Take me back to New Orleans

Now begins the part of the trip where I entered a photo void for basically 3 days. Sorry. I tried.  I even packed my camera charger and my uplink cord so that I could upload pictures during my trip (I had to bring my computer with me for a work thing and also so that my father-in-law could fix something.  It's such a pain to travel with a computer to two different states, especially if it's a desktop.  Haha!  Just kidding, it's really a laptop.) but I managed to leave my leave my camera at home.  I'm so prepared.  That meant all pictures would be captured by my phone's camera, which is okay but not nearly as good as my real camera.  Anyway, here's the one pic I managed to capture of our hotel:

What are you missing? Well, photos of August, where we ate dinner on Sunday night, and the delicious food we ate. Nolly and I happened to sit next to each other and we ordered the exact same thing, except I probably had the better seat because I had a full view of this guy sitting at the table next to us:

Nolly’s and my meals consisted of the gnocchi (recently featured on The Best Thing I Ever Ate), softshell crab, and we split a trio of ice creams (salted caramel, honey, and chocolate flavors, and for the record, that’s probably the order I’d rank them in) for our dessert. Everything was outstanding but if you ever have the opportunity to try the salted caramel ice cream there, for goodness’ sake, DO IT. (The same goes for the pineapple sorbet at Cedar in D.C. It’s like a pineapple froze while on the tree and then fell off directly into your mouth.) Then we went to The Columns hotel for cocktails and then to The Delachaise for more cocktails. There are zero pictures of this, as previously stated. I did have a girl loudly tell me, “Hurry it up, bitch!” at me while I was using the restroom at The Delachaise. That was lovely and so welcoming of her. She knocked on the door while I was washing my hands and I said, “Just a second!” and then she waiting literally A second before her rooting began. I don’t think she expected me to open the door literally one second after she finished giving me bathroom encouragement. The look on her face was pretty priceless, though, and I will give her credit for lamely trying to cover by telling me she liked my dress. It wasn’t sincere, though. Boo on her.

Not many other tales to tell. It was ridiculously hard to make reservations for Sunday and Monday because of the 4th of July (lots of places took the day OR WEEK off) and, no lie, because of the Essence Festival. Seriously, some places close up for the duration of the Essence Festival because they don’t want to serve the attendees. I was shocked when our friends told us that on Saturday. It’s literally like time warping back to the ‘50s. We ended up taking the suggestion of the bartender at our pool and going to dinner at a place called Snug Harbor on Monday night (very tasty, except for the death punch that Fick ordered TWO of. In his defense, he wanted to souvenir cups and he walked away a very happy man). After that, we walked back to the Quarter and watched the fireworks show on the bank of the river. Then we killed the rest of the night between Pat O’s piano bar and waiting for L to dazzle us at Cat’s Meow (unfortunately for the entire bar, there was no dazzling. Someone else had just signed up to sing L’s signature song, Humpty Dance so L was relegated to singing Keep Your Hands to Yourself by Georgia Satellites, and that's just not a good fit for the venue).

Dinner Tuesday was at Delmonico and sadly, it wasn't nearly as life-changing this time around.  Still good, but not earth shattering.  But it's also hard to really enjoy and savor your meal when your husband does not feel right as the rain.  Our traveling companions all went to NOLA that night for dinner and apparently their meal was to die for, so at least there's that. 

Wednesday morning, we got up and were determined to make the most of our last day in New Orleans which included my goal to take more pictures.  We headed over to Cafe du Monde and partook in the usual beignets and cafe au lait and then it was off to the French market.  Yes, it's touristy, but we were tourists!  And I hadn't been since I was a kid.  The good news is that if you're in New Orleans and you forget your cell phone charger, you can probably find another one on the cheap at the French Market.

After that, we stopped and explored Katrina exhibit at the Louisiana State Museum.  It's definitely worth a visit; we both really enjoyed it, at least as much as you can enjoy something that is about massive destruction and human suffering.  We got a lot out of it.  The whole thing is very well done and moving.  I have a thing about taking pictures of museums or memorials so this is the only pic I have of it; it's the ceiling when you walk into the building.  The bottles represent lives lost (I think- might have been lives impacted, but either way, this whole piece covered the entire ceiling of the room) and inside each bottle is a letter.  Each letter represents all the things that Louisiana and her impacted residents were in need of in following Katrina.  The blue glass hands hanging down represent those who gave aide in various ways.  Incredibly moving.

It was pouring outside when we finished the Katrina exhibit (the irony of which was not lost on us) so we headed upstairs to check out the Mardi Gras exhibit.  I'd seen it before (or a similar version of it) a long time ago, but the revamped bathrooms were new to me.

Hilarious!  They look like Port-o-Potties but behind the Men and Women doors, there were normal restrooms.  Very creative and helped make you feel like you were outside watching a parade.

After that, we braved the rain to get an umbrella and poncho and then headed over to the casino to meet Nolly and Flad.  I ended up +$18 for the trip and L was more like +$200 by the time we left Harrah's on Wednesday afternoon.  Our flight was delayed so we all ended up grabbing afternoon snacks at Bourbon House and then picked up our .  Nolly and I both enjoyed these:

That would be a bourbon milk slush or something, with espresso instead of nutmeg.  I was hesitant at first but I assure you, it is delicious.  I have no idea how it's made but I don't think I want or need to know.  One is plenty because it can't be good for you.

And THAT sums up our trip.  Lots of fun, lots of sun, lots of good friend time, lots of yummy meals, lots of relaxing, and my favorite parts: getting to finally meet Flad and all our boys getting to know each other better!  I'm so glad they all got along so well.  Hooray for a fun trip!