NOLA - The Broken Dishes Way

SO and I have been in New Orleans all week. It is my first time here and he hasn't been here in a few decades. It's been hot, sticky and a bit rainy the whole week. This is not my kind of weather and don't see myself getting used to it.

Even with the hot stickiness bearing down on us, we've made our way around pretty well.

Our first day, we took the street car to the northeast corner of the French Quarter to go to an aquatic gardens nursery where there were many cool things to buy but they were large things like fountains and pottery and the store didn't have the resources to get it back to us and we couldn't figure out a way to do it ourselves. RATS! All I got was a cool hat.

After that, we walked and walked and walked through the French Quarter and stopped to do a few things on our wish list which included a couple of tours, Jackson Square and beignets. When we were almost back to the hotel, we stopped into a bar on Bourbon St. for a frosty alcoholic concoction. Thinking I am still 22 years old, I ordered "The Jester" which contained a couple of different very strong liquors and tasted like strawberries and kiwi. Turns out, I'm no longer 22 and within an hour of drinking it, the world was not such a pretty place...but I eventually rallied and we were able to go out to dinner that night to one of the restaurants I have always wanted to visit, K-Paul's -- which did not disappoint.

The next day, we headed off to the Garden District and took a self-guided tour using my trusty AAA guide book. About half way through, we got caught in a hellacious rain storm and hid under a tree for the better part of an hour. After we emerged, we found ourselves one tiny block from this home:











It was Trent Reznor's home of Nine Inch Nails fame!!! This is one of SO's favorites...now it's John Goodman's home which could be exciting if you used to be a fan of the Roseanne show. It was hard to get a good picture. The home is actually pretty large.

From here we went over to one of the old cemetaries -- spooky! We ended up chatting with a couple of people who were taking care of one of the crypts and they warned us that the cemetary is a little dangerous. Actually, the man we were talking to was carrying a gun, so that tells you something.

The afternoon was spent rummaging around on Magazine Street which has a number of antique stores -- unfortunately, stores close early (5:00 PM) so our rummaging was cut short.

During the course of the days we were there, several times we saw these cool signs that were signed by "Simon" -- we wanted to buy a couple but felt the price was a little high...imagine our surprise we stumbled onto the artist working in his studio during our last afternoon of scouting around. Here's a little sample:














We ended up commissioning a couple of signs that should be ready in a couple of months.

But, all good things must come to an end and sure enough, after chowing down on sufficient amounts of red beans and rice, gumbo, fried oysters and catfish, sweet potato pecan pie, blackberry cobbler, corn maque choux, crawfish, fried green tomatoes and beef with debris sauce, it was time to hit the road. We left few things left to do on our list though...