New Orleans...

Last weekend Dave and I traveled to "The Big Easy". One of my best friends Karen and her husband Mitch have a time share in the French Quarter and have been asking us to join them there for years. We finally made it. LOL We had such a great time. I always said if and when we visited New Orleans we wanted to do it with someone who knew the place. Someone, who could show us all the really neat places that you might miss if you didn't know about it. Let me tell ya Karen and Mitch KNOW NOLA. They took us to all these fantastic restaurants, awesome little bars and then some of the famous one's. We took a trolley car ride through the Garden District.  We enjoyed gorged ourselves  on biegnets from Cafe Dumonde. (Um, we did that twice OMG so amazing.)  Spent an afternoon drinking the famous Hurricanes and singing away to dueling pianos at Pat O'Briens pub.  We did some shopping in the French Market and walked around Jackson Square admiring the wares sold by the street vendors. (some amazing artists those street vendors)  We lit a candle in the beautiful St. Louis Cathedral.  I have to share a little story here:

We entered the beautiful cathedral and it is really something to see it reminded me of the old churches in England.  We took a minute and sat in the pews to take advantage of the chance to sit (after all our walking)  and the delicious air conditioning.  I saw that there was a place to light a candle, isn't this common with most Catholic churches?  I told Karen I wanted to light a candle and asked her how much she thought the required donation would be.  (she's Catholic she should know this right?)  She said a dollar, so we headed up to the candle lighting dollar in hand. Well, the suggested donation was $3 go figure.  So Karen laughed and said just put your dollar in and light the candle it's not like they are going to arrest you.  So I did.  After I lit the candle there was a shelf type thing that you laid the lighting stick on so I laid my stick on it.  I looked over at Karen so we could proceed back to our seats.  Karen's head was bowed in what I assumed  to be prayer, remember she's Catholic so I thought maybe she felt compelled.  After a few seconds I said "are you all right?"  She said "yes, I am just watching your lighting stick, when you put it with the others it ignited them and they all started to burn I wanted to make sure they all went back out."  I looked over and sure enough they were all burning but luckily were starting to die out.   Cheating the Cathedral out of $2 you might get away with but burning it down, not so much!

We ate at the most fantastic restaurants.  Dave decided he is now a huge gumbo fan and I am in love with anything muffaletta.  Who would of thought something as simple as a burger and baked potato could be so good but OMG "Port of Call" was amazing.  Biscuits and gravy old school right? Um, unless you are eating it at "Oceana" then it's like heaven on earth.  We visited Oak Alley Plantation and it was gorgeous, a real walk back in  time.  How amazing would it have been to live in that beautiful home and sip mint julips on the veranda back in the 1800's.  We ate lunch in the plantation restaurant and I had the best pecan pie I've ever tasted.  Notice a pattern here? New Orleans is all about the food.  LOL

 What a fantastic time and I could never thank Karen and Mitch enough for  inviting us to join them at one of the most famous places in the U.S.

Karen and I at Pat O'Briens.

Street view of Jackson Square you can see the cathedral in the background.

Outside Cafe Du Monde waiting for our beignets.

Yummy!!!

In the Quarter there are balconies everywhere totally covered by beautiful flower arrangements and ferns. Just like in the movies.

Dave and I at the "Cat's Meow"

In front of Oak Alley Plantation.