Nick and Sari's Great American Roadtrip: first stop: New Orleans

Phew! It has been a VERY busy week...but we FINALLY finished packing (just barely), celebrated the election of Barak Obama as president elect (Spunky in particular was very excited) and we said good bye to friends and bid farewell to Tampa...

Now that we have some free time and internet access that works we can start to update you on the fun stuff...
You can follow our route on google maps through this link:
http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?hl=en&ie=UTF8&msa=0&msid=108764651336500961003.00045296310aef175e1fe&ll=43.068888,-103.183594&spn=36.6166,68.730469&z=4

Our first real stop stop was New Orleans, and we loved it! (Except for all the boarded up houses and devastated neighborhoods) We drove into the city around lunchtime and headed right to Casamentos for the Oyster Loaf Nick has been craving ever since he read about it in a roadtrip book and saw it on TV (Travel or Food Channel).

as seen on TV..

We stayed in a great little hotel in the French Quarter just off Bourbon St. We were on the 3rd floor with a little balcony that overlooked a courtyard and we could see (and hear) Bourbon St.

View of courtyard from balcony

View from balcony

After checking in to our hotel, we walked through the French Quarter to Jackson Square
and Cafe du Monde, where Spunky enjoyed an obligatory Cafe au Lait and beignets.

We kicked around tourist gift shops and voodoo shops as we headed to Bourbon St.,

where we had no choice but to make like the locals and start drinking. We enjoyed some late night oysters at Desire, (as in "A Streecar Named...") where we had the good fortune of meeting Kent and Camille Haney...

Kent, who is the Coahoma County Prosecutor in Clarksdale, MS (our next stop) is also on the Levee Board or Commission or something, and was in New Orleans for a conference - and apparently some partying too. Kent was a lot of fun, very energetic and spoke with such a strong southern (Mississippi) accent that I'm sure I understood only half of what he said! His lovely wife Camille was more subdued, but just as friendly and sweet. They convinced us to go for 1 more drink at Pat O'Briens, a famous piano bar which we had not yet visited, so off we went. There were 2 pianos on stage, and 3 piano players/singers who rotated sets, so there was always someone playing and singing but never the same person the whole time. The crowd was great and we were all singing along. We had a great time and we were happy we met Kent and Camille, they were a lot of fun. (They also told us some people to see and places to go while in Clarksdale and Memphis)

The next day we checked out of our hotel, and drove to Willie Mae's Scotch House to sample some of the best friend chicken in America. It was really quite sad driving through the neighborhood to get there, as almost all the houses were in ruin, with just a few here and there showing signs of life.

The story about rebuilding Willie Mae's sort of epitomizes the feeling in NOLA. This is a little bit long, but you can skip the beginning: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3uVUNpkvAiA