We. Loved. New. Orleans. We plan to go back as soon as possible and spend more than 3 waking hours. Upon arriving in New Orleans at approximately 11 PM, we knew that the appropriate thing to do was to rally, freshen up, and head out to Bourbon street. But we were tired, and we agreed the night’s sleep was more important to us. That’s when one of us said the quote for which this post is named. So, we didn’t actually set eyes on the French Quarter until about 12 hours later.
The first order of business was to find ourselves some Creole food. I desperately wanted jambalaya, and Jennie had her eyes on the gumbo. We walked up Bourbon street, tempted by the bars and jazz clubs that were playing music and advertising drinks despite the fact that it was only 11 AM, but as usual decided to opt for food instead.
Back on Royal street, we found Pere Antoine and scored a seat by the window. We wanted all things on the menu, but finally settled on coffees (naturally), jambalaya, seafood gumbo, red beans and rice with boudin sausage, and a salad with popcorn fried crawfish. It was incredible, especially the jambalaya, let me tell you. We ate until we couldn’t anymore and returned to the streets of the French quarter to “ooh” and “ahh” at the architecture, music, people, and art. Before leaving, we remembered MMC’s recommendation of beignets and quickly tracked some down. They’re kind of a fried flat donut, served warm and covered in sugar. I ate mine in the street, letting the powdered sugar cover my person from head to toe.
Our last stop before leaving town was a public art project a few blocks East, where someone painted a chalkboard wall on one side of an abandoned building and provided the words “Before I die I want to…” for visitors to fill in their own message.
Back on the road by 2:00 PM, we headed North to Jackson, MS, not sure what we’d find there, but confident we’d enjoy ourselves. In the end we toured some older neighborhoods, snapping shots of Eudora Welty’s house, the childhood home of Kathryn Stockett author of “The Help”, some antebellum buildings, and other things that caught our eye. For dinner, we went a little fancier than our usual road trip fare and dined at Walker’s Drive In, a pretty swanky place that resides in an old drive in burger joint and which was once featured on Diners, Drive ins, and Dives on The Food Network.
As usual, we had about 3 hours of driving to do after dinner, and we rolled into Memphis around 11, just in time to crash!
[addtoany] Yum