New Orleans, Louisiana

We left Austin at 8am Friday morning and drove pretty much all day. The main event of the days drive was stopping at Buc-ees for some fresh beef jerky.

Woo found a fantastic dog park somewhere off i10

We were lucky enough to find a dog sitter in the suburb of Metairie who was also willing to host the van in her driveway for the weekend. A win win. We dropped off the beast and the vehicle and walked across the street where none other than our Appalachian Trail friend Jiffy picked us up.

Jiffy lives about 90 minutes east of New Orleans but his girlfriend is getting her PhD at Tulane so he is in the city quite often. It just so happened that the stars aligned and Jiffy and his girlfriend Claire offered to pick us up and hang with us for the night. Our first stop was a Po Boy spot off of magazine street. It was great to catch up with Jiffy and meet and get to know Claire.

Jiffy got stitches above his eye the night before, nurse Woo suggested ice. If it wasn’t obvious from the mustache, Jiffy is a pilot in the Air Force

We didn’t have working debit cards to use the ATM, but we managed to scrounge enough bills for a couple rounds of cheap beer

Next we headed to the French quarter where we dropped our bags at the hotel before hitting the town. We walked over to Frenchman street to listen to some live music and I remembered how much I love New Orleans. There is just no place on earth like it. It was a pleasant evening and the music and drinks were flowing in and out of bars into the streets. I find it difficult to articulate how wonderful and special New Orleans is. As anticipated, Bre loved it. Not to be confused with Jiffy’s girlfriend Claire, Bre’s friend Claire (from Virginia) also made an appearance.

Claire had flown in to join the hitched and rolling tour for the weekend, and came to meet us on Frenchman street where she made an easy addition to our bopping and culturally-absorbent crew.

Street vendor bikes around with a tray of pastries for sale

After some late night pizza we parted ways with Jiffy and Claire, and headed back to the hotel with Claire.

On Friday night we had a blast. Surprisingly, we felt great the next day. We met Claire (Jiffy’s Claire, not Virginia Claire) at Cafe Du Monde for a quick breakfast where we arrived just in time to beat the line, and enjoyed beignets to the sound of live jazz. After breakfast we walked around town, unsuccessfully trying to find an apple-wallet-compatible ATM to solve the lack of cash problem. After a nice morning stroll we said our goodbyes to Claire and went back to the hotel to meet up with the other Claire (Virginia Claire).

Around lunch time, having met up with our second Claire of the day, the three of us walked over to the Napoleon House, which, like many establishments in the French quarter, feels (and probably is) casually a couple hundred years old. After brunch we took an uber over to magazine street to walk around and enjoy the afternoon. We ate red beans and rice and sauntered through the shops.

Bopping around I saw that the commanders were playing. I forgot! What a nice surprise for a Saturday. We lost of course

Not wanting to do anything TOO crazy for the evening, Bre, Claire and I elected to go on a ghost tour of the French quarter. The tour itself was a bit discombobulated, but strolling around at night amongst the Caribbean colors and kerosine lamps and street musicians was just downright wonderful nonetheless.

How lucky are we.