Saturday 14th January – Into New Orleans (NOLA)

Third state in two days, we drove into Louisiana and New Orleans for midday.  Having failed to book anywhere, we chanced our arm by just turning up at ‘3 Oaks and a Pine RV resort’ and getting a spot for two nights bang on budget. 

The park was on one of the main routes into the city so we were able to jump on a bus, getting a 24-hour pass for $3 each.  This took us to Canal Street where we swapped our bus for a street car, (having turned down some street drugs).

We jumped off in the French Quarter and walked the length of Bourbon Street to soak up the atmosphere.  We purposefully decided to visit on Saturday to get a proper taste for the City. 

A square off Bourbon Street

The street was swarming with large groups of stag and hen dos, but also groups of all ages having a very merry and alcohol-infused day out!  It is a relatively thin street, with balconies above many of the bars. 

I’m not sure if this happens all year, but as it was leading up to Mardi Gras, everyone was wearing chains of multi-coloured beads around their necks and throwing said necklaces from the balconies to the pedestrians below.  It wasn’t long until I was adorned in my own set. There was a lot of live music emanating from the bars so we sampled our first licensed premises of the day:

(Note the beer, although half-ass, was mine.  Simon was still tee-total following his Florabama experience!)

We walked on to find Preservation Hall, known as the home of jazz music, but also for us it was where the Foo fighters recently recorded one of the tracks on their Sonic Highways album.

A residential street in the French quarter

Bourbon Street at Mardi Gras..... in Lego!

To be honest, Bourbon Street was a little ‘Ayia Napa’ (drunk teenagers at a European holiday resort) for us!  Simon’s research had told him that Frenchman’s Street was where to go for a taste of the original NOLA spirit so we headed there.  There were plenty of live music bars.  We opted for ‘the Spotted Cat Club’ with an amazing old-style casual jazz quartet, here's a short blast:

Then we moved on for dinner, stopping at another live music bar for my next sandwich experience – the ‘Po boy’. 

Me looking happy with my Po Boy... before I tasted it!

What a disappointment!  I only gave it 4 out of 10 because it just consisted of breaded shrimp (which was nice), a dry crusty baguette and some limp lettuce.  No sauce or any other flavour, so it was extremely dry.  Very disappointing. Luckily the band were good so it wasn’t a complete failure. 

We walked on and discovered a more modern, acid-jazz style band called Kettle Black, who were playing in a bar called 30°-90°.  They were brilliant. They had two percussionists, one playing on an upside-down drum thing (I can't remember the name!), the singer was a pianist and both the bass and electric guitarist were awesome.  We stayed for their entire set and Simon even purchased their CD, which now gets played in the RV - A LOT! I enjoyed several cocktails and we did some people-watching. There was a very happy vibe in the bar.  We’d enjoyed a variety of bands and bars during a long evening.   A late night for us, we got an Uber back to the RV site for 1130pm rather than negotiating the bus.