Day 180: Taking children for a stroll down Bourbon Street.

The forecast calls for some rain in our future so we decided to take the opportunity to get back into New Orleans to do some more sightseeing before it is too late. Once again, we are taking the bridge in and forgoing the Algiers Ferry. Maybe our next visit won’t land on the perfect storm of tourists in the crescent city and we will be able to get back on that boat across the Mississippi river.

For some reason there was a lot of traffic as we got to the toll booth on the bridge. I had a sinking feeling in my gut that these people were all going into the city and we were not going to find any parking.

Fortunately, we were able to park once again on Rampart Ave which borders the northern edge of French Quarters. Some of the parking spaces have actual meters that accept coins while others require you to pay for it at a kiosk and place a receipt on your dash. Either way, you can only park for 2 hours at a time.

As we walk towards the river front, we passed Bourbon Street. This is what Bourbon Street looks like on a Tuesday morning. Those bars apparently don’t magically fill up with booze every night. These are the hard working men and women that make magic happen at Bourbon Street.

Down at the riverfront, the festivities are going strong. ESPN has this parking lot packed full TV equipment as they are broadcasting many of their shows live from NOLA all the way up through the Super Bowl.

Our lunch agenda calls for a visit to the world famous Johnny’s Po-Boy restaurant.

I have been dreaming about this shrimp po-boy for nearly 3 years. Today is another dream fulfilled.

Marlene did not eat here last time. She instead had lunch at Pierre Maspero’s which was the original slave exchange. They did not allow me to sit and eat with her there with my po-boy citing possible health code violations. I think we are taking care of that this time by not eating there altogether.

Marlene got this amazing muffaletta. It looked and smelled amazing. When I finally talked Marlene into letting it go for just a second so I can get a taste, my suspicions were confirmed that this was the best I’ve ever had.

The girls split a plate of catfish and chips. This plate did not look like this for long.

Sorry Luka, your mama is busy going to town on this muffaletta. He is too young to enjoy the food here this time around but we will make sure to bring him back soon. If you plan on coming to NOLA, don’t miss Johnny’s. Just remember to bring cash as they will not take your plastic.

Today, we decided to take a walk down Bourbon Street. Don’t ask us why. Maybe we felt like we were obligated to do it at least once.

It didn’t take long before the ladies at the Hustler Club began to toss beads down to the girls.

Attached to those beads were free passes to the club. I wrangled those beads out of their hands just in time before there were too many questions. These went to the the next two guys we passed on the street. I hope they went to good use.

Maybe that was a bad idea. Let’s get out of here.

Our second day here of course required another trip to get some beignets. Instead of going back to Cafe du Monde, we hit up Cafe Beignet which we had a pretty good experience at last time.

Their beignets are bigger and Ava prefers Cafe du Monde over these but they were still delicious.

As we walked around into a little antique shop around the corner, I noticed a couple of men in black looking dudes standing guard outside. As I walked in, an older woman with burgundy passes me on her way out. Apparently that was Sharon Osbourne doing some shopping between taping episodes the Talk.

We headed back down towards the riverfront and saw that the NFL Network had taken over more of New Orleans’ open spaces for the sake of football.

With all of the Super Bowl action going on, it’s good to see that the Natchez riverboat is still running its routes up and down the river. It is pretty cool to see a real steamship and even more impressive to see the boat captain pilot all 25 tons of her into dockage. Even though the Natchez Steamboat isn’t an original 19th century riverboat as it was launched in 1975, it continues the Mississippi riverboat tradition as the ninth vessel to bear that name.

Even though we are not much into football, we decided to check out the ESPN stages and see what they are up to. After all, this is kind of a special occasion.

On one of the stages, Baltimore Raven’s linebacker Dannell Ellerbe was being interviewed. The jumbotron next to the stage was broadcasting the live signal with just a few seconds of delay. I put Ava on my shoulders and manage to get her on national TV for a moment or two.

Mr Ellerbe was very gracious and signed autographs for quite awhile after the interview ended with the fans.

As we were headed back to the car, this guy dressed in a chicken suit caught the girls attention. We had no idea who he is and why he was dressed as a chicken.

This photo was a little uncomfortable. If we had any poor judgment as parents today, it wasn’t because we let our girls catch beads from strippers on Bourbon Street, it was because we let Ava sit on this creepy dude’s leg for a picture.

As we started to make our way back across to the campground at the westbank, rain started to fall as predicted. Looks like tomorrow will be a lazy day inside the Mish.

over and out,
dan