A bit of a preface before we begin.

This post is about half of my most recent trip. Or rather, trips. One trip was jam packed with man-made stuff which I photographed quite a bit of and the other trip was brimming with natural wonders that I either got tired of photographing or couldn’t get to the camera fast enough. I will now talk about one of them. And show you some slides.

Day One:

I left the house around 4:30am with Teacher Sis. We wrangled up the other members of our party and started the long drive to New Orleans. The drive was relatively uneventful if you don’t consider traffic and trying to force yourself to stay awake as eventful. The long and short of the drive down is that we made there around 5 in the afternoon. Teacher Sis’s dad got us the sweet hook-up at a suite in the CBD (central business district) which pretty much put Team Party in prime position for doing what they came to do. I, however, was leaving Team Party to rejoin Team Sandwich. Around 6-ish, Dave and Little Miss Cotton showed up at the Jellyroll Executives Suites (where we were staying) and grabbed me. From there we headed to their house to change clothes (mainly LMC who had just got off of work) and then to the Joint for a barbecue dinner. I had the smoked sausage sandwich while admiring their collection of Yee-Haw Industries prints that lined the walls. And I petted this handsome little guy:

That is a BBQ cat. After dinner we rested for a bit before heading to Chickie Wah Wah to see Karolina Djembalaya and hear Brother Tyrone. I drank a strange concoction of soda water, orange juice, bitters, and pineapple that KD made for me. It was delicious. Also, I saw this:

After many conversations about rolling dice and Star Trek TNG, we left the bar and headed to another shittier bar. One of the reggae variety. Not for shitty music and drinks, but to eat amazing pork tacos at the Honduran restaurant in the back of the place. Then it was bedtime. Or couch time for me, rather.

Day Two:

My second day in NOLA began with breakfast here:

Which consisted of this:

Yes, that is a cornbread waffle topped with duck and sweet potato mash and red pepper jelly. And yes, it was awesome.

After breakfast, we headed over to rent me a bike. Or rather, a trike. It was at this point that I became the first person in the history of the bike shop to actually rent the trike. That is how, I roll. Think that I’m dorky? What have you done in New orleans that’s the first of anything? Now who is lame?

After I procured my wheels, we headed off to see the town. I saw this and thought of you White Chocolate:

And we stopped here for a rest and I thought of you Prince Jazzbo:

At some pint we meandered to Cafe Du Monde for coffee and beignets:

After that, there was a brief rest before heading down to the Satchmo Music Festival to hear the Stooges. Awesome. And I ate a soft shell crab po’ boy. That pretty much wound up my trip to New Orleans. After there, I said my goodbyes, headed back to the hotel for a repacking of the suitcase and a hot shower, and a nap under a towel before my plane. That was until the phone rang at midnight. This is when American Airlines informed me that my flight at 6am was delayed until 10am because they didn’t have crew to fly it. The only problem with this was that if I caught the 10am flight, I’d miss my connecting flights to St. Thomas. So, they took the liberty to reschedule the whole flight schedule which make me get into St. Thomas at 8:15pm. So much for my planning.

Tune in tomorrow for the other half of this adventure to see if I caught the ferry to Cruz Bay and the last shuttle of the night to Maho Bay.

To be continued…

More soon. ~SC