New Orleans

After leaving Austin, I spent about a day and a half driving toward New Orleans. I made sure to pass through Lockhart, Texas on the way. Although I had spent the past week and a half binging on Texas brisket already, Lockhart is widely considered the state's best BBQ. I stopped at Black's BBQ, a cafeteria style joint near the highway with a perpetual half hour line out the door. I stuffed as much delicious brisket as I could stand, smiled big, and then promptly swore off beef for awhile (probably).

After lunch, I realized that, although I was already en route to New Orleans, I didn't have an actual destination in town. I wasn't too sure about camping in the van in the middle of town, so I looked up some motels on Yelp. I found one called the Royal Street Courtyard that appeared to be well located near the French Quarter and had good reviews, and programmed Google Maps to take me there.

As soon as I got off the freeway, I knew I was somewhere new. The bumpy streets were narrow and tree-lined. The buildings were old and a little run down, but full of color and character. I was in a residential neighborhood called The Marigny. I felt a little bit like an intruder. I didn't see any tourists anywhere. A few relaxed folks walked and biked along the very quiet streets.

Before I left, my friend Annie connected me via email with a local resident, Gabriel, that lived nearby. He said he might have some ideas for places to stay or camp out, but he hadn't responded yet so I stuck to the hotel plan for now.

I parked next to the bed and breakfast, walked onto the porch, and knocked on the door. A maid answered and told me there was no vacancy.

That's the risk of making no arrangements I suppose. So I hit the second place on the list, Olde Town Inn, that was only a few blocks away.

Luckily, they had some rooms available, so I checked in for two days. They said my van was fine parked on the street out front, but I had better make sure nothing was left out visible in the car because someone might break into it. So I removed my stuff and locked up my bike inside their gates.

Two minutes later, Gabriel called. He wasn't available to meet up until the next day, so I set out on the bike to explore the city solo.

My location was fantastic. The Marigny is located between the French Quarter, the Tremé, and the Bywater neighborhoods. It's also only four blocks from Frenchman Street, which was recommended for some of the best music, food, and drinks in town.

Even with the great location though, I was grateful once again for having my bike to ride around. New Orleans is naturally swamp land so is very flat and perfect for biking. It's a great way to get a feel for that part of town.

The day before, my friend Melissa had emailed me a tremendous list of must-do's and should-do's. Even though I was a bit road weary, the weather forecast for the next few days was a little ominous, so I got as much outdoor sightseeing in as possible.

Over a few days I got some fried chicken at Fiorella's, some gumbo and jambalaya at Coop's, some fresh fish with ocean sauce at Adolfo's, and my share of red beans and rice at a few places. All fantastic. All I was missing at this point was someone to hang out with.

Back at the Inn, I met Timo and Ben, two German music industry guys that had also just come from the Austin music festival. In fact, they knew one of my new Austin friends, Michael, who I stayed with one night in Texas. Small world.

I got to do some eating and drinking with them. On some good advice, we also explored the Tremé neighborhood a bit, and found the Candlelight Lounge, a historic hole in the wall where the Tremé Brass Band plays every Wednesday night. I could feel how fully these older musicians had truly dedicated their entire life to the musical traditions of New Orleans. The place was entirely without any pretense. There is no stage, no lighting for the band. The hostess and the tuba player fought with the light switches making it alternately too bright and too dark. A big screen TV was showing David Letterman with the sound turned off next to a sax player. But everyone was dancing. The band, the staff, the crowd. Amazing energy.

Frenchman Street did not disappoint. It's only a small stretch of two blocks or so, but every night the bars on the block hosted some really great jazz musicians. Generally there was no cover charge for walking in and checking out some music. I was surprised by that given the quality of the music playing. The appeared to survive largely on tips. I tried to make sure never to leave anyplace without dropping some money in their jars.

When I met up with Gabriel, we hit it off right away and he took me around to see all the local spots around the Bywater neighborhood. He's a history buff, and gave me a brief history of Louisiana and New Orleans back from when it was all still part of France. It gave me some good context for how New Orleanians see their place in the world.

I chose not to do a disaster tour of New Orleans. I know that a big chunk of the city is still basically gone. I don't feel the need to gawk at the sorrow. But one night, Gabriel walked me out to a remote jetty in the Bywater they call The End of the World. From there, just a couple hundred yards across the canal, Gabriel pointed out the Lower 9th Ward. I couldn't see any sign of damage from where we were, but it showed me just how little separated these neighborhoods. It reminded me of being in Bangkok during their flooding and how much a few feet of elevation and a lot of luck make all the difference.

During the week, I noticed how poor most of the infrastructure is outside the French Quarter. The roads seem like they haven't been repaved in decades. There are street signs missing everywhere. Gabriel had me look down one road and pointed out there was only one street light working for many blocks. He said the average response time for the city to fix a street light is nine months. It must be hard to complain about anything in this city though when there are still whole neighborhoods that need to be rebuilt.

Gabriel does freelance film work most of the time and also records music. But he and his friend Andrew had just begun producing ginger beer as hobby and potential business. Their ginger beer is fast becoming popular with local bars. Their orders have begun to out run their ability to produce more. That sounded like a great business problem to have, so I started chatting with them on how they might go about getting out of hobby land and into bigger production. I'm excited to see how things turn out for them.

One night, Gabriel took me to Vaughn's, a local Bywater bar that hosts a weekly Thursday night show featuring Kermit Ruffins, a popular local trumpet player. I was excited to see Kermit because, before my trip, I had been watching the HBO series, Tremé, which is set in New Orleans post-Katrina. One of the main characters on the show is a trombone player who is always dying to play with Kermit and brags about it whenever he does. So I figured he'd be fun to check out up close and personal.

We got there a bit late, and couldn't get too close to the stage. So Gabriel and I hung out at the bar and had drinks during the show. I guess we had more drinks than I thought, because the next thing I knew, almost everyone in the bar was gone except for us and Kermit who was still in the corner of the bar playing background music off his iPad. When he put on Feels So Good by Chuck Mangione , I scurried over and started reminiscing about the song with Kermit. I bragged about knowing that it was performed on the fluglehorn and proceeded to air guitar some of the bass line. When I made the proclamation to Kermit that I thought Feels So Good was "the best elevator music song ever written", Gabriel kind of grimaced as if maybe I had gotten too familiar with such a bold critique of Kermit's music selection. But Kermit cracked up, and I'm pretty sure he agreed with me.

It was my brush with greatness for the week.

I'm not sure when I'll be back to NOLA. Mardis Gras is an obvious choice, but I don't much like big crowds.  When I expressed that to Gabriel, he told me he felt the same way until he actually experienced it. He said he'll never miss one from now on. He went on to explain the depth of local tradition surrounding the event. Between that and the rest of the music festival season, there will be many enticing opportunities to return.

Next time I'll fly though.