After a delicious breakfast with the Houston branch of the Jimenez family, Billy and I started our drive from Houston to New Orleans. We were driving on the I-10 for about an hour, when I hit dead stopped traffic. Not crawling traffic, but just STOPPED traffic. We sat there for about 20 minutes and had inched up maybe 100 feet. Billy told me I should drive to the shoulder then cross the grassy median and get on the service road. We had seen someone else do it, but there was no way I was going to do that. So Billy and I ran around the car and switched seats, and HE drove over the median. Right after we did that, a few people followed suit. But it turns out the cops closed down the I-10 compeletely and they were forcing everyone to exit onto that service road. But Billy's quick thinking probably saved us about an hour. Unfortunately, because of the detour off the freeway, we ended up sitting in an hour's worth of traffic anyway. We found out that there had been a pretty bad accident that shut down the freeway for a few hours.
The drive from Houston to New Orleans was beautiful. The swamps were unbelieveable and the highway is basically just bridges that go for huge stretches over the swamp and rivers like the Mississippi.
Also at the Acadian Cultural Center, there was a very in-depth exhibit about Gilbert du Motier, marquis de La Fayette, who is now Billy's hero. The marquis de La Fayette was involved in the American revolution, was a great general, adopted by George Washington, and an abolitionist. This was a great informative stop, and the ranger was very helpful.
After settling in at the hotel, we made our way to Bourbon Street and had dinner at Pat O'Briens Courtyard Restaurant. The food was pretty good but the atmosphere was excellent. The courtyard was actually like a wide alley sandwiched between two great buildings. I had the crawfish cakes and Billy had the jambalaya.
After dinner, we did a small Bourbon Street crawl and hit a few of the bars. We went to Famous Door (where we enjoyed some live music and drinks, and where a hilarious older gentleman made me dance to Bon Jovi with him), Cajun Cabin (where we watched Sportscenter, drank and listened to some Cajun music) and Absinthe House (where we drank and enjoyed the great atmosphere). Bourbon Street was a little dead but I think it was because it was Monday night.
The next morning, we hit my favorite place in New Orleans...Cafe du Monde. Cafe du Monde is an New Orleans institution and it only serves coffee and beignets. Since we don't drink coffee, you can guess why we go. Beignets are French-donuts, but to better explain it, it's like funnel cake with powdered sugar dumped on it. It is yummy, yummy, yummy. Also, the atmosphere at the original Cafe du Monde is wonderful. It's all open, so you can people watch and listen to someone strumming their guitar outside.
Next, we took a walking tour of the French Quarter, looking at the architecture and reading about some of the historic buildings. Like this one, known as the Haunted House, where a woman was found to have tortured and chained her slaves in the basement. When the town found out, they ran her out of town and she escaped to Europe, but it's said that the slaves still haunt the house. The French Quarter has such a great vibe though and it's really awesome to see all of the different types of houses and buildings.
For lunch, we met up with our friend Farrah for lunch and she took us to this great restaurant, Gumbo House in the Quarter. I had the chicken and sausage gumbo and Billy had the hot roast beef po' boy. I kid you not, when I tell you that Billy's sandwich was very possibly the best sandwich I'd ever eaten. It was delicious. And actually my gumbo was pretty awesome too. I would definitely recommend this restaurant. It had the best food that we ate in NOLA, it was affordable and it had a great ambiance. Check this place out!
After lunch, Billy and I made our way to the Garden District to check out the stately old mansions. This was originally the American part of town (the Creoles thought that the homes here were garish and tacky). It's also now the home of Anne Rice, author of Interview with a Vampire, Peyton Manning, John Goodman and Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails. The houses here were beautiful and worth the hour walk it took to get there. (Well, we weren't going to walk, we were going to take the streetcar. But turns out the streetcar isn't running all the way down the street anymore. So we needed to take the bus. But we didn't have change for the bus. So we had to stop and break a $20. Then we needed to wait for the bus. But we kept walking in between all of this. So by the time we caught the bus, I think we were only like 3 blocks away from where we needed to be. It was hot and nasty and tiring.) But it was worth the terrible walk!
After this, we needed a break, so we went back to the hotel and took a dip in the pool. When we had recovered we walked around the Quarter looking for a place to eat and ended up at Arnaud's Remoulade. Billy had the meat pies which we pretty tasty and I had a shrimp po' boy, which was good but nothing special.
I was exhausted so we went back to the hotel around 10:30 and just hung out.
The next morning, guess where we had breakfast? Cafe du Monde, again. LOL. Sorry, I love beignets. How can you beat 3 beignets for $1.59???
We checked out of our hotel and started our drive to Biloxi, Mississippi. The drive on the I-10 was pretty sad. Destruction from Hurricane Katrina and Rita was still evident in places and you could see trailers everywhere in people's driveways. We stopped to get gas, and the gas station was the only thing that was open. Restaurants and stores were boarded up and closed. But New Orleans really felt like people were trying to get on and doing a good job of it. And the Quarter seems like not much had changed.
Anyway, we drove to Biloxi, why else, but because of the casinos! All of the casinos were completely demolished by the hurricane (Biloxi is right on the Gulf Coast), but they rebuilt them right away because they are such a huge part of the economy there. All the casinos were brand spanking new! We hit Imperial Palace first and came away $160 richer, the hit the Hard Rock where we lost a little. Both casinos were gorgeous!
Biloxi was very sad. You could tell so much had been destroyed in the hurricane, but I'll tell you what -- all the casinos were booming! The beach was also really cute. Maybe Billy and I will come back.
After Biloxi we made our next stop - Atlanta. We didn't get in until 10 at night, but we are thankfully staying with Billy's family who so graciously took us in. They have a beautiful house north of Atlanta and it was great to catch up with the whole family!
Tomorrow...Charleston!
I can't believe we will be back in Ohio in a few days.
So who knows what the title of the post means?
