New Orleans

 

New Orleans

January 23, 2022 by Stevie G

Nick Cage’s Sweet Pyramid Tomb

My instinct to go straight into “travel mode”, as I like to call it–that instinct to simply go outside and walk and see things in a new place, was very strong when we got to New Orleans.

So I went outside and walked around and looked at things. I looked at the map, saw where “things” were, and walked over there. I did this a lot, walking in every direction from our place and covering a good amount of the city over the course of a month. I’m kinda like Johnny 5 from Short Circuit, always looking for “more input”.

St. Louis Cemetery #1. Famous scene from Easy Rider. Go get a tour from Casey – he’s great. He’ll tell you all about Nick Cage’s sweet pyramid tomb too.

We stayed in the Uptown area of New Orleans, which is nice and hipstery; lots of restaurants and bars, coffee, shops, and stuff like that. You can head east-ish down Magazine street for miles of things until you hit the French Quarter, Frenchman Street, and then the Bywater. And there is cool stuff everywhere. But then, there is only so much you can eat and drink, and only so far you can walk before the miles start adding up and your old feet start getting sore. So then you take the bus to get to places further afield. But waiting for the bus gets old fast man, but you don’t want to spend $20 on an Uber every time you want to go four miles, so your travel mode walking starts to slow down to a whimper after a month of this.

Hey Ang, go stand in front of that building.

New Orleans is a great city, I would say universally loved. Lots of tourists, like us. I’m fairly certain you, or someone you know, has said the words “I love New Orleans” and can give you a recommendation for a specific bar, or restaurant, or place to see live music. I’m sure they are all good recommendations. There are few places better to “walk around and drink some more“. Get a sweet frozen drink in a plastic cup, walk around the French Quarter, look at the architecture, cross Bourbon street and see a lot of people drinking a lot.

Walking past Bourbon on the Friday before Christmas was pretty gnarly, almost a shock to the system to see such a loud street with so many people collected and drinking, generic blues music. For me, there are many more interesting (and quieter) streets to wander with a beer in tow.

According to some post on the internet this is the House of the Rising Sun.

Getting drinks to go really is a great thing. You can get drinks anywhere and walk around with them outside. I know this is obvious when you think of French Quarter, slushie drinks or whatever. But you can also just go to the bakery down the street, get a kick ass pastry, and a Bloody Mary to go in a plastic cup with a straw.

Looked at this and then went and had a beer.

At one point we walked past the French Market and there was a small band playing Hit the Road Jack outside. Nice rendition for sure, we didn’t stop, but enjoyable to hear some music out in the open air you-know-what-I-mean? Anyway, I noticed this guy filming basically the entire thing on his phone, which of course, you always see, all the time. Now, I was thinking, dood, put the phone down and just listen to the music maaaan, enjoy your day! But then I thought, if a random guy playing Hit the Road Jack at four in the afternoon on a Thursday is so mind-blowing that you are compelled to film the performance in its entirety, maybe you have to do it? I mean, maybe the guy showed the video to his friend, and his friend said “HOLY FUCKING SHIT! IS THAT HIT THE ROAD JACK???“

This is the third time I’ve been to New Orleans in my life, so I’ve seen a good cross-section of the tourist areas like French Quarter, Frenchman, been to the WWII museum (probably one of the world’s best military museums by the way), also – the site of the battle of New Orleans for you War of 1812 buffs out there. So this time around I just wanted check out the city more broadly, be outside, and get a sense of what it is like to live there. So yeah, a lot of walking and looking at things, parks, and stuff.

Observed the mighty Mississip’. I’m not sure most people realize how effin’ big this river is. It’s like a non-stop giant lake that goes on forever.

That boat is also massive.

I felt compelled to visit the Tabasco factory on Avery Island since we were in the area. I got hooked on the sauce in the “war”. My first real exposure to hot sauce, and southern food, was when I went to Fort Jackson South Carolina for basic training. It was a novel thing for me to see Crystal or Texas Pete on the tables in the chow halls. So you put a little on yer eggs, in yer grits, whatever. Then you eat a shitload of MREs and they all have little bottles of Tabasco in ’em. And the hamsteak tastes like shit so you put the sauce on. The boneless porkchop ain’t so bad but you put Tabasco on it anyway. Speaking of MREs I saw a lady in Nola walking around with a little purse made out of an old MRE bag. Hey that’s kinda neat I said to myself.

The Tabasco Estate has a nice swampy park that’d be great for gators to just hang out like the weird old dinosaurs they are.

Nowadays there are a million hot sauces, but I always find myself coming back to Tabasco as a staple. The key is the fermentation process, it gives it that sweet sweet funk. Try the Family Reserve – aged eight years and made with white wine vinegar, good stuff maynard.

Look at all that sass, fermentin’ n shit.