Stoker & motorcycle from New York – These guys still exist and I’m glad they do.
My third time to The Big Easy, left work early last Wednesday around 3:30, rendezvoused with Courtney and hit the road by about 4:45. Drove half the full distance of 1,050+ miles and stayed the night in Bowling Green, KY. Finished the drive down Thursday morning and made a dinner stop at the Abita Brewpub in Abita Springs, LA (the 17th largest craft brewer in the states). Enjoyed an average brewery dinner; burgers and a few beers exclusive to an on-site visit. After finishing the 23 mile drive on the longest over-water bridge in the world we checked into Hotel New Orleans (Convention Center Blvd.) by about 8PM Central time and were walking the French Quarter by about 8:30. Had some cafe au lait and beignets at the historic Cafe Du Monde before heading to Frenchman Street. We then circled back around stopping at Coco’s on Bourbon Street after hearing the blaring sound of Bryan Lee and the Blues Power Band‘s lead and slide guitars. The completely blind Bryan Lee can really jam and is fun to watch rip up some blues. We stayed here for about an hour before walking back and calling it a night. The next day we split a muffaletta from Central Grocery on the banks of the Mississippi, enjoyed an afternoon cigar from The Cigar Factory and then hopped on the St. Charles Streetcar and took a ride through the historic Garden District. Enjoyed a Ferdie Po’ Boy at Mothers on Canal for dinner before heading back out. It is here my recollection of events becomes cloudy as we walked Bourbon. Saturday morning hit the new Audubon Zoo’s Insectarium (which sucked) and then drove to the Jazz Fest.
Admission was $50 at the gate. Next time we’ll take the shuttle since parking was a fiasco – there were private residents parking cars for $25+ near the race track where the fest is held. We paid a young kid $30 to park. The parking spot was on a public street; he moved his car which acted as a placeholder and we pulled in behind him. Part of me thinks I could have gotten away with telling him to screw off and parked on the street for free. The Jazz Fest was great – similar to Bonnaroo, but more family-friendly, with better food, less drugs, equal alcohol consumption, less shade and placed in a venue about 100x smaller. The crowd easily filled up the interior and exterior of the horse track and by about 3 in the afternoon – there was even grid locked foot traffic while trying to walk about. The food was absolutely amazing, I had a crawfish puff and later some crawfish bread, both for $5. Caught a few acts before we left rather early in the day, walking past the hundreds in line just then showing up to see Bon Jovi. Perhaps next time we’ll hit the fest the first day opposed to walking the hot streets of NOLA for hours the days before. We were physically spent by the 3rd day to say the least. We headed back to the room, watched the Bulls suck against the Celtics and then headed back out for a quiet dinner at Gordon Biersch (a chain brewery similar to Cleveland’s Rock Bottom). Woke up early Sunday morning, and drove the complete distance back before falling asleep at home in Cleveland. That and fell in love with XM’s Grateful Dead & CNN stations. Oddly enough, while driving through central Alabama – CNN had a news break about tornadic activity near Birmingham. Kind of cool we were in the middle of a storm that received national coverage and coincidentally heard the report. The rain made whiteout conditions at times and we tuned to local radio & our atlas to find the storm was a few miles away.
Hitting Waffle Houses and truck stops along the way, I was taken back to the road trips I used to take years ago and found much serenity and adventure in burning up the road. Nothing beats a good road trip, and The Crescent City is always a tremendous destination.
