We had a great night with the gang in New Orleans visiting jazz bars, drinking wine and hitting a great pizza joint when we could drink no more! We had arranged to hang out with Jason and Joanne the next day as they were visitors too and had some time to sight see with us. We worked online in our fancy pants campsite until check out at 11. We enquired about parking nearby (as we would be leaving that night) and they recommended that parking just outside of the gates was fine and that we could stay there the night for a reduced rate of $50!! We declined and said we would just park there for now and walked the 2 miles into town to meet Joe and Jason. We wandered the sunny streets and in and out of touristy shops and listened to impromptu jazz bands on the cobbles. We grabbed some lunch at an oyster bar and decided to hit the movies for a relaxed afternoon. As we arrived at the cinema Alex checked his email (as he was carrying his laptop with him) and found a message from our friend Jacques (who planned our Hawaiian wedding for us) saying that someone had called him asking for our details as they had found a bag of our personal belongings! I instantly knew we had been robbed. There was no other way anyone could have found Jacques details or our things. We said our rushed goodbyes to Jason and Joanne and ran the now 3 miles back to Peggy. We got there breathless and almost hysterical. It was broad daylight, we had parked in a $50 a night parking space and we had been broken into! They had attempted to smash the front passenger side window with a brick, the scratches in the glass explained. They had given up after several tries and managed to smash the back window. They had gone in the van and been through EVERYTHING. They had taken all they could carry. Clothes, camera, lenses, Ipod, docking station, Alex’s old laptop, shoes, an electric hob, paperwork, our wine, all of our credit and debit cards…just everything they could carry! I was distraught! I ran to the campsite (meters away) and asked if I could use the phone to call the police. We were told to stay put and wait. We also called the number of the man who had called Jacques. His name was Jim and he explained that he had heard a racket outside his house, looked and saw a bag of things being thrown out of a car door. In that back he found clothes, shoes, paperwork and an electric hob! In the paperwork he had found Jacques number and contacted him immediately. This was at 12.30. They must have been waiting for us to leave the van as we left at 12. Jim had in the process of finding Jacques information also found one of our postcards and subsequently looked us up online. He was so excited to speak to Alex and invited us to hold a wedding in his rose garden there and then! Alex explained kindly that we couldn’t think about a wedding until we had secured our camper and spoken to the police but thank you all the same! Jim happily arranged for his neighbour to drop our things to us while we waited for the police, we were just around the corner. Within half an hour Jennifer (the kind neighbour) arrived with a bag of our things. Luckily the items the thieves had decided against keeping belonged to Clockwork Couture. We were so relieved. Donna had loaned us the items free of charge and on top of the cost of replacing all of the things that had been stolen we would have had to replace $3000 worth of clothing as well! We thanked Jennifer profusely and skulked back to sit in Peggy and wait for the police. We waited and waited and waited and eventually as it got dark decided we could wait no longer. We couldn’t risk staying there that night with a broken window by our heads. We cleared up the glass and put everything we could back in its home. I cried the whole time. Peggy is our home and it had been violated. I couldn’t be angry, all we could think was that whoever took such a huge risk to break into the van in daylight must have been desperate. They must have needed the things more than we did. New Orleans has had a tough time in recent years and is still struggling to pull itself together with no support from the expected channels. I was just so sad for them, for us, for the camera and the images we had lost yet again. I know some who read this will be thinking how silly we were to leave the camera in the van yet again, I agree with you but it is so difficult. We thought we had done everything to protect our home. We had asked if she would be safe, we intended to be back before dark, we have and alarm light flashing on the dash, everything is locked AND at the end of the day we have the same false sense of security we all have that when your belongings are in your home they are safe. We have parked plenty of places where we have thought twice but here we just didn’t even consider theft! Stupidly! By the time we had cleared up enough to drive, found where we were heading (a secure campsite) and pulled ourselves together enough we had given up completely on the police. We stopped by the station and asked how much longer we should wait and if we could report the crime there but were turned away being told that we would never get our things back. Tail between our legs we drove to a secure campsite for the night. We covered our broken window with bin bags and tape and got some rest. Of course the next day was a Saturday and making enquiries about getting Peggy a replacement window was slow going. We tried all day to find a supplier with no joy, we gave up at 5pm, cooked dinner and drank wine and tried to cheer each other up. Sunday brought another fruitless day on the window front so instead we gave up and drove to Mississippi to our friends house. We met Rick and Susan in Hawaii after they had seen us get married during the dolphin show. We had stayed in touch ever since and decided to call in on them as we were relatively nearby. It was so lovely to see such friendly faces. We met their two sons and ate dinner all the while chatting. We forgot all about the rubbish of the break in and talked about the amazing weddings we had experienced and all of the great people we have met. Their friendly faces definitely snapped us out of our feeling sorry for ourselves and we enjoyed spending a few days with the Snyder family. We went to watch Jason play football and Susan took us on a tour around Crystal Springs and to meet her Mum who was just SO lovely and reminded me a lot of my own Grandmother. Speding time with lovely people really cheered us up and made us feel ready to pick ourselves up, brush ourselves off and hit the road again. As always, we said some sad farewells but looked forward to the road ahead, we were heading onto the Natchez Trace Parkway, “a 444 mile long road through exceptional scenery and 10,000 years of North American History”. We drove through the most incredible fall colours, it is difficult to believe that these colours exist in nature. Pinks, oranges and reds that can only resemble a childs paint palette cling to the trees while their thin limbs stretch into the chilly air around us. We drove until dusk chased us off the road and into a small lay-by. There are so many things to see along the parkway and a map tells you what is at each milepost. We typically had stopped at ‘Witches dance’! An information board explained that this is where the witches of the past danced into the night casting spells and mixing potions and that if you walked the trail you would see several perfect circles where grass would no longer grow! GREAT! We spun around in the van at every twig that cracked or every owl that hooted but we were just too tired to move and there was a toilet where we had parked…not that we would be brave enough to walk to it in the pitch dark!