we came for the first weekend based on the acts, mainly Bonnie and Etta), I still hardly know my way around, but we did figure out that it was one block to Prytania and then about 15 blocks to the Blue Bird.

On the walk home I bought this little pocket notepad to jot in at the Fest. My current notebook is a little too big and unwieldy.