NewOrleans2026.html

It had been awhile since we took a decent road trip. Sylvia told me that she had been to New Orleans once many years ago for Mardi Gras, but it was so cold, she stayed indoors most of the trip. I recently found out that they were having their annual FRENCH QUARTER FESTIVAL in New Orleans and figured it was time for another visit.
Festival sign

Since the trip was a 9-10 hour road trip, we broke it up with a stop in between San Antonio and New Orleans, deciding to stop at the L'auberge Casino and Hotel in Lake Charles! Above are some pictures of this beautiful resort hotel. We had a room overlooking Lake Charles and watched a beautiful sunset over the lake from our window.

The next leg of the trip was a much shorter 3-1/2 hour ride to the French Quarter in New Orleans! Expecting horrible traffic traveling to the quarter, we were surprised how easily it was to get to our hotel, the OMNI ROYAL ORLEANS.

As is true of most of the buildings in the French Quarter, the Omni Royal Orleans is an older building that has been renovated many times. The lobby and dining rooms were beautiful. Pictured is Sylvia enjoying this area with piano music being played just a few feet from her chair. She even wrote me a note expressing how much she loved the stay!

The first night there, we decided to dine in the hotel's premier restaurant, THE RIB ROOM.
Jordan Fireplace

We started with a couple of Hurricanes, a classic New Orleans drink. I also had a bowl of turtle soup (Sylvia had tried it once but I never had) and it was delicious. Spicy. If I didn't know it was turtle soup, I would have thought I was eating spicy chicken soup. We also shared a crab cake. For our main course, Sylvia had the Grand Filet steak and I had the Mustard-baked flounder - both delicious!

Since it was still early in the evening after our meal, we took a short walk to Jackson Square to sample beignets at the famous Cafe Du Monde. The last picture is the St. Louis Cathedral in Jackson Square!
Dino museum

With the drive and activities after arriving in New Orleans, we were tuckered out and decided to head to our room for the night.

As I said at the beginning, the FRENCH QUARTER FESTIVAL was underway for the weekend. Everywhere we went there was jazz music playing. You couldn't escape it if you tried. The quarter was filled with people enjoying the festivities.

In addition to the many music stages throughout the French Quarter, there were many merchants selling a variety of foods and drinks. It was truly a "block party" atmosphere.

What follows, are the many pictures we took that day as we slowly walked through the French Quarter for the next several hours!

Range Cafe

Certainly, there were the unusual sights. I'm not quite sure if this fellow dresses like this every day or if this was an unusual costume put on for some reason.

Shopping was another thing. It seemed like many of the stores had the same tee shirts and souveniers and many places were selling their variety of pralines. Of course, we had to sample a number of them.
Range Cafe

After walking from one end of the French Quarter to the other end and exploring the French Market, we finally broke down and decided to eat a meal. The Market Cafe was in the right place at the right time, AND the Jambalaya was fantastic! This was all washed down with a couple of frozen banana and pina colada daiquiris!

We stood and looked at the guy in the bronze outfit for several minutes and he never even flinched! Sylvia was convinced that he was a statue and not a real man... until we found out that he was a real person!

The Voodoo shop was one of our favorite places!
wine

It appears that both Sylvia and I got bitten by alligators that day!

It was a very full day, and decided to head back to our hotel for a brief respite! As the evening approached, we thought, "What would a trip to New Orleans be without a walk down famous Bourbon Street?" It was only one block north of the hotel!
Painting

The middle picture (above) shows Sylvia eating a hot dog from a street vendor! Of course we walked into a couple of the bars, all of them with blaring music spilling out into the street. One place seemed to be calling to us as it was playing 'oldies' music from the 70's and 80's. After a couple of $20 alcoholic beverages, we were done! We did manage to get a few beads thrown at us from the balconies above and Sylvia didn't even have to show her tits!

On the Sunday before we left New Orleans, we slept in late. We decided to visit the Audubon Aquarium that New Orleans is famous for.
Painting

It was a great experience for the both of us, although I believe Sylvia was enraptured with those stingrays!

The tranquil walk home along the Mississippi River was also fun. The music festival was still in full swing and as I mentioned earlier, the jazz was playing everywhere.
Painting

On the way to our hotel, we stopped one last time for a bite to eat at the Original Pierre Masperos' restaurant which was a half a block from our hotel. Here is Sylvia with a bowl of seafood gumbo, New Orleans style! (Actually, the gumbo was mine; she had the chicken fettucchine alfredo.)

The ride back home the next day was long (about 10 hours with all of the stops we made) and was peppered with rain, especially as we approached San Antonio which was under a flood watch. We were fortunate in that we had beautiful weather the whole time we were in New Orleans. The rain was coming down so hard, we were traveling about 45 miles per hour during the last part of the trip. But we got home safely and unpacked before we crashed in our beds about 2:00 a.m. But what a GREAT road trip it was!

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