Allied Convention was in New Orleans, LA this year. Mike had been there to see the Utes play Alabama in the Sugar Bowl. Just for the record....the UTES WON! Anyway, here is the view of the Mississippi River from our hotel room.
And the kids wanted to see our room, so we took a picture of that. It was a bit small, but the view made it worth it.....Cute Mikey!
We travelled with Spencer and Tyra and left on Saturday afternoon. That put us into NOLA late Saturday night...just enough time to get settled. We tried to get dinner, but everything was closed! It was only 10pm! We ended up at a bar, but it had pretty good food. On Sunday, we went to church and then went exploring.
We have been to church in a lot of different cities, but this was by far my favorite! It was a ward, but a small congregation in Cresent City....just outside New Orleans...probably a 10 minute drive from our hotel. The members were so great! It really felt like a family. It was testimony meeting and everyone that bore their testimony was a convert. We loved listening to their conversion stories and ended up with tears in our eyes. We also ended up laughing a ton because they were a little less than reverent at times. Adults would change seats during the meeting and go sit by friends and talk out loud. There were a ton of young couples that looked like they were in school, maybe Tulane because it was close. One woman, who was from New York, had moved to New Orleans with family....parents, etc. and ended up losing everyone in Hurricane Katrina. She mentioned how she lost everyone in her family, but now she has a new family....the members of the church.
I had to teach sharing time this Sunday and I told the kids about this ward and showed them the picture of Mike & me in front of the chapel with the locked gate. It was polar opposite of Kaysville and was refreshing to have been there.
We went exploring a bit. We found the St Louis Cemetary, but it was closed. We drove through the Ninth Ward area and saw where there was brand new housing. Ninth Ward was the hardest area hit by Katrina and as I saw how many new housing complexes were there, it was obvious how many people lost their homes.
Our friends who were vacationing in Hawaii posted a sunset picture, so I sent them this picture of our sunset! Not quite the same! The four of us found Bourbon Street and walked down it for kicks. It's so disgusting. Not only does it offend visually, but the smell was 100x worse than any other smell I have dealt with. There were times both Tyra and I held our noses and hurried our steps to get away. But, I guess we can say we have seen Bourbon Street. After that assault, we went to the hotel because Spencer had a meeting. Mike & I waited around for him to finish, but then decided to quit sitting in the hotel and go exploring.
We walked to the French Quarter and found Cafe du Monde and had beignets. Delish! We walked all through the Quarter and loved it. It's very quaint and old. Dirty, but charming. We had dinner at Muriels....oh my....best food of the trip! When Spencer called after his meeting and Mike told him where we were, he said they would just stay at the hotel. The next day, Tyra was mad that they didn't come meet us!
The next day we decided to do the paddleboat tour. Tyra (who is only 50) has bad knees...she needs a knee replacement, so walking too much gets hard on her. So, we thought a boat tour would be perfect! This fun building reminding us that we are beautiful. I texted this to the girlies. This paddleboat runs entirely on steam. It's one of only 2 or 3 paddleboats still functioning in the US.
Here we are passing the Ninth Ward and these cute kids ran down to the bank of the river to wave to us. The captain blew the horn for them.
Fully functioning sugar mill
View of the paddle. Mike got some cool video and I'll have to see if I can post it. We went to Cafe du Monde again and did a little more exploring with the Joneses the rest of the day.
Tuesday when the boys were in meetings, Judy Beckstead and Tyra and I went shopping. Watching a lady make pralines.
Again with the beignets...
And then, we jumped on a city tour bus. This was a great ride and interesting to see the sights and learn some history. We saw more of the cemeteries. There were 3 big ones. Bus didn't stop, but that's ok because they were in a sketchy neighborhood.
Cool architecture at Jackson Square
Superdome
The warehouse where the Mardi Gras floats are stored...it's huge!
This building was an 'infant infirmary' basically an orphanage. Andrew Jackson Higgins (?) that's not his last name, but it escapes me right now....anyway, he was a wealthy business man who never married because the woman he loved didn't have a dowery and wasn't permitted to marry because of it. He ended up helping women and children his entire life, including establishing an endowment to give girls a dowery so they can marry. It's still in effect today and women can apply for help when getting married. He set up this infirmary and I loved the rod work on the building. It's still in operation today.
Lovely balcony. Wish I had a better camera....just my phone pictures...
While we were riding the bus and I was posting pictures on instagram, Kristie Perkins Sharp commented that we needed to go to Camelia Cafe. Since it was lunchtime and we were hungry we hunted it down. It was fantastic! Wrap around 50's style counter and the kitchen was in full view. We talked with the cook and our server, Branden, the whole meal. Branden was charming and working a big tip. He got one because he was so entertaining. I took that picture to show Kristie we had made it to the place she suggested. Branden came up with the pose!
Judy, Tyra and me at Camelia Cafe. My Mom later told me she was trying to remember the name of this place because it was a 'not to miss' place. We also rode the streetcar quite a bit which was another suggestion from Mom. It was also SO hot and humid there. I was a hot mess the whole time....that's why my hair is up.....I have a hard time in the humidity....take after my Dad :)
That night was the Orange Bash...the welcome to the convention party. We went to the ballroom and they handed out beads, boas, hats, etc and told us to dress up!
Then, we were ushered outside with a jazz band leading the way where we found we were going to be in a parade! There was a jazz band, marching band, float, these stilts people, costumed joker and police escort.
We marched from our hotel to Bourbon Street and into a bar for our dinner. It was quite fun actually, although really hot! Mike facetimed the kids on his phone and the stilt guy in the orange jacket danced for Brandon and made him giggle forever. Once in a lifetime event......We didn't stay at the bar long. Just enough to grab dinner and because it was so loud we took off with everyone and went back down the Quarter to find some ice cream.
The next day was the special speakers. We saw James Carville and Mary Matalin. They are political commentators and are married. He's a democrat and New Orleans native and she's a Republican. Very interesting. They commented a lot about the government shutdown which we were in the middle of at that time. She is from New York and told us that James talked her into moving to NOLA and that she enjoys it. Her favorite saying was, 'We are a sliver on the river' in a southern drawl. Pretty funny.
The next day was the activities....we went to the World War II Nat'l Museum. We met a WWII vet who showed us his brother's purple heart. We got to hold it even. He said his brother has since passed away and that he is so surprised when people don't know what a purple heart is or what it represents. We did...just for the record!
It was really interesting. We ended up going back the next day with the Becksteads to finish our tour because we were short on time. They have a 4-D movie that goes through the war and it was awesome!
We came back and had lunch at the hotel. Scott said we had to try these oysters. They were good, but I ended up with food poisoning from them. Looking at this picture makes me want to hurl still.
After the dinner that night, we were supposed to go to a Jazz Club called Preservation Hall that Casey and Nicole Francis suggested. I had to miss because I knew I was getting sick. Mike said it was AWESOME and he felt bad telling me what I had missed out on, but it was a good thing I stayed in the hotel. It was a rough night and I was about 80% the next day, but felt well enough to get out and enjoy the last day in New Orleans. Here's the pictures Mike took in random order.....
St. Louis Cathedral at Jackson Square
Us with James & Mary
We had dinner at Mardi Gras World on Wednesday and got to walk through the floats again. Some of them are huge and I wonder how they make it down the small streets in the Quarter! Then, dinner was served in an area that is designed to make you feel like you are outside. They had a palm reader which I wanted to go to, but the line was long and this albino alligator that Mike got to hold! I just gave it a pat because I was not interested in holding it. It was pretty cool though!
Just a cool NOLA house decorated for Halloween....
We had a great time! It was relaxing and New Orleans is an interesting place to visit. There is music everywhere. The street performers are really good. I tipped a trumpet player one day outside Cafe du Monde because he held a note about 4 minutes. No lie! He made everyone around us clap for me because I gave him a $1. There are people who paint themselves silver and then hold still in a pose for tips. There is one guy we saw multiple times as we were walking around that didn't move one muscle. Quite incredible.
We left really early on Friday morning...plane wasn't full (yay!) and we were home by 11:30am. After thanking my Mom and doing some laundry (and Mike dealing with someone quitting at work-welcome back), we took the kids to Park City overnight. It was UEA and we wanted them to do something besides sit home!
