She consulted several guidebooks, got a good deal on a well-placed hotel and researched the best tours. But she didn't consider the weather. It does now. The heat index inched over 100 degrees today. The soggy air clings with the tenacity of a pit bull.
Breathing is like inhaling gumbo.
If you look at the temperatures in New York City, you'll find ours are no higher. In fact, our temperatures are a lot more palatable, believe me, because we have 400 bars and 2,500 restaurants and the cooling breezes that come off the Mississippi River and Lake Pontchartrain. But as anyone who ever booked a ski week at Thanksgiving and found themselves skidding down rock-flecked slopes or gambled on a quiet hurricane season only to get caught in a Caribbean squall can testify, coordinating time and destination can be tricky. Still, if New Orleans in August is one of those consistently wrong time, wrong place scenarios, you wouldn't guess it from the sweat-stained tourists wandering the French Quarter this month. About 100 professional meetings will draw 75,000 attendees to the Big Easy in August.