{"id":78,"date":"2014-10-20T04:19:40","date_gmt":"2014-10-20T04:19:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/swirleyeyedsister.com\/site\/?p=78"},"modified":"2023-11-07T22:41:11","modified_gmt":"2023-11-07T22:41:11","slug":"music-music-music","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/swirly-eyedsister.com\/?p=78","title":{"rendered":"Day 8: Music, music, music!"},"content":{"rendered":"

Music is what I love best about New Orleans, and we had plenty of it today.<\/p>\n

\"Garden<\/a>
Garden District ready for Halloween<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

We began the day with a walk to the Garden District, not too far from the hotel. We saw elegant homes built in the 1800s, including one that was once owned by Anne Rice. What a bummer it must be to buy a celebrity’s home and have to put up with fans staking out the house and taking photos constantly (of course, we were among the tourists doing just that, though neither of us are fans of Rice’s particular genre).<\/p>\n

\"Spiders!\"<\/a>
Spiders!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Since Halloween will be here soon, many of the homes had quite spectacular decorations. Lots of spiders, Colleen. One home had two mummies lying on the porch and tombstones on the lawn.<\/p>\n

\"And<\/a>
And Cold Drinks\u2014one way to get clients<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

We stopped at Lafayette Cemetery (even though the sign said it was closed on Sundays). Didn’t see any ghosts but the place is filled with sad stories (as all cemeteries are, I guess). Many children’s tombstones, many wives dead and buried before their husbands (what does that tell you about who had the toughest lives), and a few stones marking the graves of those whose lives stretched to ninety years and more. What changes they must have experienced during those long lives, as did my grandmother, who lived from 1890 to 1982. She witnessed the advent of electricity in her town, marveled at the development of cars and airplanes, lived through two world wars, and saw an American walk on the moon.<\/p>\n

Sorry, I digress. Anyway, as we were walking through the Garden District this morning, a guy watering his garden invited us in to see his tangerine and key lime trees. Somehow he recognized we weren’t natives (do you think it could have been the camera around my neck or John’s Hawaiian shirt?). He warned us against venturing to the other side of St. Charles Avenue. His words: You are the perfect marks. It will be death for you if you go there. This is not a Disney experience.<\/p>\n

So we said we would not go there. When he learned we were from Maine, he said he’d been to the southern coast once and that was enough for him. He said he had been told not to venture into the middle of the state (where the natives\u00a0 strongly resemble the denizens of Georgia’s hill country, according to him). The comparison, we gathered, was not favorable.<\/p>\n

He asked what we liked about New Orleans. When we said the music, he told us of several venues for “authentic” (not for tourists) music. One was a Cajun band that played every other Sunday at a club about a half-hour via trolley and walking from our hotel. We thanked him for his good advice, and before we left, he gave us his card and told us to call if we wanted other suggestions of where to go. He has a shop on St. Charles Avenue not far from our hotel, where he restores antique oriental rugs and carpets.<\/p>\n

On our walk back to our hotel, we stopped for coffee, cappuccino, and delicious goodies from a bakery. I had a chocolate babka that was out of this world good, and John had an apple fritter bigger than a large dinner plate. That carried us through until an early supper of gumbo (John) and calamari (Sue) on another balcony overlooking Decatur Street.<\/p>\n

\"P1040306\"<\/a>
A walk in the park<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"P1040312\"<\/a>
Sugar Daddy takes us for a ride through the French Quarter<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In the afternoon, we walked to the park, a huge expanse of grass and water, with fountains and resident ducks. We walked all the way around the park, then rode the trolley back to the French Quarter, where we took a carriage ride through the French Quarter courtesy of Sugar Daddy the Mule, a sixteen-year-old from Tennessee. The driver, who was quite a character, referred to the mule as “Killer” when he wanted to hustle tourists out of the way. He pointed out shops and restaurants along Bourbon Street and the abutting area, spicing it up with a bit of history (real or imagined, I’m not sure). After dinner we walked along Royal Street (near Bourbon Street) and heard the most amazing street bands on practically every corner. Much of the street had been blocked off and the various bands entertained large crowds with their music. Not sure what the occasion was, but the music was fabulous, everything from blues to rockabilly to the torch songs of Patsy Cline to a steel band and a rendition by four guys mimicking the Drifters.<\/p>\n

After a brief stop back at the hotel, we decided to take the advice of our Garden District host (his name is Bob) and listen to Cajun music at the club. We caught another trolley, then walked nine blocks to a little place beyond the Garden District. The place was hopping when we got there, as Bob had predicted. People really knew how to dance and they had a great time doing it. The band was so good it was hard to resist moving to the music. John and I joined the fun and danced to a few of the tunes, though we couldn’t keep up with most of the other couples swirling around us. What fun!<\/p>\n

Maybe later in the week we’ll try another of Bob’s suggested venues. And we’ll definitely have to stop by his shop to thank him. “Laissez les bons temps rouler!”<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Music is what I love best about New Orleans, and we had plenty of it today. We began the day with a walk to the Garden District, not too far from the hotel. We saw elegant homes built in the Continue reading Day 8: Music, music, music!<\/span>→<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-78","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-vista-trip"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/swirly-eyedsister.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/swirly-eyedsister.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/swirly-eyedsister.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/swirly-eyedsister.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/swirly-eyedsister.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=78"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/swirly-eyedsister.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":95,"href":"https:\/\/swirly-eyedsister.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78\/revisions\/95"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/swirly-eyedsister.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=78"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/swirly-eyedsister.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=78"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/swirly-eyedsister.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=78"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}