My husband accepted an invitation to speak at a professional conference in New Orleans, Louisiana in May. It was over our 14th wedding anniversary, and we hadn't been away together in about 4 years, so I worked it out to tag along. (Thanks Mom and two sisters for watching the kids! Nana was a genius and bribed Sister with cat videos to help things go smoothly).
New Orleans had never been on my radar, but I found SO many interesting things to do as I researched, and it ended up being one of my favorite places ever.
The plantation was beautiful. It was surreal being in a place where slavery was a way of life at one time:
The roast beef po boy from Mother's was another favorite food. We went back a second time later in the week:
The beignets at Cafe du Monde weren't too shabby either. We shared a plate of these after midnight two nights in a row:
We Googled our own walking tours, which worked great for the French Quarter. Tons of interesting history, and I was frequently reminded of Disneyland's New Orleans Square:
The one we did for the Garden District was a little confusing, but walking in circles in a neighborhood full of houses like these was fine with me:
This house was used in the movie The Curious Case of Benjamin Button:
The nearby cemetery closed ridiculously early, around 4:00! I got about 10 minutes to explore and never made it back there or to any of the other options in the area. And I call myself a lover of graveyards!
When I read the popular jazz club Preservation Hall didn't have air conditioning--even in mid-May the weather was very hot and humid--we opted to catch some music at Irvin Mayfield's Jazz Playhouse. It was two older black guys on saxophone and guitar and a middle-aged Asian man and woman on keyboard and drums, respectively. They were really great.
We went to the World War II Museum on our last day in town. Historian and writer Stephen Ambrose helped found it, and it was extremely well done.
They even had a picture of a young Kurt Vonnegut with a short explanation of his terrible experiences:
Another thing I noticed, this time in the delightful Besthoff Sculpture Garden at the New Orleans Museum of Art: they use dry pine needles in their landscape design. They were purposefully placed all over as ground cover and around trees:
The oak trees with resurrection fern and Spanish moss on them were gorgeous:
Here I am standing on the levee built to keep the Mississippi River out. Behind me is Jackson Square with St. Louis Cathedral in the center, and to either side, the Cabildo and Presbytere buildings that now house museums that I really enjoyed going through. The exhibit on Hurricane Katrina, which hit 10 years ago, was especially intriguing.
This print by a local artist entitled, "Godzilla vs. The Big Easy" was a perfectly quirky souvenir that I had to get. I'm going to start looking for art to remember my trips by:
I was so happy to get a second chance to buy an alligator head after I didn't bring one home from Florida several years ago. This guy is on my family room mantle now:
