new orleans trip (days 6, 7, & 8)

monday, feb. 16.

started the day out with the NRECA's annual meeting. it was somewhat boring for me until the guest speakers took the stage. we got to hear from cal thomas and bob beckel who, although they have differing political views, have found "common ground" and have been even written a book together. it was humorous, intelligent and thought-provoking that a liberal and conservative could not only agree to disagree agreeably, but actually be good friends to boot!

bob beckel and cal thomas selling books and autographing 'em. they ran out of time, but T was able to purchase one and they will sign it and send it to him. :-)

it was a windy, cool, but sunny day so that afternoon we decided to take a cruise down the mississippi on the steamboat Natchez. bought tickets, then went looking for food. we lunched at Hard Rock Cafe which was surprisingly not busy. T was so hungry for a burger. and we enjoyed some of the best burgers there. if you know me well, you probably know that i don't like onions. however, i do like onion rings. i guess all it takes is some breading/batter and deep-frying to make even onions taste good to me! anyways, i had some of the best onion rings with my burger. they were so yummy!

they had a Louis Armstrong trumpet on the wall too. T plays trumpet so this was kind of special for him.

pictures of Hard Rock Cafe taken that night...i really liked the neon.

our river cruise was a two hour long trip. we enjoyed seeing some more of the area and learning more historical info about new orleans. they started off the tour with calliope music played up on top of the boat.

the boat...calliope being played on top.

a happy couple enjoying the river cruise. oh wait! that's me and T!

a carnival cruise ship getting ready to leave. not sure where its destination was, but i'm sure it was someplace warm...

dinner that night was at Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. yet another fine meal. the desserts were particularly nice.

T's bread pudding and my chocolate raspberry mini at Bubba Gump's. the berries were soooo juicy!

tuesday, feb. 17th.

another lunch at Hard Rock Cafe. guess we both enjoyed the food there, or we wouldn't have gone back! then we took time to tour the audubon aquarium where we took lots more pics.

oh look! a tunnel!

a crabby crab. i bought a little stuffed crab from the giftshop for cj (he adores it!)

a michievous macaw. in the amazon forest section.

mr. alligator is white? yep.

an interesting photo by T.

after the aquarium, we went for one last walk in the french quarter (to find dinner, of course!)

dinner? nope just an iron horse head.

and on the way, we went by a YARN SHOP! T was being a meanie. he wouldn't let me go in or even hardly peek in the windows. so i pouted. but i knew T was really hungry, so although i really really really wanted to stay and check out the pretty yarns, i didn't pout very much and we had an enjoyable dinner and went back to begin packing.

wednesday, feb. 18.

our last day in new orleans. in the morning, i got all our bags packed up while T went to the last NRECA meeting. it was interesting trying to fit everything back into our suitcases, but we had allowed for one more carry-on for the return trip so it worked out rather nicely. since we didn't have to leave for the airport until 2:30pm, and we had some time to spare, T agreed to take me back to the little yarn shop we had seen the night before. we checked our luggage in at the bell desk, checked out of our room and headed back to the shop. this was the first real yarn shop i've ever been in. it was really nice. small, but nice. i walked around touching and looking and touching more yarn.

after about a minute and a half, T decided to go check out the cathedral again since it was less than a block away. he did that, then sat on a bench in the park there for a bit, and enjoyed listening to a jazz band playing in the square there. i spent about an hour in the yarn shop. it's hard to decide what to buy. do i buy the one skein of noro silk garden sock yarn? or two skeins of the koigu painter's palette premium merino? either choice gets me one pair of yummy socks. the noro was a tad less expensive, but i wasn't sure about the texture...it felt stiff in places. the koigu on the other hand was blessedly soft, albeit a tad more spendy. i decide to get the koigu. only one problem remained--which color to get?

so here's my new yarn.

the nice lady even wound the skeins into balls for me.
(i hand-wind my yarns when needed, but that ball-winder made it so neat and fast!
i've gotta get myself one someday!)

i thought the packaging was a nice touch of special too.

so that (finally) is the end of my story of my trip to new orleans. it was interesting, fun, and i even bought yarn! yay!

new orleans trip (days 4 & 5)

saturday, feb. 14...valentines' day.

spent a little more time at the TechAdvantage floor show in the morning. bought a ton of chocolate at the Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory shop and some beignets (square pieces of dough, fried and covered with powdered sugar) at the Cafe Du Monde shop in the riverwalk mall. indulged in our yummy, and somewhat messy, sweet treats back in our room and just relaxedand watched tv in the afternoon (i knitted, of course)! then we went looking for something for dinner after trying to order pizza and learning that they couldn't deliver due to the many Mardi Gras parades that were in the way.

so we walked around the french quarter again and finally decided to eat at Landry's seafood house. the wait was supposed to be an hour or more so we put our name in and went for a walk since there wasn't any good place to sit and wait. when we came back to the restaurant after only 45 minutes, we discovered our name had already been passed by, but thankfully, they bumped us up to the head of the list and we got seated shortly. and we had yet another delicious meal including some of the best calamari i've had for an appetizer. yum.

on the way back to our hotel after dinner, we spotted a small Mardi Gras parade on canal street...turning onto another street which i can't recall. we took the opportunity to watch and take a few pics. and although a few items like beads were being tossed to the onlookers, we didn't snag anything, but it was fun to see anyways.

the Mardi Gras "king"

a couple of other Mardi Gras floats. we noticed the floats all tended to have a similar shape, size and feel but with different themes.

sunday, feb. 15.

we mostly just stayed in our hotel room and rested our sore feet. T watched the Nascar race and i knitted. we did go into the mall to purchase some pop and took a couple more pics of the river side.

daytime view of the bridge

the tatoosh, paul allen's personal yacht.

we later learned that this is a personal yacht belonging to paul allen, microsoft's co-founder. just to give you an idea of how big it is, there is a helicopter at the back of the yacht (you can see it in the picture), a sailboat on one side & a couple of motorboats on the other side. oh yeah, there's a 40 person crew too.

i like to think that if i had that kind of money, i'd just use it to help people in need and not waste it on luxuries like a personal yacht. but if i ever actually had millions or billions of dollars, i know i'd surely spend some of it on personal luxuries too...for example, i'd really like living someplace warm for at least part of the year so i'd probably have to buy a place on maui since i loved it over there. and that, my blog-reading friends, would be pretty spendy indeed! *grin*

new orleans trip (day 3)

friday the 13th.

T had more classes in the morning. after lunch (which i cannot remember at the moment), we walked back to the French Quarter and did some daytime touring.

Jackson Square (note the statue of Andrew Jackson in the center and the Basilica in the background is the Cathedral of St. Louis)

inside the cathedral

there were several of these "statue" guys. they set up on the street corner with a bucket for monetary donations. some just pretended to be statues, however this guy had a boombox and was lip-syncing to a song. there were also musicians that would play their instruments wherever they deemed a good location for getting money from appreciative listeners...on the sidewalks, along the riverwalk, or by the cathedral in jackson square. i couldn't believe the variety...soloists, duets, whole bands, you name it!

not something you'd find in northern minnesota!

an interesting old building we walked past. i think it might have been a home, but couldn't tell for sure if anyone lived there currently or not.

after walking around a while, we headed (the long way around) to the Insectarium on Canal Street.

Canal Street

at the Audubon Insectarium we saw and learned more about insects, of course. this was particularly interesting to me, since bubba and i had just recently finished a science unit on insects. a small part of me wished bubba could have taken the tour with us since it was so educational!

an oblong-winged katydid. ya gotta love the pink color for valentine's day!

one of MANY displays.

inside the insectarium is a large room with butterflies flying about. it's very japanese garden-esque. lots of pretty butterflies fluttering about too.

T checking out the flutterbys in the butterfly garden

a few different specimens i photographed in the garden room. poor blue one had a portion of its wing missing.

another display of the beautiful variety of butterflies

after touring the insectarium, we headed back to check out the TechAdvantage floor show. food was provided. T had his first taste of gumbo (he liked it!) and i started my collection of Mardi Gras beads from the different vendors.

only 4 more days of the trip left to blog about! and hopefully, i'll get it done soon!

new orleans trip (days 1 and 2)

flew in on wed, feb. 11.
got checked into the Hilton Riverside and ate dinner at the hotel's (expensive!) restaurant. good meal but i think i was too tired to appreciate it. had a yummy creme brulee for dessert.

thursday, feb. 12.
T attended his TechAdvantage classes. we met for lunch at the Riverwalk (a little mall connected to the Hilton). there's a pretty decent food court in there and we ate a salad, pizza-by-the-slice and pizza roll thingys. i splurged and got a mango smoothie from haagen daas too. yum!

entering Riverwalk from the street side:


outside on the Riverwalk (on the other side of the building):


while T went back for more TechAdvantage classes, i treated myself to my first ever mani/pedi. i had never before had a pedicure. my tootsies were in some pretty desperate need of attention too! and the only other time i've had a manicure was a few weeks before my wedding. it was good to be pampered a bit. i would have preferred going to a spa, but didn't know where one was or how much it would cost. there was a nail salon at the Riverwalk and so i decided to just get 'em done there.

my pretty toes (picture taken after we got back home):

that evening i got all dressed up in skirt and my strappy heels (i just had to show off my newly polished tootsies!) for a TechAdvantage reception. we literally walked in, looked around and left. too many people, too small of a space and not much for "real" food. so we went for a walk (with me still in my heels!) to the French Quarter which is only a couple blocks away, but we ended up walking a lot farther since we didn't know where we wanted to go for dinner. (a plan would have probably been wiser...)

ended up here:

and had one of the best meals of our entire trip! i chose their chicken marsala. it was delicious! for dessert we shared a piece of cheesecake. sooo good!

we chose to enjoy our meal out on the balcony. the locals thought we were nuts. it was a tad chilly, but not cold. and since we'd come from below zero weather, 60 degrees was nice.

after dinner, we walked a few more blocks till we found Jackson Square, and then headed back to our hotel. (by then, both of us had severely sore feet!)

on the way back, T took this pic of the mississippi river--notice the real steamboat on the right side (the Natchez), and a nicely lit-up bridge just upstream from our hotel:

we got back to our room and my left foot even had a small bruise where one of my shoe's straps comes around by my toes. yikes! so, the next time i decide to try and walk around town with high heels on, i hope my hubby reminds me of the pain i endured in new orleans because of my vanity!