OK guys, this weekend will be my wife and myself's 22 wedding anniversary and instead of getting gifts, we decided to spend the weekend in the French Quarter of New Orleans. We will be staying at the Andrew Jackson Hotel, a 300 year old establishment that is on the registry of National Historic Places, 1 block south of Bourbon Street (woohoo) and supposedly haunted. The history goes that in the 1700's, it was a school for boys and a fire there killed 5 young men. Paranormal groups that have investigated there and guest who have stayed there report apparitions, voices, giggling, and being poked in the back while sleeping. Not sure I'll be doing much investigating, as it is our anniversary but I do plan to set up a digital recorder when we are out of the room and take pictures with the digital camera. Needless to say, I'll keep my eyes open and let you all know if anything occured after we return. This should be pretty cool (as long as we survive the Bourbon Street crawl). Talk to you soon.

My husband and I love New Orleans but we haven't stayed at the Andrew Jackson Hotel yet. I've read about it, though, and can't wait to hear what your experiences are.

The bourbon street crawl is definitely more frightening than any ghosts could be. We've done it too many times, and we've even survived several Mardi Gras. The stories that I could tell (but won't). Let's just say that I will never be able to run for office…. but on the upside, we have a lot of great beads! /laugh.png' class='bbc_emoticon' alt=':huh:' />

Did you find the place that sells the frozen mango and champagne drinks in the big styrofoam cup? I wish I could get a keg of that and just pull it around New Orleans in a little red wagon. Shoot, who am I kidding? I'd like to pull it around my house! Happiness in a glass. /laugh.png' class='bbc_emoticon' alt=':P' />

Congrats on the beads! That makes me proud! /laugh.png' class='bbc_emoticon' alt='' /> We didn't find the frozen drink place, but my wife discovered "Hand Grenades" and needless to say, we won't be running for office either. We did alot of exploring but it seems we always ended up at a blues club called the "Funky Pirate". They had an absolutely fantasic blues player there named Mark Pentone. He was just awesome, and we were perfectly content to park our repective butts and get slowly wasted as he wailed on his guitar. It was awesome.

As far as the Andrew Jackson, this is the scoop. I can't really say for sure anything paranormal happened, but there were a few strange experienes but they could have been explained by othere factors.

We stayed in room 207 and the second floor supposedly reports the most hauntings. On the first night around 4:00 a.m. my wife was startled awake (it woke me too) and began grabbing at her back. I asked what was wrong, and she said something had touched her or crawled on her. The lights went on, and we searched for bugs (my wife hates bugs) and of course, none were found. We layed back down for an hour or so, but couldn't get back to sleep so we got up and started our day. It was about 5:30 a.m. and everything was very quiet. The French Quarter was sleeping, and we went down to the beautiful courtyard and set by the fountain to enjoy our coffee and discuss what we wanted to do. It is an inner couryard, and can only be accessed from inside the hotel. All of the Hotel's rooms access this courtyard from balconies with stairs leading down to it. On the second floor and the end of the walkway that leads to the steps is a door that leads to the inside of the hotel. As we sat enjoying our coffee, that door slowly opened and then closed. We looked at each other and my wife giggled. I got up, and went to the door to check it. There was a breeze blowing at the time, and the door wasn't latched, so I attributed this to the breeze. Sitting back down to my coffee and the quiet, we began to hear what sounded like children or a child in the distance. We both listened intently for about 10 seconds, then it was gone. We couldn't make out what was being said, and it could have been coming from outside the hotel, as there were no children in the hotel at the time, but to verify this one would have to go outside the hotel to look, and I wasn't getting off my butt for anything at the moment, I wanted to finish my coffee. At no time did we feel creepy or afraid, and as my wife so eloquently put it regarding the experience, "That was awesomesauce dude!". By then, it was around 6:00 a.m. and we headed to the Cafe Du'Mond to have Beignets and coffee and watch the sunrise.

On the second night, to make along story short, my wife was once again awakened from a dead sleep (hand grenades will do that to you) in the wee hours (this time around 5:00 a.m.) claiming she was touched in the same place on the back. Once again we looked and found nothing. Back to the courtyard for coffee. This time, I made sure the door on the second floor was closed. It didn't open this time, but once again we heard the children. It only lasted for 10 seconds or so, but this time it seemed louder although we still couldn't make out anything being said. After coffee we packed and reluctantly headed home, not really sure if anything paranormal had happened but it was "awesomesauce" just the same.

Well, that was it. The digital camera showed nothing, and the recorder was pretty much useless due to outside noises. We paln on going back the first or second week in June (haven't decided on the exact date yet) and staying at a different hotel that has a haunted reputation. Of course, if there are any experiences then, I'll report them here. And by the way, would anyone like to join us? We will be celebrating our birthdays (hers is June 1st, mine is June 8th). Let me know, and we can make arrangements. Regardless of the paranormal, it will be a great time. How can you go to the French Quarter and not have one? Let me know. J.D.