Day 2: New Orleans

Day 2 had me powering down the interstate toward New Orleans to meet Nate and our new friends. 404 miles later I was there. This is the longest single day of riding I have ever done. My new bike handled it great, I just twisted the throttle and it ate up the miles.

On the way in I crossed the Lake Ponchartrain Causeway which at 24 miles is the longest bridge in the world.

Nate had received and offer from a guy on advrider.com to crash at his place in New Orleans. This is how we met Brent and Nicole.
They were awesome. Every so often you meet someone who you just mesh with. You just feel comfortable and can be yourself and not have to be guarded. With in minuets of meeting Brent and Nicole it was like we had been friends for years. Too cool!

They live in a awesome little 100 year old house in the "Garden District". New Orleans is interesting in the fact the the "bad" neighborhoods are intermixed with the "good" neighborhoods. So its 3 blocks of ghetto right next to 3 blocks really nice houses. They live in one of the good neighborhoods.

They played tour guide for us and took us to the famous to the French District and Bourbon Street for dinner and drinks. We took one of the street cars down to there.

We ate at the Gumbo Shop. Oh boy it was good. I had the best Bloody "Cajan" Mary that I've had in a long time. I had Chicken Andouille Gumbo with Crawfish Etouffee followed by Bread Pudding with Whiskey sauce. I was stuffed!

After dinner we strolled down Bourbon Street just checking out the scene.
Its definitely an "Adult" scene. Its a bit surreal. You can take your beer down the street with you. There are guys in front of every club trying to entice you to come inside. Strip clubs are side by side with bars and souvenir shops. There is tons of great live music pouring out on to the street.

It actually was pretty dead, since it was Monday during the off season, and had just stopped raining.

We got back just before midnight and Nate and I had a chance encounter with the Louisiana "State Bird" Big Ass Flying Cockroach. The damn thing must have been 2 inches long. Nate stepped on it and it went "POP". We left the room for a couple of minuets and wen we got back it, despite being crushed, managed to crawl its way back into a corner. Yikes!