New Orleans

We finally got out of Texas.  We’re now homeward bound.  But because just heading home isn’t enough fun, we’ve got more stops to go.

When I first planned this trip and mapped out how to drive to San Antonio, my various mapping programs offered two main routes.  The first was go west from Virginia, then south to Texas.  The second was go south from Virginia, then west to Texas.  We decided to take both routes in succession, doing the loop counter-clockwise.

That southern loop happens to pass through New Orleans.  So we stopped on Tuesday at New Orleans and spent the day there Wednesday.

So what did we do?

– Went for a walk on Bourbon Street upon arrival Tuesday evening.  Tons of bars, tons of strip joints, tons of live music, tons of tourists enjoying all of the above.  Not really our scene, but fun to see nevertheless.

– Spent Wednesday morning at the New Orleans Museum of Art.  A surprisingly nice collection – we enjoyed it quite a bit.

– Had beignets at Cafe Du Monde.  These are fried dough covered with powdered sugar.  Yum!

– Took a bus tour of New Orleans.  Enjoyable, though it included harrowing descriptions of Katrina, a bit too recent to be fun.  I did enjoy seeing a bunch of places from the show Treme, of which I am a fan.

On the tour, we stopped at one of the New Orleans cemeteries, where they use above-the-ground tombs like this.

Seeing one that was unoccupied, I decided to try it on for size.

– Did a little shopping on Royal Street.  Bought hats.

– Visited St Louis’s Cathedral, supposedly the oldest continuing operating cathedral in America.

– Took a mule-drawn tour through New Orleans.  Our guide was superb – he’d tell some outlandish story about a culinary concoction invented at some restaurant that we were passing and turn back to us and shout: “Are you hungry yet?”  Then he’d pull up by some shop or bar and the proprietor would come out, tell us what a great guy the guide is, and make some snide and very funny comment about him.  Here he is with Julie.

– Had an absolutely superb meal at Nola.  Highly recommended.  Would be the best meal by far of this trip if the dinner at Bohanan’s in San Antonio hadn’t also been so amazing.  The two were the best meals I’ve had in some time, though.

– Wandered Bourbon Street again.  Stopped by a jazz bar and listened to a set that included a bunch of my father’s old dixieland favorites.

All in all, a terrific day in the Big Easy.  Julie and I agree that New Orleans would be worth another trip sometime, well worth spending more than just one day.