Day 11: Everything Smells

We were ready this morning to start our exploration of all things French Quarter and we stopped first at the beautiful waterfront just outside Jackson Square.  That's the Mississippi River people. It's huge! 

Jackson Square is in the heart of the French Quarter, but salt smells like a downtown city that needs a good bath and maybe an air freshener. But there's a lovely little Cathedral-Basillica of St.Louis King of France. It was gorgeous inside as all old churches are in my opinion. 

Isn't that cool how they used a clam shell for the pulpit?

We walked around and found numerous shops and places to buy souvenirs. We found a few spots to stop and take memorable photos. Since we tend to get our days started early, it seemed like all of the workers were cleaning up from whatever happened on Thursday night...which we assume is also happening again tonight. Must be some sort of pattern. 

Those are somewhat forced smiles and us saying between our teeth, "hurry up I'm hot. Hurry up so we can stop touching. We are sweaty." Yeah, our days are filled with being hot. At 9am today is was only 84° but my iPhone told us that it actually felt like 97° with the incredible humidity... We are not happy about all of this. 

So if nothing else, I think we've all come to realize that while these are nice places to visit, we aren't moving. Same goes for the kids and college. I don't think any of them will be heading toward this part of the country. 

Of course we stopped by the ultra famous Cafe du Monde and picked up beignets. Those smelled like fresh baked goodies with powdered sugar to top. All good smells. 

And Papa John made a bit of a mess with his. 

So much powdered sugar lost on that concrete. Later, we came across this Historic New Orleans Collection that had a great exhibit on money and counterfeit money. It was really fascinating. Did you know that every state, and even different banks within a state, made their own money until after the Civil War? This of course caused a lot of problems with validity and thus counterfeiting was rampant. The guide was fantastic and for free, this was a score for the day! We also learned that Lincoln had this Confederate $5 bill in his wallet when he was shot at Ford's Theatre. It's know as the Assasination Bill. So why would he have Confederate money in his wallet??? I smell something fishy!

And to round out our day of walking, shopping, and a little learning, we ate. We had late dinner reservations at Bon Ton Cafe which was absolutely delightful. As soon as we walked in, we could smell the amazing food and the fact that the place was crowded helped us know that picked the right place for dinner. We ordered family style so we could try lots of different dishes. Did we take photos before? Nope. We ate and then remembered afterward. Oops again! We did snap on photo of the Shrimp Ettouffe that we ordered seconds of. 

We also ordered crab Au gratin, creamed cauliflower, jambalaya, crab gumbo, crawfish bisque, fried catfish, and a whiskey bread pudding with buttered pecan ice cream. You can probably still smell the whiskey on our breathe as it was not burned off during the cooking process. That was gone but we got a picture of sorts - 

  

Yeah, that's the empty plate. We all agreed dessert was the best, but the crab Au gratin was a close second. And the girls loved the shrimp Ettouffe so much that we ordered another after they finished the first. So proud of them for eating new foods!!!

We are stuffed and ready for air conditioning and bed time.