We had an awesome day exploring the French Quarter, and finishing with a beer and piano brewery visit.
It is a beautiful morning in New Orleans. Our parking spot faces South West a bit, so I can see the sunrise from the big windows towards the back of the trailer. I woke up one my own again around 5:15am today. I sat by where Bia usually does her work from, and am watching the sunrise while I have my coffee and get my morning things done. It’ll be a warm day today, hitting 80s. No signs of Bella yet, so hopefully she’ll sleep longer today. Nope, just as I wrote this, she got out of the top bunk, it’s 6:45am. Bia woke up not much after that as well.
Both girls were up much earlier than their first class, so they started drawing. They’re very much into drawing right now and so they spent most of the time prior to class doing that.
Bia started her class at 8, and so I had Bella going as well. They both had a good school day, and were done right after lunch time. We were planning on going downtown and getting beignets at Cafe du Monde, so I told them they had to finish to get one. Bella got done and did some science that she was behind on as well. Then the girls packed their little backpacks again, putting their drawings stuff in them and were ready to go.
Carol was up and worked on some planning for the day and looking up other activities as we have Saturday all open right now. She wants to do a plantation visit, but it’s an hour drive from here, so she’s looking for all the options. She also played with Maggie outside and got her so tired, Maggie just found a spot in front of the fan and plopped down. Hahahaha. Then Carol did some yoga and stretches outside for a while.
I did my writing, posted a post and got another one queued up. I also had a work call and did some work. Then I sat with Carol to finish planning the day, we got some leftovers for lunch and were all ready to go.
We left right after lunch, and our first destination was to walk around Bourbon street a bit on our way to Jackson Square, to get beignets at Cafe du Monde. It’s pretty easy and close to get to Bourbon Street from our spot. I love how the girls look so cute with their back packs, and are all excited about walking around, exploring, etc.
On the way out, and really for the entire day, Bella asked me to teach her some Japanese. hahahah… well, I only know “what’s your name”, “my name is” and I can count to ten. That’s it! But, that turned into this all day thing where she’d repeat these over and over again until she memorized it. Hahahah it was super cute and fun actually. She said she wants to download DuoLingo on her phone to learn more. We walked to Bourbon street, then walked maybe 3-4 blocks on it. It was interesting to see the street and imagine it packed with people, people on the balconies, etc. But, it is not really a kid friendly area even while empty. It’s just bars and “weird” people. hahahah…
We kept going and hit Jackson square pretty soon. It’s a nice square, with big trees and a nice old building. There were carriage rides there, but we didnt want to take one. Cafe fu Monde was right there on the other side of the street.
We picked the short line and got two bags with 3 beignets each, and Carol got a Cafe au Lait as well. Then, we headed up the steps towards the water, to just sit and eat while we looked out to the Mississippi River, a big bridge (not sure what it’s called), and the Ferry boat was right there as well. It’s a nice area, with many cool things in sight. The beignets were pretty good, lots of thin powder sugar on them, so as we took them out of the bags, little chunks were flying everywhere and sticking to us. It looked like we were hit by some powder fairy. We ate, enjoyed the music from one of the artists playing Sax right there, and then kept moving.
Carol wanted to try some local pralines, so we went to a store right there. Carol got a few different flavors to try, got a recipe book, and the girls got a little voodoo doll each. They have these kid appropriate dolls that are supposed to protect, or help kids with certain things and each doll does a different thing. They each picked one they liked, so now they have “friendly” voodoo dolls. As Carol and the girls checked out the store, I went for a walk looking for a brewery. The Jaxson Brewery shops is right there but there is no brewery, so the closest one was Crescent City Brewery.
I went back to meet them and we went to the brewery. It’s a nice little spot, with an outside patio in the back of the building, which is where we went. Nice place, with good beer. The girls got their drawings things out and started drawing. We got some beers and they had locally crafted sodas as well, so Bella had an orange one, and Bia had two of the strawberry one (which created a situation later). Carol was talking to her sister for a while and I was just enjoying watching the girls draw, while I sipped on some good beer. Three beers later, we were ready to move on.
Next stop was another walk through Bourbon street on our way to the Zony Mash Beer project, for more local beer and some live Piano and food truck. The plan was to walk all the way there, it’s a good 2 plus mile walk, but it was going to be ok as we would be checking out the area.
We all used the restroom before leaving, and went. We saw more interesting things on Bourbon street. A fat hairy guy, dressed as a woman, singing. A clown making balloon things and putting them on mannequins on the street… hahahaha.. some guys on a balcony trying to get a few ladies to flash for beads, you know, the usual. We were having a good walk, until… I had to pee again, and so did Bia. My pee was coming so fast, I left like those expandable hoses that fill up when you turn the water on but have a hose gun on the other side, then when you hit the release it just shoots water fast, you know. hahahaha… I could not hold it anymore, so I found a spot behind some pillars by a building, timed it just right so no-one would see it and went, right there…. Shhhhhhwaaaaaaaaa…. Hose empty… Pewf, almost peed my pants. Hahahahahah.. Those beers came down fast. hahahaha… But, we still had poor Bia, her second soda was coming down too and she could not do what I had just done. I had the GPS on and we were looking for places… Subway, closed. Another place, closed… kept walking and saw a police car with a cop in it, so Carol went to ask. She puts her face by the passenger door, cop sees her and she asks about a public restroom nearby for the girls. Cop gets out of the car and says: “well, there IS one IF you know someone, and you just happen to. Follow me and I’ll take you to the substation right here”. What!!?? He started walking, we followed, girls right behind him. He opens a random door by a building and it’s like a small police station, with a TV, some seats, he was super nice and shows us the spot. They had a lunch room, a weight room, and nice and clean bathrooms. The girls went right away. He then offered us all drinks, soda, water, coffee. Bia and Bella said they’d take a water, and he grabbed two bottles and gave to them saying “here, take one each to go, just in case you need it later”. He asked us where we were from and where we were going next. He didnt know about this beer place, but said to get there we’d have to cross some big roads, and he’d not do it with his own kid and recommended we take an Uber, so we did that. That was really nice of him, he was super nice, and made such a nice impression on the girls. They were happy. That gave a new meaning to “serve and protect”.
We got our Uber and while we were pretty close, it was much better then walking under overpasses and a shady area. We arrived at the beer place just before 5, which is when the event was scheduled to start. It’s a nice spot, there was a bus with the beer, a food truck and a pickup truck with a piano behind it. There was a seating area there and enough space for a good amount of people. Fortunately, there were not that many people, so we were pretty comfortable in our corner. The girls had their drawing stuff out again. We had some beers, girls had sodas, than later Carol got two rounds of food, which were chicken winds, cheese balls, and French Fries fried in duck fat. We had a great time there, chatting, laughing, listening to the piano. It’s always nice to be in craft breweries, we always have a good time together. The other interesting thing about the spot is that one of their garbage containers was a big barrel container of “done de Leite” (milk caramel from Brazil), it had the brand and a “made in Brazil” sign, with the website and a Brazilian phone number on it. The barrel was brand new, so likely recently used.
When we were done eating, we got another Uber and were back around 8pm. Then we all showered and went to bed. I had the AC on 76, and left the fan running all the time on low. The fan running is nice as it works as white noise, and keeps the trailer in more of a constant temperature. Later at night I ended up lowering the temp as it was warm.
We had a really nice day exploring the French Quarter, Bourbon Street, Cafe du Monde and beignets, seeing Jackson Square, and having some beers in local breweries. Bia and Bella continued their awesome drawings and are getting better and better.