Memphis/New Orleans whirlwind tour

Noel had a soccer game in Memphis, the Venables were going to be in New Orleans right afterwards, so we decided to make a trip out of it.

Friday 02/16 we drove to Memphis and met Colleen and Noel at the Germantown Commissary for supper.

That’s a huge slab of ribs with two small loaves of bread in front of them. It was good, and we were early enough to beat the crowd. Will and Anne Kash drove separately and arrived at their hotel around 10PM. Saturday morning Peggy and I went to Beale street, a place we had never seen before, nor had we seen downtown Memphis. After the afternoon soccer game, a 4 – 4 tie, played at the Mike Rose soccer complex, Will and Colleen went there while we stayed with the girls. Here’s a prank we tried to play on Peggy when she got back to the hotel, supposed to think there’s a strange person in the room, almost worked.

We went on to New Orleans Sunday morning but stopped at a roadfood.com recommended place, the Dinner Bell in McComb Mississippi. 16 people can sit around a table which has an enormous lazy suzan in the middle. We sat with three guys who had been on a quail hunt that morning (at a game farm) and an older couple with their adult daughter. The food was typical southern food, very good and plentiful, basically an all you can eat deal.

We stayed Sunday night at a brewery, Fauberg, an ambitious attempt to create a craft beer business on the grounds of the hurricane-Katrina-ruined Dixie brewery. The building is very nice, the grounds impressive, with walking trails, frisbee golf course, bocce ball courts, lots of chairs and tables. The only thing missing was customers. Empty. We stayed there again Tuesday night before heading home on Wednesday and we may have been the only people to buy a beer that day. It’s very difficult to get to and although nice inside of it’s fenced in area, not in a good part of town.

Monday AM we met Don and Anne and family at Court of Two Sisters for a jazz-breakfast buffet, great food and good live music. We walked around the quarter, then took the St Charles street car to Camelia grill for lunch. I met them with Sammy in Audubon park. Later that evening we stayed with Margaret and Thomas while Don and Anne went to eat at Cane and Table (top 5 meal lifetime they said). Peggy and I checked into the Kimpton hotel on Poydras across from Mother’s, dog friendly, we want to remember it for next trip. Tuesday was the aquarium in the morning, lunch on Decatur street (the Gazebo) and then City Park sculpture garden in the afternoon.

Aquarium, Jackson Square, and two picture of the Sculpture Garden in City Park.

Finally Margaret and Thomas cruising on down the river.

Wednesday morning as the Venables boarded the ship we checked out Bayou Segnette SP and found it to be very nice, 25 minutes from CBD NOLA. We will probably stay there at some point in the future. Then I had a Po Boy at Parasol’s, Peggy had a Irish Sundae (beef gravy on top of potato salad, she liked it), we gassed up at Costco and hit the road. Uneventful return trip, arrived home 3:30 Thursday afternoon.