The Road West: Some of that Bourbon Street Stank

We spent the day in New Orleans today. What a city.

Cafe du Monde

Delicious Beignets!

We got up around 9, some of us somewhat hungover. Went downstairs for our complementary hot breakfast which literally was nothing but waffles. We walked through the French Quarter to Cafe du Monde. We had some great coffee and beignets at the famous cafe stand.

French Quarter

We then got in the car and took a field trip around New Orleans. First stop was the Lower Ninth Ward. This was the area that was completely destroyed during Katrina. The neighborhood, which was already kind of a poor area, showed signs of both absolute abandonment in parts, and then regrowth and rebuilding from the various charity organizations (like Habitat for Humanity) of some homes and a new school.

Lower 9th Ward, 5 years later.

One rebuilt house on an empty block

This was a somber moment on an otherwise exciting and fun trip. There were even some houses still left abandoned since the hurricane with the rescue cross on the front, noting inhabitants/bodies etc.

Spray painted symbol means entered on September 11, by task force 1162, house not safe for entry (NE), no bodies found.

From there we explored other areas of the city, specifically the park in Uptown. We took a nice walk here around the bird pond under some spanish moss. It was a balmy 71 degrees in New Orleans today.

Bird pond.

Some nice spanish moss.

We ate at Mother's for lunch and had some really good New Orleans soul food. We had turkey, roast beef and ham poboys, fried shrimp poboys, gumbo, and jambalaya.

Riverboat!

Regina posing in front of the hot teens.

After lunch we took a 2-3 hour siesta back at the hotel, and then went out for dinner and drinks back in the French Quarter. We ate at Coop's Place, got some fried chicken, gumbo, jambalaya, and red beans and rice. Some of the best food of this trip came from today.

Eric getting his drank on.

We made our way to Bourbon Street, where we all got more alcoholic slushies, walked around and took in all the riff-raff, and went into a few bars. We ran into a 40 year old couple, of which the wife was incoherently drunk. She had a prophet-like word for each of us. She first hugged and kissed Kelly, telling her that she was "gorgeous!" Looked at Regina poked her, and told her "you never tell the truth!" Moved on to Eric, stared at him, and said "you look like a Jersey asshole!" Tom came in late, and when prompted she looked at him and yelled "you're so goood looking!" It gave us a laugh, and we wished them a good night, and carried on.

Silly hipsters think that the broken thrown bar chair is art.

Regina and Kelly both got on the mechanical bull at one of the bars, and started actually started a line of girls who wanted to go and ride the bull too.