Day 3 - Continued

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<strong style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Third Day – June 29^th (continued)



Our hosts at The Avenue Inn on St. Charles Avenue in New Orleans are cordial enough, but let you know that if you are staying in their 19^th century house you will do it their way. I don’t blame them since I know they have a not-so-small fortune invested in this property. The house, in a word is “Grand”, with 13’ ceilings and windows almost as tall. Part of the closet in our room has flooring made of 1 ½” x 4” ceramic tiles. I noticed the same tiles on the floor in the dining room – in front of the fireplace. So, our closet used to be a huge fireplace. We hope to hear a more complete history of the house before we leave.

After our sit-down with the owners regarding the house, complete with refreshments and cookies, we settled into our room . . . for a little while. Conveniently one of the city’s four or five streetcar lines stops almost directly in front of the house. Being a Saturday night we figured we had to visit Bourbon Street to see it at its best, or worst, depending on your point of view.

For $1.25 each (exact change only, of course) we hopped on the open-windowed street car (We’re not sure why they don’t call them “trolleys”.) and rode it about two miles to the corner of Canal and Bourbon Sts. It was still very early – Bourbon St. time. As we strolled down the most famous street in “Nawlins” we took in its sights, smells, and sounds. Although there were quite a few people walking with us on the street (closed to traffic) it was nothing like it would be in a few hours.

We found a restaurant that offered balcony dining and ate our dinner at a small table at the end of a small third story balcony overlooking Bourbon St. Not sure if we enjoyed the food or the view more. As we ate and chatted, the street below slowly and steadily filled with people. By the time we returned to street level, it was packed with partiers, revelers, and on-lookers.

We were looking for some of the blues and jazz for which New Orleans is famous. We listened as we walked past club after club. Mostly we heard mediocre cover bands. It seemed to me that the young crowd of Bourbon St. was more interested in drinking than good music.

Finally we heard something different. Was that a trombone? We walked into a bar to find a band called <em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Deep Soul. The name was somewhat a misnomer since they were not playing soul music at all. The lead singer was an attractive, polished young lady with an earthy voice named Eudora Evans. Her voice is bigger than she is and she can really belt out a song. Inevitably the band had to take a break and the MC got on stage and ruined the whole evening for me. They started playing music so loud my ears hurt. Reluctantly I had to leave.

We roamed Bourbon St. once more in search of “good” music and ended up at the Funky Pirate Blues Club. The place was packed but eagle-eye Jill spotted two empty stools at a side bar so I followed her through the crowd and ended up with a pretty good spot to watch the entertainment. The headliner was (and normally is) “Big Al Carson and the Blues Masters”. The Funky Pirate website describes Big Al as “495 pounds of pure New Orleans Blues”, yes he is that big! Not only is he that big, he’s good too. He has a great blues voice and knows how entertain a crowd.

We were at the end of a 25 hour day and it was really starting to show. We were enjoying the music on Bourbon St. but were running out of gas fast. So, we reluctantly found a path to the front door and headed back to the streetcar stop. The street was still crowded since it was only 11:30 PM, quite early Bourbon St. time.

The St. Charles Ave. streetcar dropped us off in front of our home B&B and, remembering the combination to the front door locks, we got back to our room safe and sound . . . and very tired.

Thanks for reading,

Don and Jill

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