New Orleans: Jazz, Seafood and two Russians

There is a lot to write about our experience in New Orleans, so here goes:

We arrived in New Orleans around midnight.  Thanks to Aleksey’s mom, Inna, we checked into The Marriot Hotel, parked our car in the casino parking lot, played the slot machines for 30 minutes to waive our parking fee (and won $10), and arrived in Room 2504 on the 25^th floor of the building.  We showered and went out to walk New Orleans famous “Bourbon Street”: a street with an equal number of strip clubs as it has places to get a beer.  After an hour of taking in the sights and sound we went back to our room and fell asleep… for a long, and incredibly comfortable, time.

The following day was a long and food-filled day.  We started out with a slow morning – slow waking up, slow getting ready, and slow posting up some posts on the website.  Around 12:30 we got out into the city and headed into the heart of the French Quarter.  Our first stop of the day was “Café Du Monde,” an old coffee place that only serves coffee and Beignets (a French donut covered in powdered sugar – DELICIOUS).  I had one beignet, Aleksey had FIVE! – he liked them!

We continued walking all around the French Quarter with its beautiful architecture, myriad of art galleries, voodoo shops and food joints.  Our next food stop was “Acme Oyster House,” one of the most famous places for fresh oysters in the half shell.  Aleksey ordered himself half a dozen delicious grilled oysters, while I went with half a dozen raw ones.  Despite the initial hesitation both Aleksey and I ate the raw oysters, and even enjoyed them.

Then, more walking!  After several more hours of walking we went to eat yet again!  This time at a mediocre place which neither Aleksey nor I can remember the name of.  Aleksey ordered the Jambalaya and I got a HUGE platter of fried shrimp, Calamari, catfish and oysters.  I ate about 30% of the dish – it was enormous. 

We walked some more and then finally went back to our home on the road, the car. 

Next Stop: Some camp site to sleep for the night! – Then Houston, Texas.

Camping

After the restaurant, we drove to a campsite in the backwoods of southern Illinois – by a place called Cairo.  It was located by some very beautiful marshlands.  

The campground was very simple and inviting.  As we were setting up camp several lightning storms began around us.  We moved the tent a bit farther from the trees, and the car as well.  The rain broke after we had already climbed in comfortably into our sleeping bags.

Aleksey got a rude wake up call by me telling him to get up and start packing up all his stuff because a thunderstorm was about to hit.  We packed up ALMOST in time and ended up getting a little wet.  We deflated our BOTH of our mattresses in the front seat of a hyundai accent and drove off to the next destination: Memphis, Tennessee.

On the way to Memphis

Alright the arch was cool but now its time to eat some ribs. We’re going to 17th Street Bar & Grill which wins national awards for their ribs. UPDATE: Wow the meals were huge! Euge had a full rack of baby back ribs. He says he had better tasting ribs but they were really tender. I agree about the ribs. But we had the best chili we ever ate and also the best beans (yes even better than Bush’s). I ordered this tremendous plate with a little bit of everything on it. I think it had some baby back ribs, pulled pork, chicken, beef skillet and an awesome sausage. The sausage was really good and the pulled prk was really interesting and tender. We left the place with a whole day’s food for tomorrow.
As we pulled out of the place, the sky just opened up and it seemed like the there was more water in the sky than air. It was really the worst rain I’ve driven through. Luckily it only lasted a few minutes and we were able to escape it. In the distance though, we saw an incredible lightning storm – the lightning almost never stopped striking,