Tuesday, 1 October 2018: New Orleans

On the road by 8am this morning...that’s pretty darned good for us.  Any time we might have gained we lost as we headed toward Atlanta.  Justin knew we should have pressed last night to get farther south, but we were just too tired.  Justin was jumping out of his skin in the traffic.  I don’t make as good time, but my blood pressure stays pretty level thankfully.  We stopped and switched drivers once we were passed Atlanta and continued on our way.

Dang it if we didn’t get stopped near Evergreen, Alabama.  The state trooper said Justin had failed to signal when changing lanes.  Really?  Ok...  As many miles as we put on our car, it is a wonder there aren’t more stops like that.  

I was so excited when I found a pet-friendly air BnB right in the French Quarter.  It was a bit too expensive, but it was New Orleans!  We off loaded luggage and navigated parking (another $30/day).  When we first entered, we were so, so pleased. 

They’d redone a block long building into 
maybe five or six separate flats.  We had an open concept living room/dining room/kitchen, separate bedroom, bathroom with full sized washer and dryer.  There were fabulous wooden floors.  But wait...  What!?!?  The dryer was running when we got there.  There were 13 bath towels in there plus a few hand towels and wash cloths.  It would have taken a week 

for them to thoroughly dry.  We divided the load into four parts and decorated the house as we shifted them through another cycle in the dryer.  And, the coffee pot didn’t  work.  The internet didn’t work...aargh.  I’ll need to keep looking for the perfect spot.  

We had a dining experience at The Joint for lunch.  We’d been here a couple of years ago with Steven and Barbie Marco.  We remembered the BBQ as quite good and we were not disappointed.  

We made a quick stop at PetSmart to get a slicker and comb for Gemma before we started on a walking tour of the Garden District.  We really turned it into a driving tour since it was so hot...or at least so hot for us.

We stumbled across the Bombay Club in the back on a parking garage and it was a great find.  It was old world charm tucked away in the back corner of the Big Easy.  The pianist was a master of stride numbers reminiscent of Scott Joplin and ragtime.  Our dinner there was fabulous.  We started with a duck and andouille gumbo then a Caesar salad.  We rounded off our dinner with a Boudin scotch egg (a hard boiled egg wrapped in boudin sausage with the yolk replaced with hollandaise sauce sits 

atop braised black eyed peas with bacon) before we topped it all off with a brownie topped with Guinness ice cream and oodles of toasted pecans.

We went to the Bombay Club first and then went on to something more raw.  New Orleans never disappoint to provide good music and a good time.  If this is how we were winding down our honeymoon, we were going to make the best of it.  Justin and I didn’t close up Bourbon Street but if we’d had a curfew, we might have not met it.