Lastminute.com and FuelMyBlog are holding a competition wherein you put up a blog post describing your best weekend ever. The top prize is a weekend getaway to Vienna with airfare AND hotel. Sweet. Just need to get a passport. The competition is only lasting until the 18th (FOUR more days) so DON’T enter otherwise you will lessen my chances at winning…
You know…I should read the rules…Contest open to UK residents only. They should have listed that at Fuelmyblog. No big deal and no sense wasting a good post. I am much more thorough about my posts now than I was in 2005.
Anyway, I suppose that my best weekend trip ever was the one that the wife and I took to New Orleans back in March of 2005. At that point in time the wife and I had NEVER had a vacation without our children. As a matter of fact, we have only been out of town one time since without them, and that was to the blogmeet in Helen last September.
We flew down at the end of March. When we left Atlanta it was raining and cold but by the time that we arrived, we had to ditch the coats. Even in the winter New Orleans is pretty comfortable and can be very muggy at times. Anyone that has been hanging out here for awhile knows how much I hate flying, so the trip was pretty important to get me on an airplane. If I should actually somehow win THIS competition I will have to take sleeping pills in order to make it overseas. Anyway, we decided that since we were going to go straight from the Louis B Armstrong Airport straight to the French Quarter that we would not rent a car. We caught the bus at the airport and rode it to the outskirts and walked the rest of the way. We had packed overnight bags since it was just for the weekend, so the walk wasn’t too terribly awful, although it got a bit hot toward the end.
We stopped along the way to our hotel for a frosty libation and lunch at Pat O’Briens. That was really nice. I had the Crawfish Etoufee which was very tasty. The walk and flight had done us in though.
Looking tired and ready for a nap, no? I probably took this with my cell phone. I did quite a bit of blogging from my phone during that trip. After lunch we walked the rest of the way to our hotel. Part of the way there we ran into none other than one of my regular customers and his girlfriend, who were getting ready to drive back to Atlanta. Small world and all that.
I had booked our room at the Bourbon Orleans. We were pleasantly surprised upon check-in. They had upgraded our room to a two-story suite with a balcony that looked out upon Orleans Avenue, about 50 yards from Bourbon Street. Very nice. Once we checked in we immediately decided a nap would be appropriate and without children we had that luxury. We slept until dark and then wandered around for awhile. We stopped for supper at a place called Sammy’s Steak and Seafood. They had one of the best ribeyes that I have ever eaten. Truly mouthwatering. After we ate we wandered some more and found our way to a blues club where we listened and drank beer for hours until we decided to head back for more sleep (something I never get enough of in my job).
This was not the best picture I have ever taken, but it is the view from the balcony at 7AM the next day. We had made reservations for brunch at the Court of Two Sisters so we got an early start to the next day. We walked through the French Market and had beignets at Cafe’ Du Monde. You can’t go to New Orleans without stopping at Cafe’ Du Monde. I have been several times and always get beignets there. Brunch was great. It was a pretty nice experience as well as having pretty decent food (and several Mimosas!!)
Another cell phone picture. We sat right next to the fountain during brunch. We sat outside (most everyone does) and the “ceiling” was an interconnected Wisteria vine (possibly more). It was amazingly huge. I have a Wisteria next to the deck in my back yard, but nothing can compare to this one. They had lights strung through it as well and birds were constantly fluttering through as well.
After brunch we decided to nap some more (of course). We had walked most of the morning since brunch was at 11, so once the alcohol from the Mimosas had hit my blood stream I was pretty wiped out. Did I ever tell you what a cheap date I am? Very cheap. Two beers and I am ready for sleep. Here are a few pictures I took while we walked around the area.
That last one was taken in front of St. Louis Cathedral where the wife lit a candle for her mother and grandmother.
We wandered back out around Five PM and went back to Sammy’s for dinner. It was just as good as it had been the night before. Bourbon Street even in March is pretty packed on the weekend, and this was no different. We started out at the Famous Door, then went back to the blues club we had been to the night before, and wandered back down to the Famous Door. I must have had seven or eight beers by then, but had decided to pace myself. We ran into one of the Wife’s teacher friends at the Famous Door and off they went to dance to the pretty decent rock band. I am not much of a dancer, so I just hung out and watched the crowd. All was well until one of those shooter girls started coming around with jello shooters carried quite provocatively. That’s what did me in. Several shooters later I decided I had reached my proverbial “puke point” so I grabbed the wife as I hate to stumble down the road by my lonesome and we headed back to the hotel.
We had to fly back relatively early the next day, so we packed up and took a cab this time rather than riding the bus as we needed to get to the airport by 8AM. The flight back was pretty horrible due to really bad weather over Mississippi and Alabama, but it is the only thing that marred the trip. Here are a few more pictures that I have posted here no and again. It’s nice to recall what a wonderful trip we had.
The trip itself was a blast and made all the more memorable since the wife and I never get any time to get a weekend together without the children. I love them all very much, but occasionally it’s just time to have a bit of adult company.
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