Garden District

The Garden District sits on a former French plantation.  We began our tour in Lafayette Cemetery, final resting place for more than 7,000 bodies, some stacked 15 high in family tombs.  Anne Rice staged her own funeral here to publicize one of her vampire chronicles.

This trio of Mardi Gras revelers coordinated their outfits.

Many of the nearby homes were decorated, too.

If you don't catch any beads at a parade, many residents encourage you to grab a string from their fences.

Magda guided us to the homes of several neighborhood celebrities.  Peyton & Eli Manning grew up in this fairly modest home,

not far from where Sandra Bullock currently lives in gingerbread splendor.

They don't call it the Garden District for nothing.

No matter who lives in them, the homes (and architectural details) are generally gorgeous.

But sometimes ignorance can be bliss.  In 2008, the United Daughters of the Confederacy "proudly remembered" the bicentennial of Jefferson Davis, who took his last breath in 1889 as a visitor to this home.  Although he lost his American citizenship after the Civil War, few, if any, southerners have been buried with more fanfare.

An earlier memorial engraved a resume unique in American politics.  

A joint resolution of Congress, introduced by Senator Mark Hatfield, a Republican from Oregon, and signed by President Jimmy Carter, posthumously restored Davis's citizenship in 1978.  Do I smell horse trading?  To quote the Dead, "What A Long, Strange Trip It's Been."