Happy Birthday, Rick. Today is my son’s 22nd birthday. On this day 22 years ago, he woke me up from a sound sleep to take care of some important business. He arrived about 4 weeks early and has been dragging his heels about things ever since.
We weren’t in any hurry today either. I didn’t have that much planned. I did want to do a trip to Cemetery #1, but it turned out to be $25 a person. It wasn’t that important to me. We saw the cemetery on the way in. So the first plan was to find breakfast. Checking the lobby meant something expensive and maybe not that good. We headed to the street to find a restaurant.
Can you believe that not that many places serve breakfast in the French Quarter? I made the executive decision to go to a little place that sounded interesting. Unfortunately, it had been replaced with a Vietnamese restaurant that wasn’t open. We backtracked a bit to Café Beignet and got coffee for Rich. He’s not really human until that first cup goes in. We found a table on the patio and got gospel songs from a homeless man. He was very good and sang “Amazing Grace,” which is one of my favorites.
Rich had a sparrow take an untimely accident on him. It wasn’t too bad and he could clean himself up. From here, I got money and we headed down to the river. I wanted to check out Jackson Brewery for lunch before going over to the French Market. I talked to the bartender for a bit and we decided to come back there.
Down the shore a bit, we entered into the French Market. The first half was a market for foods and food stands. The smells were wonderful. We stopped to try some pralines. Rich got rum, Rick got peanut butter, and I got original. They were delicious. We should have had breakfast here!
Further down, the flea market took over. Most of this was handicraft items being sold by individuals. I looked at the jewelry, but it was really good quality. I decided I could make any of that. There were leather goods and wood carvings. A few people had artwork or photographs that were interesting.
I circled back around to find the guys had gotten water and Rich a second cup of coffee. Since the coffee was still hot, we moved to the park to watch the people and talk. People watching can be quite fulfilling here in the Big Easy. There are so many different things going on at the same time.
We headed down to Jackson Brewery for lunch. Inside, we had choices to make. I would stay downstairs at the main bar, but Rich decided to sit upstairs and have a view of the Mississippi River. Rick decided not to drink quite yet. Rich had a pomegranate beer while I had the Canebrake IPA. I ordered the shrimp and grits. Rich got the alligator jambalaya and Rick got the Chignon du latté (milk pork) po’boy. The food was so wonderful. We ate and watched the world go by outside and basketball for the ACC play inside.
After lunch, I was trying to find a t-shirt for New Orleans, but not having any luck. The guys found theirs earlier this morning. We headed up St. Peter St to Bourbon St. First stop here was to the Tropical Island to try a Hand Grenade. Louie from work said that we had to do it. OK, we were game. A couple at the bar acted like they had already had several. They were excited to have someone come in and order. The taste is fruity, but with a bitter after flavor that was almost like an artificial sweetener. It wasn’t that great. However, it was pretty potent. Rick managed to lob the grenades from our drinks into the overhead basket.
While sitting at the bar, a couple of people came in and ordered shark attacks. The bartenders would sound the siren and ring the bells. A drink was set on the bar and a plastic shark was put into turning the drink completely red. It was a nice gimmick, but not one that I would try to drink for. As it was, I couldn’t finish the drink I had. We slipped out and I deposited my cup in the trash. The guys kept their souvenir glasses and headed back to the hotel. We tried it, Louie.
I was still on the hunt for a t-shirt. I had seen a large shop on Bourbon St that I wanted to check out. The guys left me to shop and headed to the hotel. I walked around the shop, but nothing looked like what I wanted. If anything came close, it was not in my size. I might have to go home without a shirt to commemorate my visit.
At the hotel, I got on the elevator with a family of 5 from Texas. I know they were from Texas because the Mom, Dad, and the eldest son said it about 5 times between the two floors. I made my way through the sprawling hallways back to the room. It’s funny. The hotel seems to be built between three different buildings, which requires you to make random turns to get way to our room. It’s nice because it is us and one other room back here. Now that I know the way, it’s not too hard anymore. Learning the intricate turns was a little difficult at first.
Rich is napping. Rick is messing around some online game stuff. I’m writing up today’s blog. All of this is while we rest before taking off again. We are headed to Lafayette Square for Wednesdays on the Square. Tab Benoit and the N’Wahing Johnnies are playing. There are supposed to be food booths to buy all different kinds of foods. I’m hoping there are different kind of drinks as well. We thought we’d listen to some New Orleans blues and enjoy some time in the park. I’ll let you know how that went when we return.
So sad. We got our chairs and walked down to the park. There was no concert about to start. There were no food trucks parked waiting for people to order up food and drink. We talked to a couple of people sitting around the fountain there. Apparently, they came in and tried to set up. The wind was pretty strong so they packed it up again and sent everyone home. No concert tonight. Darn. So we packed our chairs back to the hotel.
After resting our feet for a bit, we went out to look for food and music. We already figured out that the best places to be were not on Bourbon St. Heading down Dauphine St., the first place was a martini bar that didn’t really have much food. So we had one drink and moved on. Rick did try a Stinger and really liked it. The band was OK. I didn’t care for the singer’s style, but the sound was OK. We left and headed down Iberville to a small bar the guys thought was pretty cool last night. The music didn’t start until 8:00.
In the meantime, we needed food before we could really carry on. Between them, the guys decided to try the Vietnamese restaurant from this morning’s adventure. It sounded good to me. Rich got Pho while Rick and I got different rice dishes. It was all pretty darn good. The place was really small and was filling up around us. We got enough food to be able to enjoy the evening and it was tasty.
We headed down to Decatur St. to see what was happening at Big Mama’s Blues Lounge. It was comedy night and not what we were looking for. We moved on to the jazz bar down the street. Unfortunately, the first act had finished up and the next group didn’t even show up. That’s OK because there was some pretty good blues music playing, the night was warm, and the bar was all opened up. It was a great night to be out and about in New Orleans.
Around 8:00, we picked up and moved on to Iberville and the 21st Amendment Bar. This place was tiny. There were three or four tables and the bar itself. The menu was mostly whiskey drinks, but there were some interesting mixes. I saw the Day of Death Chocolate Stout and that was my drink. Rich got the Bull in a China Shop and Rick did the peach shandy, which was surprisingly good. Shine Diehl was playing with a group of string musicians. It was kind of folk, Jazz, and ragtime with maybe a hint of old Jewish sound. It was different. Shine had this kind of donkey braying sort of laugh that he did after every song. All in all, it was pretty good though.
We finished up our drinks and the band took a break. Time for us to make a break for it also. We were all tired from walking around town. Believe it or not, we walked somewhere in the neighborhood of 18,000 steps for the day. So for all the eating and drinking, we also walked it off. Not a bad vacation.
Tomorrow is supposed to rain here and it has been raining cats and dogs in Memphis. Not sure what we will find when we head normal tomorrow. Hopefully, we can get into Memphis and back out again on Friday. I’d really like to hear more music and get to see a bit of the Beale Street areas. Wish us luck.
