August 2011 New Orleans

Soon after we got home from our journeys in July, I had the opportunity to go visit my dad again (just saw him in Bend) in New Orleans. His company is doing some major work there and he flew me out to stay with him for five days. He had a swanky apartment with a rooftop pool right near the French Quarter with an extra room, so Poem and I jumped on the chance. I’d always wanted to go. My parents went a few times when I was a kid and would always come back with the coolest furniture, antiques and gifts (how they got furniture from N.O. to Las Vegas I’ll never know). Plus, my dad had been talking it up a storm since he started operations there a year ago, so it was a long overdue visit.

 

Part of the work his company is doing are these massive storm walls. They are actually kind of beautiful when they are all new and yet unmolested by the ever present vegetation in the South.

  Poem actually didn’t mind the 110% humidity. She sure does love her Papa!

I didn’t mind the humidity either, which surprised even me! It felt good to sweat a bit, since it doesn’t happen much in Washington.

My dad had to work during the day, so Po and I would explore. On this day, we took a streetcar to the Audobon park and walked four milks back along brick sidewalks through history heavy streets of the most quintessential New Orleans architecture. I was wide-eyed all day.

I mean, seriously. Every single house was oozing charm and grace and history. I love places like this, where the hundreds of years of people and events and writing and art and love and death all just comes together and permeates your entire experience. It was like walking through vapors of the past… like people who lived and still live were altogether in one place. New Orleans doesn’t have the most virtuous reputation, but you can’t deny that it is a heavyweight in the crossroads, literary, and cultural categories. Loved it! Plus, I’m from Vegas; I can look past a city’s seedy side.

 

The French Quarter

The most amazing and least describable love I have for the Big Easy is the food. WOW! I actually had a bite of bread pudding that made me cry it was so good. I’m not a big food lover, but I was converted in those few days. Favorites: PoBoys, turtle gumbo, crawfish quesadillas, bbq oysters, alligator soup, banets, and bread pudding. Ahhhhh. Delish.

 

The kids and Jonah didn’t miss me as much as they said they would (Jonah always has TOO much fun with them while I’m gone), but they sure did like the masks I brought home. Not as cool as the antiques and furniture my parents used to bring, but I had a baby to carry.