The Great New Orleans Typhoon
I got up, had my usual toast and tons of coffee on the patio, and then we prepared to head out. Our first stop was the knitting store a couple blocks away, because I’d been unprepared to get so much knitting done on the trip, and needed more needles. The little old lady running the place was adorable, and I never thought I’d ever have need to hold such a prolonged conversation about the upsides and downsides of various circular needles.
It was way more humid than the previous days, and was raining a little on and off, so we carried umbrellas along. We walked down to Frenchmen Street, and met a lazy cat along the way.
We were in search of coffee and beignets, but the line at Cafe du Monde was really long. We walked a couple blocks further and stopped into the place in the Jax Brewery building, where they served us (really excellent) iced coffee and beignets right away.
Post-beignets, I told Matt we should try stopping into the Carousel Bar again, since we had to go near there anyway and it had just opened for the day. I figured that way, we stood the best chance of actually being able to sit at the bar. And I was right!! There were a couple of seats open, so we took them. I just had a water, which I’m sure the bartenders didn’t love, but whatever. Matt had a Vieux Carre, because it was invented there.
We hung out for a couple rotations, eating their snacks and watching the other patrons, most of who were obviously staying at the hotel (trust me, you can tell). We learned that there’s no door for the bartenders to leave, so they have to CLIMB OVER the bar when there’s a seat open. I felt bad for the older guy working back there. It looked tricky.
From there we walked over to Canal Street and hopped on the trolley to the Garden District (activating our transit passes for the first time). For reasons that were never fully explained, the trolley stopped halfway there and we had to all pile off and get on a bus instead. The majority of us got off the same bus at Washington, and walked over to Lafayette Cemetery #1. (Apparently there was a tour starting right then, but we chose to look around on our own.)
The overcast and occasional raindrops seemed appropriate for the scene.
After circling the cemetery for a while, we stopped to admire Commander’s Palace before we headed onward. (Matt wanted to go, but they have dress codes!)
We walked down to Magazine Street, heading toward the shopping districts. I was already pretty tired of walking, especially considering my hip and knee issue was acting up. We stopped into a shop to pick up some more souvenirs, and then Matt looked up one of our chosen lunch destinations on the map. It said it was less than a mile away, so we decided to walk it anyway.
After walking what felt more like 10 miles, we still weren’t even close. But we kept onward, because we knew it was there somewhere. I was pretty miserable, because my hip was starting to feel weak, which meant some awesome limping and sort-of-dragging it along. Not awesome.
FINALLY, we got to McClure’s BBQ. (It ended up being 1.7 miles. Thanks, Google Maps!) I was more excited about the possibility of sitting down in air conditioning than I was about the food. Until the food arrived.
Matt had three meats, mac and cheese, and greens. I had an amazing smoked mushroom sandwich, cole slaw, and cornbread. It was fantastic, and they had a huge rack of various barbecue sauces to try.
After lunch, we decided to be smart and ride the bus back instead. Conveniently, there was a stop directly in front of the restaurant, and it showed up right away. We rode back to the business district, and hopped off near Lee Circle. Our destination was a cocktail bar called Bellocq, at the Hotel Modern.
Google said they opened at 3pm, but the door was locked. Someone opened it right away, though, and said that they were just getting ready and would open at 4. We waited in the courtyard, since it was 3:55. We ended up being the only people there for the entire time, but that was fine. The bartenders were awesome, and full of good information.
Their specialty was cobblers, lower-proof cocktails usually made with some kind of wine. Matt had a madeira sour and a Lillet cobbler, and the bartender made me an awesome gingery non-alcoholic drink.
We hung out there for a while, then decided to go back to the house for some hot tub time before dinner. Google Maps said there was a bus arriving about 6 blocks away in 10 minutes, so we went over there and sat at the bus stop. After a while it became clear that the bus wasn’t coming, so I checked the schedule again and we’d have to sit there forever for another one. I went with Google’s next recommendation, so we walked another 8 blocks to a different bus stop, just in time to see the bus we wanted pulling away. AAGH. (My hip and knee were ready to be amputated at that point, too.) Finally, we found one arriving in a couple minutes, figured out where to wait, and it actually showed up. Conveniently, that one dropped off only a block from the house, too.
We stopped into Hank’s for more diet pineapple pop (my favorite!), snacks, and iced coffee, and then went to the house and climbed in the hot tub. After a half-hour or so it started raining a little, so we got out and went to shower. While I was drying off I realized that it was pouring like crazy, so I hoped that would let up in time for us to leave again. It kept up for 20 minutes or so, and then tapered off to a light drizzle. We put our shoes on, grabbed our umbrellas, and headed out to walk to dinner at 13, about 3/4 mile away.
We got a block down the street before it started pouring again. Two blocks down, it was pouring twice as hard. We’d never even experienced rain like that, and it was coming in at such an angle that our pants were getting totally soaked no matter what we did. Three blocks down, we found a tiny overhang to huddle under while we waited to see if it would let up. It showed zero sign of doing so, though, and we decided to just go back to the house.
We turned around so that our fronts could get soaked, too (at least we were even). (When your underwear get drenched in a rainstorm even though you’re carrying an umbrella, it’s time to give up.) I clutched my purse under my arm like a football so my electronics didn’t get wet. And Bally! He’s absorbent, after all.
Back at the house, we called 13 to order delivery po-boys. They said they weren’t delivering that night (I wouldn’t want to, either), so we found a place called Love Lost Lounge instead. They were kind enough to deliver us some very delicious banh mi an hour later. The rain still hadn’t let up, either, so the satellite TV didn’t work. Which was fine, because we wanted to watch the Stanley Cup playoffs (Minnesota Wild vs the Blackhawks) and they didn’t get it there anyway. So we propped up our phones on the table, and watched the game that way instead. Internet to the rescue!
Shortly after the end of the game, our phones started blaring that horrible sound they play during severe weather alerts on TV. Neither of us knew our phones had that feature, so it was kind of a surprise. What was even more of a surprise, though, was when they started doing that in unison while we were asleep at 2am. We survived the flash floods in New Orleans, thankfully!
