So we head out to New Orleans on I59. We listen to The Red Stick Ramblers all the way there. I love this band. We listen to the second cd -The Right Key But the Wrong Keyhole. All the way. We start to get close to Lake Ponchartrain and there are all the housing developments and they are empty. We cross Lake Ponchartrain and there are serious fortifications on the bridge. It's sort of unsettling, but we're glad they're there. We drive farther into town and there's nobody home. NOBODY. Every now and then you see a Fema trailer (a $60 thousand dollar trailer?) in back of an abandoned house but that's not very often. We did see in Miss'ippi hundreds of these trailers sitting willi-nilly on the hillsides. ??????
So we get into the Quarter and it looks just like always with maybe a boarded up place here and there. We find our hotel - The Bourbon Orleans. Now we haven't stayed in a fine hotel in the French Quarter since our honeymoon night soooooo many years ago. We usually stay with friends or drive back, but tonight we are pampering ourselves. No occasion except we were going to be at the Beau Rivage for a special getaway Labor Day weekend but Katrina ruined that. I remember fires, chainsaws, and sweat thinkin' "Know where we should be right now?"
So we have valet parking and we enter the lobby like a bunch of wild Missi'ppi feral pigs. Sally looks across the room in this beautiful two-hundred-year-old-plus elegant hotel and says, "It's haunted!" I go, "Really?!" So I turn to the black female hotel employee by my side and say, "Is it haunted?" And she says, "I've never seen anything." I go, "But they say it's haunted?" She says, "Yes, but I've never seen anything. They say there's a woman up in the ballroom but I've never seen her." So I go, "What does she do?" "She dances and walks around in the ballroom, but I've never seen her." So I ask, "What does she wear?" She answers, "A long black dress, but I've never seen anything." At this point I lean over and tell her we're from Mississippi, and she says, "I know, she already told me, and it's okay." I love it already.
So we checked out our rooms and they were wonderful. I recommend this hotel. The Bourbon Orleans. Then we were off walking through the Quarter to the The Acme Oyster House/Bar, absolutely one of the best places to eat in the world. I first went there as a teenager with my parents, then always made stops there during Mardi Gras in my young adult years, then again when I was in bands playing New Orleans, and now everytime I go. You must eat there if you go to New Orleans. I had a dozen oysters on the half shell, and Buzz had charbroiled oysters on the half shell. These are wonderful if you can't take them raw. They are served on the half shell and have been broiled in seasoning (butter, lemon, spices) and sprinkled with Parmesan with small pieces of garlic toast. Yep. Topped all that off with a cup of black New Orleans gumbo, and things are just about perfect.
Then we all walked over to the House of Blues to retrieve our pre-ordered tickets to see Jimmie Vaughan and Lou Ann Barton. Next we headed over to the Mississippi River and sat on the Moon Walk steps. I always have to go put my hands in the Mississippi River for good luck. It was a beautiful day, and the Quarter was full of tourists (and Fema workers, I'm sure). It's like nothing had happened, unless you look really closely, then you see the occasional boarded up building and the damage here and there, but the Quarter was spared compared to the rest of the city because it's higher up in the soup bowl. Next stop was Cafe du Monde for coffee and beignets and crowd-watchin'. Then a walk back to the hotel and showers before the night's show.
We all met up and walked to the House of Blues. When we walked up there was George Rains from Austin playing drums with Jimmie Vaughan. We stopped and talked with him awhile and then met the keyboard player, Bill Willis who got his start playing with Billie Holiday. We finally went inside and saw a two-piece acoustic Cajun/rockabilly duo as opening act (the name escapes me but they were good). Then Jimmie comes out and plays a long set, bringing Lou Ann out for several numbers. She was in as fine a voice as I've ever heard her. The crowd was large and enthusiastic and we worked our way to the front. I was right at the stage in front of Jimmie and could have touched his silver-tipped boot but didn't. I was so excited that I accidently flushed my cell phone down the toilet when I went to the bathroom.
When we came out on the sidewalk we met Billy Pittman who is from LA and has played with my friend, Teisco del Rey. Buzz and I walked back to the hotel to regroup while our friends went to Cafe du Monde where they ran into Jimmie Vaughan and talked with him. We missed that, although we got a rat-a-tat-tappin' on our door telling us about it. "WE GOT TO EAT BEIGNETS WITH JIMMIE VAUGHAN!!!!" So I got dressed and went over to their room to hear about all this and the hotel detective meets me. I'm drinking my glass of wine and ask him if there is a problem and he just says someone complained about some yellin'. I assure him that it will not happen again and it doesn't. So we all go out on the balcony of their room and then realize that what if it can't hold all six of us and some of us go back inside, but it's SOOOO COOL to be in the French Quarter in this great city that has seen so much in three hundred years and we are right where it all happened. The Pantalbo Apartments are just a block away and they are the oldest apartment building in the entire United States. Then we notice that this smallish statue of Mary in the garden in back of St. Louis Cathedral has a light on it and is casting a shadow of her with outstretched arms onto the back of the cathedral that is fifty feet tall or so. It's amazing.
The next day we take hot showers and head out to make it back to take my dad to a late breakfast back at home. Again we drive through the silent, vacant, devastation, and we wonder how it will ever be bulldozed let alone rebuilt. My friend said that she drove into New Orleans at night (which we didn't) and said it was eerie because most of the city is still blacked out. There's a huge bridge on I10 when you're driving into town where you can see the whole city. At night it has always been lit up, and I always get an excited feel. Now, it's just darkness with the lights from the Quarter and downtown beckoning though the darkness.
I got a new voodoo doll on Bourbon, and the only regrets I have are that I didn't get to meet Jimmie Vaughan with the others, didn't sneak up to the ballroom at the Bourbon Orleans and see the ghost dancing in the long black dress, and didn't get to have a Cajun omlet and a Bloody Mary at Pere Antoine restaurant on Royal. The saying is, "They tear you down on Bourbon and we put you back together on Royal." Next time!
Laissez les bon temps rouler!