Back in New Orleans

St. Louis's Cathedral at Jackson Square

It was sooooo cold in Milwaukee this morning when we went to the airport (thank you Steve for driving us so we didn't have to mess with parking).  Two flights (connection in Memphis) later, though, and we were in lovely New Orleans where the temps were in and around the 70s all day.  We took a walk through the French Quarter and I was able to capture this photo of St. Louis's Cathedral in Jackson Square.  Look at the cute horse carriages waiting to take tourists on a ride through the Quarter. Jeff had a shrimp po'boy and I had a muffaletta (both of them are types of sandwiches you get in this area) for lunch, and we spent the next couple of hours walking it off along the Mississippi and along the streets.  Then, we somehow ended up at Harrah's casino where we both got free t-shirts for signing up for the player's card (actually, mine was free but Jeff's ended up costing him $25.  Guess we know who the real player is!)

Tonight we're going to dinner at Luke, a restaurant owned by John Besh.  During one of the past "Next Iron Chef" competitions (which I watched on TV a while back as a rerun), John Besh was one of the finalists -- and one of the chefs that I really liked.  He eventually lost to Michael Symon (who I also really like), but I was curious about him when I heard he was from New Orleans so I decided to try one of his restaurants while we're here.  I'm looking forward to giving it a try, after which I imagine we'll stroll down Bourbon Street before turning in fairly early.  Tomorrow morning, we're going to go have beignets for breakfast before heading over to the cruise ship terminal to board the ship.  We're both really excited about the departure because we'll be going down the Mississippi for quite a ways before hitting the Gulf, and it should be really fun to watch the shoreline.  The prediction is for rain tomorrow (at least, scattered showers) so I hope it doesn't spoil our ability to hang out on deck and watch everything go by.