The banner photo is a cropped version of the ceiling of the Bellagio Hotel in Las Vegas, a much-photographed space. It’s an art-glass piece by Dale Chihuly, whose work I have admired for several years. His glass is instantly recognizable, often in shapes resembling sea creatures or flowers.

The Bellagio ceiling is known as Fiori di Como (“flowers of Como”) and is composed of over 2,000 pieces of handblown glass. Photographer Mihay has an excellent photo of the ceiling here.

The Bellagio also has another work by Chihuly, shown here.

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The wrought iron fence can’t contain the tropical greenery along Magazine Street in New Orleans.

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Beignets (pronounced BEN-yays) are crispy fried squares of a yeasty donut dough topped with mounds of powdered sugar. You never wear black when you eat them, because you always wear some of the sugar home. Cafe’ au lait is steamed milk with a hit of hot, dark, french roasted coffee and chicory. In the summer, when it’s too hot to sit outside and drink coffee, it’s time for chocolate milk with your beignets. Maybe it’s an acquired taste, but every tourist and every local seems to love ‘em.

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More photos of Vacation Bible School are found HERE.

The “banner” is the photo at the top of my blog page, which you can only see if you connect directly to the blog through the internet, like here. The banner, usually a detail from a larger photo, will change from time to time. I’ll show you the larger photo and offer a bit of explanation in these posts, “About the banner”. If you’re on the blog web page, you can also click “Banner” in the Categories box at the right to find the banner photo posts.

I took this photo on a winter trip to New Orleans, stopping by one of the old above-ground cemetaries that are famous in the city. I like the flowers in the foreground which speak to me of life in the midst of death.

The tombs are actually mini-mausoleums for families. These cemetaries are sometimes called “Cities of the Dead” because the tombs resemble small homes, some quite large and elaborate. Some are surrounded by wrought iron fences and winding “streets”.

Burials in the old cemetaries were done above ground because the water table is high in this below-sea-level city, and a sealed, air-filled casket would pop up after the first good rainfall. Not a pretty thought. My grandfather is buried in a similar cemetary.