Visiting NOLA - Day 1

Each year, around my birthday, I make an effort to plan an adventure of sorts.

In years past, I've done such things as go to see Britney Spears and the Grand Canyon in Vegas, or run Bay to Breakers in San Francisco and then tour the city afterwards.  Typically, my adventures involve going somewhere and doing something dumb. And without a doubt, costuming and shenanigans are involved whenever possible.

 

 

Of course, 2018 was no exception.  With nothing in mind, though, when planning this year's adventure I basically licked my finger and threw it to the wind, waiting to see what would fall into my lap.  After lots of thought and some digging around (such as pricing airfare with frequent flyer miles and buy one get one free coupons), I found a pretty sweet deal and decided to check off another bucket list item - a visit to New Orleans.  

Yes, I chose New Orleans despite the fact that I'm by no means a spring chicken anymore, and have basically exhausted my liver having gone to UW-Madison - a consistently rated top 10 party school from the 90s to today.  I full well realized prior to booking my trip that NOLA is known for it's debauchery and drinking culture.  HOWEVER, it is also known for it's unique creole heritage, long established history, and many other things.  Those "many other things" have drawn my curiosity for years.  And finally, this was the year for me to seek them out!

Today's post below is part 1 of my New Orleans travel recap.  In the future, after they post, you can read day two here and days three & four here.

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Day One - Travel, Travel and More Travel!

Visiting New Orleans from Minneapolis is somewhat tricky, since Delta currently has a limited offering of direct flights in and out of my city.  To make matters more challenging, as I mentioned, I booked my trip with various ticket cost reduction promos.  The end result of all this meant travel during a somewhat off period - flying out of Minneapolis Wednesday for an arrival to New Orleans around 1 pm, and departing New Orleans Saturday for an arrival back to Minneapolis around 7 pm.

In theory, we were supposed to board our plane out of Minneapolis at 10 am and arrive New Orleans just in time for a late lunch.

In reality, our plane was scheduled to start it's day in Sioux Falls, SD - which was currently having a snow storm -  and then transfer it's load in Minneapolis and head south.

I'm sure you can imagine where this is going.

After a 3 hour snow delay in Sioux Falls, our plane finally arrived Minneapolis for what was roughly a 1 pm departure.  I know three hours doesn't sound like much.  But what I haven't said up to this point was that I was traveling with my son in tow.  So ... imagine trying to keep a 2 year old entertained at an airport through a 3 hour flight delay ... and then trying to put him onto a 2 and 1/2 hour flight.  

Our long day got even longer when he refused to nap on the plane, and even longer yet when the luggage hatch was jammed on the plane and we could not get our stroller and luggage from the airport claim areas for another half an hour.

On the upside, though, we arrived to our hotel well after the approved check in time, so our room was available without any special arrangements required.  And we had just enough time to change for our dinner reservation, which we didn't miss despite all the flight delays.  So, at least there were a few small wins in there.

With most of the day burned up on travel, our first day in New Orleans was largely spent eating at Mr. B's Bistro.  

There, we started the meal by sharing some fried green tomatoes among our table, which I thought were quite good (we later learned that the serving was really only intended for one person, but there were enough slices that it still worked to share).  I followed with a cup of gumbo ya-ya, which I thought was ok but not fantastic.  It was much better, however, with some hot sauce thrown in.

My main was the garlic chicken, which I thought was actually quite good.  And I finished with a pecan pie slice, which again was ok but not fantastic.

To be fair, my general reception of Mr. B's may be a bit subdued because my husband and I enjoy cooking and eating unique meals.  So, for us, creole style cooking is actually a part of our mainstay diet - I love things like jambalaya, spicy foods, and beans and rice based cooking.  Therefore, while I think the food here was good ... maybe I'm a little spoiled on "good creole" because I've had similar dishes plenty of times myself?

Also, I think my reception of Mr. B's was also a bit jaded by our service.  Unfortunately for our table, the server that started our meal did not carry though and finish.  After we placed our initial meal order, he disappeared.  Thankfully, another server realized the gaffe and stepped in ... but only after we were visably unsettled awaiting proper service responses.

To further complicate the end of the meal, my son - who was a trooper up to this point, having had no nap - was pretty much done.  I felt like a terrible mom when, just before our dessert arrived, he laid his head down on the table and closed his eyes.  Ugh.  At least I can highly praise him for being so good the rest of the day after a long day of travel.  And yes, we ate dessert very promptly so we could get him straight to bed.  (Side note, he did perk up considerably when the "yummies" arrived and he realized he could have a few bites, lol.)

After getting my son settled in bed, I took off on a guided foot tour offered by none other than the Voodoo Bone Lady:

Actually, my tour was lead by a geeky white guy who was waaaaay too enthusiastic about cheesy ghost and vampire stories.  But the tour was entertaining none the less, and a fun (and safe) way to get a tour of New Orleans at night.  If you don't mind chipping $25 into the till for a 2 hour walking tour, this one wasn't too bad!

As an added bonus, we had a pit stop at an ice cream and fried food place that offered quite the hot sauce collection:

The tour was scheduled to run from 8 to 10 pm, which after a long day of travel for me, was plenty.  Exhausted, I headed back to my hotel and called it a night.

St. Pat's Extra Mom

With nothing new to talk about these days, I suppose I could talk about being an extra mom on St. Pat's.  I mean, it kind of goes along with a healthy lifestyle ... being a green themed holiday and all, right?!

If you haven't read any of my "extra mom" posts yet, just to get you up to speed: I've mentioned in a few previous posts that I try to send fun things to daycare for the staff that takes care of my son - most recently, that meant sending year of the dog themed gift bags for Lunar New Year and heart in a bottle necklaces for Valentines Day.

Since those two holidays were kind of a big gift day from a financial perspective, and being that I was somewhat uninspired for St. Pat's (due not wanting to send the staff a bunch of junk food), I decided to keep this gift simple and go handmade.

Having no idea what to make, somehow I settled on paracord knot tying.  Don't ask me why.

Yes - I do mean these things ... that may or may not have already gone out of style.  But ... I promise my version was cute, ok?!

First, using this YouTube tutorial, I made some green paracord bracelets with shamrock charms.  FYI - the shamrock charms I used are sized for a knock of Pandora bracelet, in case you're interested in using them for other applications.

To save the cost of typical plastic snap closures, and to avoid fit/sizing issues, I adapted the bracelets I made to be a bangle style with a knot and loop closure.  If you want to try making this bracelet yourself - since I had trouble with the globe shaped knot in that first video link, this tutorial may be helpful for you as well. 

Although I forgot to take a nice picture of the finished product, you can get a general idea of how the bracelet turned out here ... even though I hadn't trimmed and sealed the stray ends yet.

As you can see, I likely erred on the side of too large with my bracelet.  Whoops.  Though it looked cute stacked over my watch, it was too large alone.  I would recommend going slightly smaller and more fitted on the wrist to anyone trying this themselves.

Anyway - of course, just a bracelet would never be enough of a gift for me.  Hahaha.  Trying to come across somewhat St. Patrick's themed, I wrapped each bracelet in a small piece of shinny gold tissue paper to make it look like a sack of gold, and tied each to a bottle of strawberry kiwi ice.

Like I said, I didn't remember to take finished pics this time ... so you'll have to use your imagination a bit for this post.  But I promise, the end result was cute enough to meet my usual standards.

So there you have it ... if you want to get rope burns on your fingers and break a few nails in the name of a non-relevant holiday, now you have some inspiration!  So go hop to it!

Prince Twins Merchandise

A week or two ago, I was invited to a Minnesota Twins Baseball 2018 season game of my choosing.

Now I have to admit, I'm not exactly a baseball fan.  But you know ... if it means another opportunity for "costuming", I suppose I'm down.  Not to mention beer and nachos.  Heh.

In case you're wondering why my shirt says BUTT real big, the shirt actually reads:

"I'm just here to see some butts.  I mean balls.  I mean baseball.  You know, like the sports thing."

And yes, you can order this shirt too.  Thanks Amazon Prime!

Anyway, so I was invited to a game of my choosing.  Which means as soon as I saw there was a Prince night, I had my heart set.  Sadly for me, the person extending my invitation was unable to attend that game due to personal schedule conflicts.  Dang.

Going back to the drawing board on dates, I started pining over the Prince game night.  Queue obsessive Googling and self debate about buying my own ticket to a game I'd never go to for any other reason.  Yeah, I know ... dumb.

That's when I stumbled across a Rolling Stones article:

"The Minnesota Twins will offer Prince-branded merchandise year-round after the baseball team secured a deal with the singer's estate ... the (collection includes) items like purple hats featuring both Prince's "Love Symbol" and the team's "TC" Twin Cities logo, as well as Prince-branded baseballs, shirts and more. The merchandise will be available exclusively at Target Field."

Say what?!

While I have some personal dilemmas about this merchandise offering, since I highly doubt Prince would have approved it while alive and therefore I feel like perhaps purchasing the product is in vein of Prince's legacy, I was still curious to know what goodies were to be had.

Of course, thus far, the Google search results for this product offering were abysmal.  But fortunately for me, my sister had won tickets to home opening weekend via her husband's work, so I sent her on a personal shopping mission.  Here is what she had to report.

And by the way - to all you Prince fans out there - you're welcome!

Hoodie - $75 - what you see above is what you get.  A basic black hoodie sweatshirt with a gold love symbol printed on the front, and a white Minnesota written down one arm.  No artwork on back.

Shirts - $26-30 - solid purple T with white print, or black and white ringer T with purple print.  Shirts feature the Prince love symbol, the Twins baseball logo, and a silhouette of the state of Minnesota.

No hats or other accessories to be found as of 4/7/2018.

So there you have it!  I hope I scratched your curiosity itch.  I know I feel better!