Mostly Wordless Wednesday: Wrong Way

We walked into the church across the street to vote last night.

We'd never been in this church, and didn't know where they set up for voting.

There weren't any signs....at least, no signs we saw right away.

This one was LITERALLY 3 feet in front of us.



Apparently they didn't have any signs with the arrow pointing the right way....so they put it upside down.

What?

I'm trying to give them the benefit of the doubt here. :-)

New Orleans in October - part 4

10/24/10

We got up the next morning (not so early) and headed to the cemetery not too far from the hotel.











This was one of the places I was really looking forward to walking around. We didn't stay as long as we would have liked, but the weather wasn't going to cooperate with us, and I didn't want to get soaked while carrying my DLSR.






The alleged grave of Marie Laveau, the "Voodoo Queen."






















Not sure who this one belonged to.

From the cemetery, we walked to the House of Blues for a Sunday gospel brunch.













I didn't get any pictures inside. There were signs everywhere prohibiting photography.

Although a somewhat annoying British dude sat across the table from us, and took pictures and video throughout the entire show. :-)



The clouds opened up on us for a while.....and made the city extremely muggy when it stopped. Up until then we had been really lucky with the weather, so I'm not complaining!!!!



We didn't have any more plans for the day, so did some more walking. Checking out shops, stopping to watch the street performers....





And Steve and I stopped to get our cards read.


What? We were in New Orleans. It's a requirement!!!! :-)

From there we went to Pat O'Briens for the authentic New Orleans Hurricane.


It went straight to Mot's head!! :-)





We walked over to Jackson square (the park itself had been closed the day before for a wedding, but the gates were open this afternoon).





From there we walked BACK to Pat O'Briens for more hurricanes.

By then, they had started going to my head as well.

Yummo!!!!!!


I totally fell in love with the corn stalk fence.

What? I'm an Iowa girl!! :-)

We stopped at a couple favorite hangouts of the boys...and from the balcony of Good Friends, I saw this......


Oh yeah.....we had to go in. The food was really good!!!

Then we.....(all together now)...wandered around the Quarter some more. :-)


Steve wanted to go into a Christmas store to look around.

And......about two hours later, we stopped here for lunch.



Yes, we had just eaten....for the 14th time that day.....but we had Groupons, and wanted to check the place out.

The four of us almost wish we hadn't. The service was horrible, the food was horrible.....but they had a really cool chandelier hanging inside!

Yep, the cool chandelier and Steve's french fries were the highlights of the place.

And then the waiter messed up our bill....couldn't figure out how to cancel it. Had to call his boss...couldn't find his boss....ran down to the bar around the corner that his boss owned. Still couldn't find him.....eventually did something that may or may not have fixed his error....and we left. :-)

From there we headed to the hotel.

We got up the next morning, and got a cab to the airport.

New Orleans in October - part 3

10/23/10

We got up the next morning and headed to Cafe Du Monde for breakfast. They serve coffee and beignets.

Great coffee and even greater beignets!!!!!






Serenaded while we ate.


Not a diet food.


I call this picture....Bliss.


From there we walked to the Saturday morning flea market area.



Then wandered around the French Quarter (are you seeing a theme to this trip yet) to find lunch.


We wanted to go here. Verti Marte. Apparently they'd had a fire and weren't open yet.

The boys say they have the best sandwiches...ever.

Now we HAVE to go back! :-)

We eventually ended up at the Magnolia Grill for lunch.




Tom found his newest beer love there.

After lunch, we walked around Jackson Square....and nearly bought quite a bit of art. :-)







From there we walked down Royal Street, stopping at the art galleries and stores.







The French Quarter always has street performers. Some horrible (I swear one gentleman had purchased his trombone at a thrift store earlier in the week, took some time to learn...kinda learn....the theme song from Sanford and Sons...and then proceeded to serenade us with it the entire trip).....

And some are wonderful!!!!


Tanya and Dorise.

We sat on the curb and listened to them for over an hour.



Between the four of us, I think we bought all but one of their CD's.

I want to hire them to play during our next backyard summer party.

Wow!

On our way back to the hotel, we FINALLY we able to go into the hat store next door to our hotel. (It was usually well past closing time when we passed by.)



The place was awesome!!!

(this picture was taken one night, after it had closed....it wasn't dark when we stopped in)



Floor to ceiling (literally) hats.





We were probably in there at least 45 minutes or an hour, trying on different styles, colors, etc. Eventually I had Danny take Mot back to the hotel....and when they left, I bought Mot his Christmas gift. :-)

After checking out (and having them ship the gift hat to my work place)....Steve and I joined the other two at the hotel. Steve crashed on the pull out, I fell face first into bed.......while the two of us snored away, Danny went down to Fedex to ship some artwork he'd purchased...and Mot took advantage of the hotel hot tub.

After Mot returned from the hot tub...and Danny returned from his "experience" at Fedex....the four of us headed out for dinner.

We took a streetcar down through the garden district, on our way to the.....uh.....college district.













We ended up at Doors Pub.

All of the tables, the bar and the paneling on the interior were old doors.






We ordered a carnivores dream pizza.....including alligator.

Then we jumped on another cable car to head back to the Quarter.











No, we didn't go "straight" to the clover grill. We had walked around for quite a while.



It was late, and smell of grease was too much to ignore.


The chefs name was Andrew. A polite and quite college kid, stuck working 11 hour shifts. He only had an hour left that night, and we tried to keep him as entertained as possible.


On the way back to the hotel, I took a picture of touchdown Jesus.

Sorry, made me giggle every time I saw it. :-)

Good night New Orleans.

(to be cont)