Jakes the Legend: The Big Easy Recap

What a great trip. Ten people in New Orleans for Holly's birthday celebration is guaranteed to be a great time. Krissy and I arrived there first on Wednesday night. It should have been earlier but we had a plane delay in St. Louis.

We started off by checking into the Hotel Manzarin which is a fantastic place with great staff. We threw our bags in and headed for Jean Lafitte's Absinthe Bar from 1807. It's totally ancient with a high bar, low seats and great drinks. We toured Bourbon Street after that.

Other folks arrived on Thursday and we hung around them at several bars. Ed actually got to play a couple songs with the house band at Fat Catz.

More people arrived on Friday. On Saturday we did the St Louis cemetery tour with Gary and Michelle which was very interesting. Nicolas Cage fell in love with New Orleans and bought out a space and had a mausoleum built for himself. A very interesting choice in design and there's a photo below. Saturday night was a venture to Frenchmen's Street which has more of a local flavor. We didn't get back to the hotel till 3am.

One of my two favorite places was Jimani where I had a steak poboy. It was by far the best sandwich that I've ever had in my entire life! The other, a place I kept gravitating to with Krissy, was the Chart Room. No relation to the one in Key West but it sure looked similar. A true locals joint led by Al, the Bell Captain at the Hotel Monteleone for 56 years and John the Magician who has been in several movies.

A special thanks to Eddie Willis for a truly great two hour show at Prohibition 21. An 80 year old blues legend who truly tore the house down and it was my pleasure to watch it!

The French Quarter is a magnificent place and the people of New Orleans were nice and very patient with all the tourists. I've left out quite a bit more but it wouldn't be the Crescent City if we didn't leave a few secrets there. I look forward to a return visit someday as New Orleans gave me a great idea for a book!

Later