Way Down South

As any follower of this blog might be able to tell from my lack of blogging, I liked New Orleans. Too much to waste my time there writing about it anyway.

Liz and I had a great time there. It was way, way too hot and humid, but thats why they sell drive through daiquiris. We didn't do everything there was to do though. We were too late in the day when we got to go to the Tabasco factory and we didn't get to Cafe Du  Monde due to personnel issues on our end. Turns out we are getting too old to go out until all hours everyday.

We do a lot though. We saw step brass band out in the wrong part of town, had some great po' boys and gas station fried chicken, and still found time to have a few drinks. It turns out New Orleans is known for that last one. Our host Jon made us get  house daiquiris at the Green Turtle, which tasted like artificial watermelon and kerosene. The best part of them though was that they were cheep and made everything else after that taste great.

The city itself was beautiful to a couple of architects. True it was pretty rough in spots, and damn scary in more spots but that is just part of the character. Our host Jon lives in an awesome shotgun duplex in Bywater which dated back to the mid 1800's. The whole neighborhood looked like old Key West, but no mater how far you walked, you never got to the beach.

A big thanks to Sherry and David for coming all the way down there and a huge thanks to you Jon for letting us destroy your place and sleep on your floor.

Since then we drove up to Natchez. The town was famous for being right on the Mississippi and having a few dozen insanely rich white people back in the day. Those rich white people are all gone, but their massive houses are still there. While they were all quite beautiful, they were also kind of wired since a lot of them are right in the middle of town. There would be a row of stately old homes and then boom, 20,000 sf of mansion. It would be like if Bill Gates showed up and built his house at the end of your neighborhood.

Since then we've been driving up the Natchez Trace, seeing the rural deep south and spending two of the hottest nights camping ever. I mean EVER.

We hit up the Jack Daniels distillery tour today. It's a great tour if you're ever in nowhere Tennessee and even got a bottle of booze there in a dry county (it's a long story). Tonight though, we're in doors sleeping and Liz's aunt and uncle's in Ashville NC. No more sweating in my sleep.

Here's Ol' Jack.