My last post was too big! I made it all the way to Monday midday so I will finish to our flights home on Tuesday in this post. ! I left off in the Garden District on Monday afternoon. We took the trolly back for dinner in the French Quarter at the Kingfisher. Again, Cherie got some beautiful fish and I actually had fried chicken. Very tasty yet again.
Then we headed to Preservation Hall to hear a Big Brass band. We had front row seats and it was astounding music. I was 2-3 feet away from a tenor sax, so I could really feel it. They had a slide trombone, 2 trumpets, 2 tenor saxophones (one played by a man who has been playing for 83 years!), a baritone sax, a sousaphone and 2 drummers. In a pretty small room (<400 square feet!) full of people!
Then we went back to Fleur D’Orleans and bought some earrings on the way back to our hotel. After planning for our last morning in NOLA, Des and Kris went out to listen to dueling pianos while Cherie and I snuggled into our beds and talked for quite some time.
Tuesday morning we started with breakfast at Ruby Slipper – another amazing food spot that I had found. The waitress was hysterical! the beignets there were pumpkin spice and those guys were drooling over them. Ha! Then we walked down to the Saint Luis Cathedral which is beautiful. It is the second oldest continuously working church in the USA. I ended up talking to an 80+ docent about the flags that lined the aisle. He gave me printouts of all the flags and the only cost was that I had to say a prayer for him. One side had the flags of history (French, Spain, French, and then the USA. I was surprised to find out that after the Louisiana Purchase, the US flag had 15 stars and 15 stripes. Then Texas claimed it so there was a single star flag, Then the US flag came back with 13 stripes and 20 stars. The stars are added each year on July 4th until our current 50. Then it went back to Texas and finally back to the US. Eventually Cherie had to “save” me from him – I think he could have talked forever!
Then we went to the Louisiana State Museum – the Cabrill side. It was the history of New Orleans mostly with a lot of information on Lafayette and Lafitte. Lafayette is pretty important in this area and he was only in NOLA for 5 days! But he did go back to France and got support for New Orleans. Lafitte was a pirate who really helped with guiding boats throughout the swamps during the British Naval blockade during the war for Independence. He was also a pirate. He is also slightly revered in the region. The funny fact we learned was that the delegates to France to buy New Orleans (only) ended up with the whole Louisiana purchase for not too much more because Napoleon was so desperate for money and had no idea of the quality of land in the Midwest region.
Cherie and I loved the area of the museum that showed the various medicinal uses of herbs and other plants by the indigenous tribes and the black slaves of the area. It was a nicely set up display with so much information. We were glad we went in to it! We then checked out of French Quarter Inn and headed to Lake Pontchartrain. It is a giant estuary that has a small drain to the swamps that eventually lead to the Gulf of Mexico.
So it was a wonderful trip and plans are being made for the next one already!