New Orleans Part 6

 Last day of Barrett-Jackson today. We had our usual breakfast at our usual cafe, and then took our newly found short-cut to the convention centre. It was only a couple of minutes shorter than the Google Maps suggestion, but it was in a nice shady area, with less damage to the sidewalks. When people say to watch where you’re going here, they don’t mean for traffic, they mean for giant holes in the sidewalks! A lot of the infrastructure has never been repaired since Katrina.

We cut through the park beside our hotel (above) and then walked down this nice street (below) and ended up right at the convention centre. Shade all the way! 

We knew that today would be busy, as the last day is the best day, all the expensive cars are up for auction and a lot of people buy just the Day Pass for today. We wanted to be sure we got a good spot, so we arrived a bit early and people watched. We figured we’d treat Todd & Colleen (the couple we met yesterday)to a beer since they seemed to enjoy there Corona a lot, and we didn’t come close to using up our free drink passes (which, by the way, was all really high end liquor. I almost wished I drank more) However, they arrived really late and extremely hungover, having had a long and rowdy night on Bourbon Street, and looked slightly green at the thought of alcohol in any form. I do not regret those days at all! They were much younger than us, so I’m sure it was fun for them.

When it was over at 5 PM, we were escorted to the auction block for a professional photo, which was sort of a fun ending to what had turned out be to an amazing experience. Craig Jackson himself was zooming around on a little scooter sort of device, so it was sort of cool to see him too.

So we headed out and went over to Harrah’s to decide what to do for supper, and I won $80 in a matter of seconds, so dinner was on me tonight. 

We walked to a place we had spotted earlier, with $1.25 beer, but it was packed (because of cheap beer!) and the tables were “thisclose” to each other. It did not appeal. We crossed the street to The Grand Isle and had a seafood platter that had oysters, shrimp, blackened catfish and crawfish stuffed beignets, and they were amazing! 

At first I was disappointed when the plate arrived, so many fries and so little other stuff, but it turned out that all the good stuff was under the fries, including the new-to-me crawfish stuffed beignets, of which I ate almost all of them, sharing a small bite with husband who preferred the catfish.

By this time it was dark, so we slowly meandered our way back to our hotel. The live oaks look so spooky at night, and a type of egret nests in them and makes chilling sorts of screeches. Not a soul around.

So, the other day the room cleaners took our damp towels and forgot to leave new ones. There is only two small-ish bath towels and two hand towels anyhow, so this was a morning shower crisis! I hadn’t noticed it until we got up this morning, but I just showered and sort of air dried with the help of a tiny hand towel that had been left behind. I mentioned it to the front desk as we left, kindly and nicely, I mean mistakes happen, and this was what was in the bathroom when we got back to the room this evening! 😂

It was not quite time for bed, so we decided to walk up the street to a Rouse’s grocery store. I really enjoy going to a local food store when I am somewhere else, just to see the different things, and to check out prices. The place was huge, and we wandered around and noted the price of spices, as that was on my list of things to bring home. Man, they had so many kinds that I actually became overwhelmed and decided to buy them another day. Back at the room I just did some emailing, organizing, tidying-up-of-stuff and then hit the sack. I had weird dreams. Wonder if this place has spirits? It’s old enough and has probably seen enough, but I am not a believer. Weird dreams were probably from too much crawfish.