The Big Easy

Of course we had to go to New Orleans for the Sugar Bowl, so we made a little trip out of it. However, being our crazy selves we did something like drive to Las Vegas, take a red eye to New Orleans, fly back to Vegas, drive to Salt Lake, drive back home to Cali? Yeah, really. We got in on the 31st at like 9am but couldn't check in until 12:30 so by the time we got to our hotel we crashed until the evening then headed out for my first Bourbon Street experience.

Let's put it this way.. if Bourbon Street was my only experience of New Orleans, I would never go back.

Having said that, we walked up and down about four times that night, had some sweet daiquiris, saw the bar for which prompted Nate's Dad to say "Son, never come back here", and made it back into our room by midnight :)

I much preferred the French Quarter by day! There were fun shops (including my much coveted Wish clothing store), great food, lots of entertainment, and Utes to boot.

I loved the architecture, and of course the history, behind New Orleans. It does have European influence, but it reminded me much more of an Conquistador town in Latin America than a Paris of Florence.

Just too interested in the Hand Grenade airplane ad....

We also tailgated with this guy.... Come on, we couldn't resist!

Nate breaking out the ole golden foot :)

We decided we had to take a city tour on our visit so we could say we made it out of the French Quarter. It was ASWESOME and I wish we had taken the tour our first day so we would know where to go! Anyway... one of the stops on the tour was the cemetery.

Our tour included Katrina damage as well and WOW what an eye opener that was. Did you know, in some parts only 30% of the residents returned to their homes? You drive through these neighborhoods and there are vacant homes everywhere.

The rest of our tour took us through Uptown and the Garden District... I saw like 12 dream homes.