The big easy....

OMG!!! New Orleans was fun. We arrived around 4:30pm on Tuesday, checked in and headed out to find a drink and an hors d'oeuvre.

BTW, the hotel is a great place. It is called Le Richelieu and its in a quiet part of the French Quarter. It is just far enough away from Bourbon Street to be quiet, but near enough for a quick walk to all the cool things to do. It is a little old and shabby, but that is not uncommon among hotels in the FQ.

We were in room 226 and right across the hall (room 227) is the Paul McCartney Suite, so named because he stayed there for 2 months during the filming of "Wings". Anyone can rent the PM Suite and it is quite elegant. It has a small, but full kitchen, a sitting room and then the master bedroom suite. I tried to get a decent picture of the sitting room and the bedroom, but you can see that my photography skills are lacking. One whole wall of the bedroom is mirrored, so I wound up with Susan and myself in the picture.

It also has the distinction of being the only hotel in the FQ with FREE parking for guest's cars. This is a great feature as street parking in the FQ is very limited and all other hotels charge anywhere from $10 to $35 per day for parking.

They also have a nice little restaurant that is open from 7:00am to 2:00pm and a bar that is open until 2:00am. They serve excellent coffee and a full breakfast in the morning and the bar had Oban 14 available.

Anyway, we walked down Decatur Street and decided to go into a place called "The Corner On The Corner", so called because it is a corner bar on the corner of Decatur and St. Phillips. We ordered up some chicken wings that turned out to be outstanding. They were spicy, but dry and crispy rather than all gooey with sauce. Really good!

We also met Jordan the bartender (black and white striped shirt in the picture above). She helped us quite a bit by steering us to a couple of places where the locals eat and drink. Taking her advice, we went to "The Gumbo Shop" for dinner and had a great meal. I had chicken (what else?) gumbo and Susan had a Cajun Shrimp Salad. Both were very tasty and Susan's salad was loaded with spicy shrimp.

The next day (Thursday) we slept in until 10:00am. I guess the drive down from Atlanta was a little tougher than I thought. We went to Jimmy Buffet's Margaritaville for lunch and split a Shrimp Po' Boy. It was very tasty, but there was simply too much bread.

We then walked down to the N.O. Riverwalk to do a little shopping. Once again, we entered a large indoor mall and there were no more than 2 dozen customers in the whole place. I asked one of the people who worked there and she said that it was a little puzzling why, because they had a pretty good summer, but all of this week was simply dead. We speculated that it was because everyone was getting their kids back to school. This weekend is the Gay Pride Parade in N.O., so they were all hoping that business will improve.

We then walked back to the hotel and got the car to drive down through the Lower 9th Ward to see first hand was is going on down there. It's pretty sad. Along the main throughfares, many, many businesses are still abandoned and boarded up. On the side streets, at least one third of the homes are abandoned and boarded up.

Thursday night, we took the advice of the owner of the hotel and went to dinner at Irene's. I was surprised to find the place packed. It is apparently a local favorite. We split an appetizer of steamed mussels that were great. We also split a caprese salad and then Susan had the seafood cioppino and I had the fish of day which was drum. We finished up with coffee and baked alaska. It was an outstanding meal and I hardily recommend Irene's to anyone going to the FQ in NO.

We were once again extremely lucky with the weather. I have been in NO before in December and thought I was going to croak. It was nearly 100 degrees with 98 per cent humidity. This week, however was great. It was hot during the middle of the afternoon, but not too much so. We got a little steamy walking down to the Riverwalk and back in midafternoon, but the evening was very nice and comfortable.

After dinner Thursday night we walked down Bourbon Street until we found a club with live music that suited our fancy. I have included a picture inside the club of the group on stage. I also included a picture of the cocktail waitress that was constantly bugging me to buy a shooter from her. I finally gave in and bought a couple, as you can see the picture above.