Laissez les bon temps rouler

The snow and rain and freezing temperatures closed the main road into New Orleans for several days and delayed our departure from Lake Charles, but finally we pulled into the French Quarter RV Resort, only a block or two from the French Quarter.  It's a beautiful park and possibly the most expensive facility we'll stay in on our trip - $108 a night (with a small discount because we'll be staying a full week).

Ah, New Orleans!  The memories flood back.  This is where I went to medical school as a lusty twenty-something, studying anatomy in the classrooms by day and sometimes in the strip clubs on Bourbon Street by night.  I was a huge fan of Dixieland jazz in those days (still am, embarrassingly),.  There were traditional jazz joints on every corner, and Al Hirt and Pete Fountain were musical princes of the city.

These days Bourbon Street seems as seedy as ever, but it's changed.  There are fewer strip/gentlemen's clubs, and I assume (without personal knowledge) that the nudity is total in the ones that exist whereas in the good old days tassels and g-strings were mandated.  The music is different, with Dixieland jazz featured mainly in Preservation Hall.  Blues and rock bands predominate in the bars, and the volume hits you as you walk among the crowds.  However, the number of drunks and those aspiring to inebriation seems to be much the same.  Young black kids play drums on plastic buckets for tips ($5 suggested).  A water line ruptured recently in the middle of Bourbon Street, and the pavement is torn up for a couple of blocks, leaving only the sidewalks intact.  The repair work going on just adds to the noise and chaos.

Walk a block away, however, and things are calmer.  There are lots of street musicians all through the quarter, the musical quality mostly good and sometimes exceptional.  A couple of guys are sitting at typewriters offering to write poems on the subject of your choice, and Nancy commissioned one of them to compose an ode to Tammy Faye (one of our dogs) as I listened to an exciting trumpet player on the other side of the street.

Just off Jackson Square we toured the Cabildo Museum, which offers an introduction to the history of New Orleans.  And today on the outskirts of the quarter we came across a parade.  Not a Mardi Gras parade (the first one of those for the current year still a week away) but part of the nationally organized women's march.  Pardon the profanity expressed in the following photo.

This evening we ate at Toup's Meatery.  We are familiar with Chef/Owner Isaac Toups from the time he was a contestant on Top Chef.  We ordered cracklins, deep fried duck livers, lamb neck, and venison.  Hungry yet?  The New Orleans restaurant scene is a truly exciting one, with enough fascinating options to rival San Francisco or New York City.  Hard to imagine us moving here, but it's a cool place to explore.