Week nine of my “last big road trip begins” (I am just about to reach 10K miles) and I am finishing up the last day of my long weekend in New Orleans. A couple of thoughts.
- New Orleans truly is one of the great American cities. I know some will disagree about the exclusion of the “big” cities that they call home, and many will argue about the order of placement, but NOLA is up there with NYC and SF as the three great American cities. Nothing else compares and anyone that has never been here needs to try to check it out.
- I grew up in NYC and am very familiar and comfortable with the culture. I lived in Berkeley (on the other side of the Bay) and have gone back there frequently and again am pretty comfortable with the history and culture. NOLA is something else. On the first evening I got here I was a bit overwhelmed by the size and the traffic, but I finally found a nice neighborhood dog park (Jerry and I have been going to the same place twice a day every day and there are already people there who welcome Jerry by name and dogs that Jerry resumes his play patterns with from the day before.
- and the food. Last night I finally wondered into what may have been my favorite meal of the road trip. A small hole in the wall on Bourbon Street where I had blackened red fish etouffee. I substituted mashed potatoes for the beans (because it was cooked in lard) along with what I assume were sauteed collard greens. All I can say is yum. I saw another restaurant walking down Bourbon Street that I want to try but if I can’t get in there tonight I’ll be happy to back again to “Olde Nola Cookery”.
Any way you look at it I am near the back end of my trip. It is about 1900 miles across the southwest to Los Angeles and then just 900 miles up the coast to home. I plan to stop next in San Antonio, Texas, then in Tucson, Arizona and finally LA and the Bay area (again). So maybe 4 more stops and 2800 miles should be a bit more than 2 weeks.
I am at an interesting point of the trip where I am definitely tired and ready to go home but still excited about the next stops and not wanting to miss any part of this adventure/experience.