Applause is Nice, But it Don't Buy No Red Beans and Rice!

William and I had a wonderful mini-vacation in the Big Easy! Here's a little taste...

Friday
We left around noon and had a pretty easy drive down -- Will drove six hours, I drove two -- I'd call that even. The best part of the drive had to be rocking out to "2 Legit 2 Quit" while driving over the bayou. That's what happens when you forget your Ipod.

When we get to New Orleans, our trusty GPS starts leading the way to our hotel. I had typed in the address correctly but little did I know there are THREE Lee's in N.O. -- st, ct, and cir. We were staying on circle but the GPS randomly chose Lee Steet. Which happened to be in the ninth ward. Which we arrived at at about 9pm. Not the smartest move we've ever made.

Eventually we made it to the hotel and were unpacking in our room. Then I casually ask, "Babe, where's your suit bag?" Mind you this bag had all of Will's nice shirts for the weekend and our church clothes we packed as we had planned to go to mass at St. Louis Cathedral. Scratch that idea. We left the suit bag at home! Luckily Will had packed a couple t-shirts and he had his Northface so he wouldn't freeze. Later we hit up the Banana Republic...

I'd say the theme for this weekend was forgetfulness.

Saturday
We woke up early and walked to the French Quarter to have breakfast at Petunia's. It is the cutest little pink restuarant with the best french toast you will ever have. Like I said earlier, the diets were off!

Afterwards, I spent the morning trying to recall one semesters worth of photography class two and half years ago and take some blog-worthy photos of the french quarter. I'm not sure I succeeded but I'll post them anyways. Any tips would be appreciated. I hope one day to be able to call myself an "amateur" photographer, if only to be able to take cute pictures of my children. I brought along my dad's SLR camera so I could work on my "skills" but the only problem....it's a Canon AE-1 from the early eighties and he lost the flash. Soooo it was hit or miss, but I think a few might have some potential.

After lunch at Mother's, we strolled through the Garden District. Gorgeous! We also drove out to the Degas House. He is my favorite artist so that was my special treat :) Degas lived in N.O. for a short while and this was the only house he lived and painted in that he let visitors come into his studio and view his work. And now it's a B&B! I'm pretty sure it should be a museum, but who am I to say.

That night we ventured down Bourbon Street. Bad Idea. It started out with one innocent hurricane and Pat O'Briens. Let's just say the next morning got a late start.

Sunday
We slept. A lot. Finally we got up and about and headed over to Magazine Street which is lined with cute boutiques and restaurants. We had lunch there and drove it rather than walked-- it's six miles long! We headed back to the F.Q. -- oh yeah, after a nap -- and just strolled until dinner at Deanie's.

That night we took a Haunted Tour of the French Quarter which sounds really hokey but it wasn't at all! It was more a history lesson with some twisted tales thrown in the mix. No ghosts or goblins jumping out of the woodwork...New Orleans has such a seedy past it doesn't need any special effects to be creepy!

After round two at Cafe Du Monde we called it an early night. I wonder why.

Monday
Up early and back to Petunia's for our last morning in N'awlins. We checked out of our hotel early and then headed out to City Park.

City Park is a massive park with the largest collection of mature live oaks in the country. It also has a golf course, amusement park, botanical gardens, etc. that make maneuvering this area kind of confusing. So needless to say it took us about an hour, seriously, to find one specific tree, the famous Duelling Oaks. While the Duelling Oaks used to consist of two massive trees, only one is left standing today and it is massive! Beneath these trees was where many Creole men came to duel in order to protect their honor in the early-mid 1800's. I love Louisiana oaks; their limbs drape all the way to the ground, and it's crazy to think that some of them have been there for 600+ years!

We took a detour on our way out of town and back through the 9th ward so I could see it in daylight. While driving it at night was not the safest thing we've ever done, it's perfectly safe during the daytime. It's very sad to see so many houses, four years later, still untouched with X's on the doors. However, you can see the progress being made with all the rebuilds popping up.

Because we got a later start than expected, the drive home was long and tiring. We got home around 10:30pm, left the untouched suitcases on the floor, and crawled into bed.

All around, great weekend! I'm posting pics on a separate post because this post is long enough already, and I hate maneuvering pictures around all this text!

xo, Lynds