NAWLINS

It was with heavy hearts and aching heads that we finally left the great state of North Carolina. We were pretty sure that the bar had been set high for all upcoming states, cities, and towns in terms of the beauty of the landscape and the excellence of the people. Our first day out involved what would be one of our longer drives and most likely the most states traveled across: N.C., S.C., Georgia, and Alabama. Our next major stop was in Ocean Springs, MS/New Orleans but we decided to camp in Talladega National Forest before completing our journey. It was a lovely site and a very nice forest to drive through/walk around in. The next day we came within a couple miles of the Talladega Motor Speedway but didn’t stop for the photo-op (Sorry Pops) as we still had a pretty significant drive ahead of us. We got to Ocean Springs and went to my old college buddy Jeni’s place, and she graciously housed us for the evening and then played the role of tour guide in Ocean Springs and New Orleans.

Team KePow meets the sea

Mychie likes the beach and the beach likes Mychie

            Ocean Springs was our first view of salt-water and sandy beach on our trip and we took some time before heading to NOLA the next day to sit on the beach and get our feet a bit wet. Once we got into the city we went to the French Quarter and walked around for a few hours before snagging some excellent gumbo and heading to our hotel. That evening Jeni showed us around some more of the French Quarter and we did a bit of Bourbon Street.

            New Orleans is interesting. There isn’t another city, that I have been to, that is like it. Normally I am pretty turned off by a place that has the feel of, “we are catering to tourists now buy some crap!” While New Orleans definitely has a lot of that going on in certain parts I got the feeling that it is a very thin veneer over something truly unique. There were tons of fat tourists walking around the French Quarter buying junk but then a block away the streets are less cluttered with the pale and you can get the sense of how old New Orleans is and that the image on the postcards is just a scrubbed clean version of something real. There is a vibe to the place and music in the streets. For every skank trying to pull you into a shitty bar to drink something awful there is a bar older than America or a group of musicians actually scraping by playing on the street because this is a city where they can do it because the city needs them as much as they need it.

Bourbon St. by day

          

Bourbon St. by night

Myk and I talked about how it isn’t necessarily a place to settle down but somewhere we could live for a year or two if we had the dough and if we wanted to really let go for a while. Overall, I still feel like I have a love hate relationship with the city that leans more heavily towards love than hate. It’s like having a friend who sells used cars but at night plays in a band and on the weekend does charity work.

Anyway, we had a good ol’ time in New Orleans and Ocean Springs and our trip is great overall so far. Before we left we went to Café Du Monde and had coffee and Beignets (delicious) and then began our trek out of New Orleans and into Texas.

A proper NOLA breakfast

Lafitte's est. 1772     America est. 1776