Archive for May, 2010

“N’Awlins

Saturday, May 1st, 2010

Careful how you talk around here or they might guess you are a tourist!  We arrived in town about 2 pm under very cloudy sky’s – it has been so humid that I feel like a sponge.  Tonight we are going to give in and run the air conditioner and keep the windows closed to see if we can dry things out a bit.  We are staying at a nice RV park near Lake Pontchartrain which is about 5 miles from the French Quarter so we will ride the shuttle and save Paul the headache of where to park.  We catch the shuttle about 3:30 and it drops us off about a block from Bourbon Street and we start walking cause those Hurricanes are waiting, oh and the stripper girls of course!  Anyway, just as we are reaching the corner of Bourbon Street my feet give out and I find myself face down on the very uneven brick & paving stone sidewalk!  My knee is killing me and Paul has to help me up.   No one even notices because they assume you are drunk – drinking on the street is encouraged!  Now I really need a drink and some ice for the knee which is swelling very quickly.  Paul finds a nice police officer who finds a bouncer and they get me a bag of ice and I get to sit in the back of the cops 4 wheel golf cart sort of thing!  So much for a wild night in the French Quarter.  We decide we better find a place to sit down, have a drink and maybe some dinner.  That is hurricane #1.

Looking up Bourbon Street

After resting for a bit I was ready to venture out and see some sites.  We walked mostly and listened to some of the music coming from inside the bars – mostly rock, you had to hunt for the jazz.  Along the way we found one of the establishments that serve Hurricanes from a machine to-go.  That’s Hurricane #2.

Good music, with an added touch

This group was playing in the street and if you look closely behind the singer you will see a little girl (in orange) who is 7 and sat in so her dad could take a smoke break on the drums!  She kept the beat throughout the song which included a Clarinet, trumpet & trombone solo along with some great singing.  She was awesome!

I love the Iron work and balconies

By now my knee is starting to hurt and we either  had to get a taxi home or wait another hour for the shuttle to return so we found a bar that was playing music and took a seat.  Pat O’Briens has two pianos on stage and call it dueling piano’s.  Lots of fun,  singing, and pretty good piano playing by two women who were in there mid 40s’ but they played some of the stuff the kids listen to now and were really entertaining the crowd of young people. 

He is playing a pizza pan along with the Dueling Piano's

That’s Hurricane #3 and time to call it a night.  We were on the shuttle by 7 pm and out of the French Quarter before dark when all the fun starts.  Tomorrow we will be back.