New Orleans, LA

On our drive home to San Angelo our first pit-stop was New Orleans (how do you pronounce that???).  The drive around the gulf was really beautiful.  There were long, long bridges across miles of shallow marshy water.  There were bare trees growing up out of the water, and it was eerily foggy while we were driving.  It was kind of creepy and I kept wondering why someone decided to build a bridge there, and why was it so long??

It took about 5 hours to get to New Orleans.  I tried to get a really awesome picture of a barge on a river, but I couldn't get my camera out fast enough and Paul wouldn't slow down, so this is what I got instead:

We got stuck in New Orleans traffic and spilled turtle water all over the front of the van during the stop and go.  We used Brenda (our GPS) to get us to the Naval Air Station where we had booked a room.  We waited in line for quite a while and then found out that we were actually staying at the other Navy Inn.  It might have been helpful for them to put the address of the hotel on the confirmation page, but they didn't.  So we drove some more.  We finally checked in and drove to the hotel, but our key didn't work.  So we drove back and forth again and finally got in our room.

Our plan was to take the Algiers Ferry across the Mississippi river to get to the french quarter, AKA where everyone goes to experience New Orleans.  We took Brenda out in the dark and followed her through a sketchy neighborhood (emphasis on the sketchy) toward the ferry.  I lost some faith in her when she had us in the sketchiest of sketchiness and said "YOU HAVE ARRIVED".  uhhh ... no, we hadn't arrived anywhere.  So we went baaaack to the hotel, looked up the real address and eventually found the ferry.  We parked the car in a sketchy lot and hoped that we'd find all of our stuff (6 weeks worth of it) in the car when we got back.

We made it across the river (which I did spit in) on this ferry.  There were a lot of people on the other side, which was comforting.  I had studied a map enough that I kind of knew my way around the streets.  So, we just started walking.  We happened upon a restaurant that I had read about and decided to eat there.  It was called The House of Blues.

We walked through a brightly painted alleyway to get to the front door and there were some employees ushering concert goers into a line.  I asked one of them what the concert was that night and he said, kind of laughing, that it was a burlesque show.  hmm, well yeah, we didn't go.

Dinner was good.  We both ordered southern dishes (I forget what they were at the moment), and I thought it was delicious.  But I have to remember that I was absolutely starving by the time we got our food, so I might've just been enjoying the fact that my tummy wasn't rummbling anymore.

The streets of New Orleans were historical and colorful.  We walked Royal Street, Canal Street, Bourbon Street, and the streets in between.  I enjoyed the jazzy, southern, Louisiana feel.  Bourbon street was packed, and looked like it could be fun if you were drunk or wanted to get some.  or both.

We took the ferry back and luckily our car was still locked and full of our stuff.

The next day we drove on to Houston.