Florence - New Orleans

Each time dawn appears, the mystery is there in its entirety.
-- Rene Daumal

For the mind disturbed, the still beauty of dawn is nature's finest balm.
-- Edwin Way Teale

I remember, especially like when I was in high school, going to see like Dawn of the Dead and it was like mayhem in the theater and you could barely even watch the movie. It was so fun.
-- Rob Zombie

Our disturbed minds zombiecrawl their various ways out of the mystery of dreamscape and into a reality full of hardboiled eggs, coffee, and quiche. The sun gleams. The time to scoot further South is nigh.


Momma plots a route, seeking out the finest small-town names in Alabama.


Baby Girl is either not thrilled with our imminent departure or lacks the appropriate facial structure for complex anthropomorphic expression.


Mary's blue bottle tree is currently void of devilish spirits; they may have made for an early-morning feline breakfast.


Unbeknownst to the majority of friends and family, Daddles occasionally gets the fantods from the slinky, tricksy movements of his own shadow. Good thing the back of the SUV is so spacious.


It is a day. Sunlight lathers itself hot and thick onto submissive asphalt. We will harness this writhing river of tar, and we will ride once more.


A quick jaunt into Boligee's own café yields sustenance (READER POLL: "bah-lee-GEE" or "buh-LEE-gee"?)


John inquires as to "the best thing" available; we discover that "everybody be eatin' the burger." Four please. Ahhhh hold the pickle!!!!


Never stop, never stop.


Daddles scores a tall frosty styrofoam cup chock-full of chocolate soft serve on the way out. Johnner recounts Chapman foibles concerning the same.


On the road and at it again. This took us WAY longer than it should have.

I am a being of Heaven and Earth, of thunder and lightning, of rain and wind, of the galaxies.
-- Eden Ahbez

(bearfriend courtesy of Cripple Creek)


A rare non-McDonald's peebreak. Wait, what's this? Gravy.... and also biscuit?


Loaded.


John, ever the epicure, passes up the 99 cent starchbomb in favor of satisfying Indonesian ginger candies.


Mom opts for jerky but encounters difficulties.


This guy chooses Rally's, vehemently.


We arrive to smatterings of rainfall in the Big Easy. Mom navegates hotel check-in whilst family peruses the facilities. Free cookies!


Free L. Ron Hubbard!


Free computer!


Free Mumia! Mom yelped her way to a choice of widely lauded Jacques Imo's for supper. The valet flails wildly in the street, hailing a cab. I watch the price tick along at a merry pace with the mileage, hardcore nostalgic for Bangkok cab culture.

Disaster strikes! JI's is devoid of light and patrons tonight; the cabbie postulates that it may be closed for the entire month of August as it is low season. Zut alors!

Nimble reasoning saves the day. We ask the cabbie where he likes to eat and follow his first suggestion.

After a slightly pricey tour of a few upscale nawlins neighborhoods, we end up at Pascal's Manale. We enter with trepidation.

And are immediately greeted by fast-talking, flirtacious oyster shucker Thomas "Uptown T" Stewart. Loads of oyster aficionados crowd the bar; Thomas flings just-cracked half-shell beauties left and right. It is madcap. We must taste these bivalves.

Magically, the oyster crowd curtain parts and disperses as soon as we purchase a few gimlets. Thomas has enough pause to mix up a special cocktail sauce especially for us - just a touch of horseradish and hot sauce, plus a drop or three of lemon.


The oysters and the banter don't stop can't stop won't stop. We lap it up. We love it.

Our raw, slimy food cravings satiated, we slip into the main dining hall, where John and Daddles are already chatting music industry biz with the waiter, Louie, whose main occupation is Band Manager. Louie is also a committed foodie and incredibly knowledgeable and enthusiastic about the city. We immediately turn the menu selection over to him.

The dishes come fast and furious. The creamy pan roast is a stellar blend of oysters, chopped crabmeat, shallots, and plenty of parsley; we scrape the dish with fresh bread for remnants. Breaded eggplant dotted with succulent shrimp similarly wows in a slightly spicy cream sauce.

Gotta have gumbo. Pascal Manale's version is dark and rich - but we all agree, we've had (and cooked) better. On the other hand, the turtle soup, which we never would have ordered on our own, is stellar, much lighter than expected, a sweetly subtle meaty flavor with crumbles of egg.

Pascal's is, in fact, a famous location, due to the invention of one of the area's most popular dishes: New Orleans-style barbeque shrimp.


Advance preparations are absolutely necessary.


Very becoming.


We giggle, but we've already noted how useful the paper aprons have been for shrimp gobblers at other tables.


This photo is a little grayed out (no photoshop on this laptop), but rest assured, all three of these compositions are vibrantly colored. The lower dish is crawfish étouffée, upper left is a piquant shrimp, mushroom, tomato, and brandy pasta not found on the menu, and upper right are the famous crustaceans. Hand-peeling required.


A demonstration of the difference between flash and non-flash photos.


Point proven?


We jubilantly make a massive mess. It is proclaimed easily among the very top dinners of the trip; the food was phenomenal across the board, and the atmosphere and waitstaff were helpful, friendly, courteous, and entertaining. It is precisely what an ideal restaurant experience should be. Plus we wore bibs.

We catch another cab and head to Rock And Bowl in search of a blues artist Louie has recommended as "excellent, but unreliable." Sure enough, the dude didn't show, and some kind of last-minute replacement is playing instead. The entry fee is somewhat high, so we decide on a quick exploratory jaunt down Bourbon Street instead.

Dad and I share fond memories of people-watching in this historical part of town from five years back, during the first iteration of the Great Earlham Road Trip. In my mind, Bourbon Street is a place steeped in stories, in the lore of its glorious days back in the 1800s, a place for 30-60-year-olds dressed in their flamboyant finest to sip on a few Hurricanes and get a little frisky. A place well aware of its own irony, perhaps, or at least ignorantly reveling in joyous absurdity.

Bourbon Street today is a farce. We feel immediately repelled by the cacophony of drunk, vacant faces and noises. Dad insists that we continue to look for the good in it, but our nostrils are filled with the stench of the dregs of humanity gettin' crunk. It is nasty. People-watching seems a dangerous game, as to engage with anyone means risking a seriously depressing interaction.

It's pretty deeply upsetting, and even Dad admits in the end that it doesn't have any of the charm of five years ago. I have images of Khao San Road flashing through my head, and I am actually nostalgic.

We return to the hotel feeling thoroughly icky. A shower and some reading alleviate the grossed-out-ness to some extent. We hit the sheets determined to discover a different city the next day; our restaurant experience was so overwhelming positive that we have to believe that Bourbon Street is merely a sad anomaly in a huge and varied city.

One hypothesis that seems to ring true is that the rebuilding of the area post-Katrina caused it to lose its sense of time, and thus, self - that Bourbon Street has become a simulacrum of itself. After being rocked to the physical and spiritual foundations by the hurricane, the pursuit of dollars simply outweighed the internal character of the place. Other ideas?