In 2015, Nathan's birthday present was to see the LSU-USC game in Columbia, but the 1000 year flood hit Columbia. The game was moved to Baton Rouge and Nathan and I took a road trip to see it. On the way, we visited New Orleans for about 30 minutes and I got a road trip shirt. So I wore this shirt the day we left for Louisiana to run the half marathon!
Showing off my shirt at our first Bu-cee's stop. Clean bathrooms and chocolate covered caramels!
Florida dolphin
We drove off the highway into Tallahassee for dinner at a NOLA inspired restaurant called Harry's Seafood. We probably should have just waited for New Orleans for NOLA food!
Pretty lights in Tallahassee
Our first night's stop was in Pensacola and it was nice that we got an extra hour to our day!
Friday was our Big Easy day! But we had to get there. We still had to drive through Alabama, Mississippi and then arrive in Louisiana.
Alabama
Mississippi
Finally made it to Louisiana
Our first stop in New Orleans was to drop our car and luggage off at the Royal Sonesta. Caleb greeted us and helped us get everything arranged so that we could sightsee in NOLA.
As we left our hotel, we heard jazz coming from a courtyard across the street. It was super cool!
Our hotel was on Bourbon St.
Before we got on our hop on hop off tour bus, we went to Johnny's Po'boys for a tasty lunch! First meal in NOLA was a success. Chrissy and I got shrimp po'boys and Tara got oysters,
We got on the bus near the French Quarter. The sights were super cool to see, especially the neighborhoods. We got off a few times. The first was at Our Lady of Guadalupe Church. I think we walked in on mass or a healing service.
Some of the sights we saw while on the tour bus....
St. Louis Cemetery No. 1
Caesar's Superdome
Houses along the Mardi Gras parades route. You can see beads in the trees where people on the floats throw them to people. At this part of the parade, we were told it was very family friendly and they toss beads to everyone.
More beads in trees
Let the good times roll
St. Louis Cathedral
At another stop we went into St. Patrick's Cathedral, the Irish church in NOLA.
Another stop was at the Mississippi River.
We also got off at Magazine St. to look in some shops. We also went into a bakery, Haydel's, and tried to buy a slice of King Cake. The lady there said they were sold out, however, she had some we could sample. And it was really good!! First time eating King Cake, which is really a cinnamon brioche bread with icing.
We got off the tour bus for the last time at the French Quarter, near the market. And at Cafe de Monde for beignets!
We walked back to our hotel by way of the French Market where I got a Christmas ornament and some beads. Then we walked through Jackson Park...
took an alley to get back to Bourbon St. and found a bookstore that was housed in William Faulkner's old house. It was a really cool store and inspired me to read The Sound and the Fury. (I managed to read the first, very confusing chapter and have quit!)
We made made it back to Bourbon St. and it had changed a lot since when we left that morning. There were lots of people getting their party started and it smelled of weed everywhere. We also saw the National Guard, but that was a good thing.
It was time to check into the hotel and they gave us a room that opened onto the terrace around the courtyard. It was very pretty.
Unfortunately, as we left the door open to our room, we realized the room was now smelling like weed! So much for our idea of sitting outside later that evening!
We didn't want to venture too far from the hotel for dinner because Bourbon St. was a little out of our comfort zone, and smelly! (Although the tour guides kept telling us that most Mardi Gras parades were family friendly, they did say Bourbon St. was not so family friendly, and we can attest to that!) But we did get a good meal of pasta at Mambo's.
Shrimp and crawfish alfredo.
After a good dinner, we headed out to Bourbon St. to walk back to the hotel. We were surprised that the street was less scary after dark, although still smelled of weed!
We decided to get out of the smell and head to the jazz lounge at the hotel. What could be more New Orleans than listening to jazz? Well we learned that another thing that is popular in NOLA is a burlesque show. And we discovered what one was! Let's just say we were very surprised and even though it smelled better, we still went to our room early!
The next morning we had our cemetery tour. It was super interesting and all the tombs were above ground due to lack of space in the city. The protestant part of the cemetery was not above ground. I guess they could fit the few protestants in the ground! Nicolas Cage bought a tombstone there for when he dies.
Nicolas Cage's tomb
We found someone who escaped the cemetery!
We also went to St. Roch Cemetery. Saint Roch is the saint of miraculous cures and inside this chapel are crutches and prosthetics that people have left there. Unfortunately, the chapel was locked.
The last thing we did on the way out of New Orleans was to stop at the King Cake Hub. This is a place where many bakeries sell their King Cakes. We bought one to have after the race and one for the Bible Study ladies in Charleston.
Our King Cake was a heathen one it turns out! Instead of a baby, there was a creepy clown. Who knew there was a difference! Apparently there are a lot of things we did not know until our trip to the Big Easy! We had a great time, but it was definitely an eye opening experience!
Let the good times roll!!
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