CRAWFISH, KERMIT, BIRTHDAY AND CRAWFISH

Three days off from the rigours of watching live music, so we pick up our ride and head off for some down time. It's a non-negotiable to go to an iHop at least once for breakfast. Apart from service being an optional extra and one meal of dubious quality being enough to feed an entire third world army, it's worth it just for the privilege of stipulating "shell eggs" in your omelet (you really don't wanna know what the default alternative is!

Made with shell eggs - go figure!

A visit to Sylvester's Western Gear is always memorable, it's just a pity that there's no way of getting a new sombrero home in one piece!

Howdy pardner

Annie Oakley

Pancho and Lefty

Who's wearing the white hat?

Time to point the truck south for the pilgrimage to Houma and to worship at the shrine of Boudreau & Thibodeau's Cajun Cookin'.

All praise at the temple

The new kid (Pablo) is up for the challenge of taking on a bucket of boiled crawfish, and he takes to it like a duck to water...impressive!

Pablo's first crawfish

Finished!

We take the scenic route back to Nawlinz and split up for the evening, where we catch up with Lois and Billy and their entourage for dinner.

It's the BIG DAY - Aimster's 16th birthday! 

Glam girl - thanks Grandma and Papa

What better way to greet the day than to have a barbershop quartet rendition of the celebratory song from the first floor balcony - let the party begin.

Magic moment

We head to City Park and Morning Call Cafe for iced chickory cawfee (excellent), crawfish bread (dreadful) and beignets (excellent - better than Cafe DuMonde),

Best beignets

where the kids on a skool outing entertained us - well, their husky teacher did actually!

Check out the teacher in the background!!

The park is home to one of New Orleans' hidden gems, the fabulous sculpture garden which we stroll through. There are some truly stimulating pieces, as well as the ubiquitous blue dog, and amazingly a Rodin bust (veracity questionable).

What's it meant to depict Rock God?

Groovy

Birdman

He comes in yellow?

Stairway to ???

Lois and Billy give "the song" a run.

mmmmm

He's dreamin'

North Claiborne Ave is the location of Kermit's Mother-In -Law Lounge (formerly Ernie K. Doe's). It's lunchtime and it just so happens the great man is in the house and performing with the BBQ Swingers. No second invite is necessary to watch the show over a bowl of barbecued turkey neck and dirty rice - superb.

Barbecued turkey neck and dirty rice - yum.

We're touring the Upper/Lower 9th Ward which was devastated by Hurricane Katrina in 2005 to see how the district has rejuvenated. We pass by Circle Food, the city's oldest grocery store, which finally reopened in 2014. It was made famous globally by the photo of water up to its roof and people rowing past its still glowing neon sign.

We visit the site of the levee wall breach that left thousands homeless.

The Musicians Village is a Habitat For Humanity project supported by Harry Conncik Jr and Branford Marsalis that has erected 72 homes for the musicians affected by the floods.

The Make It Right Foundation is also still helping to rebuild the area (13 years later and it's still going on - pretty sobering), and hand written street signs dating back to the flood can still be seen.

1208 Caffin Street is our next stop  - the restored home of the legendary Fats Domino. Interestingly, despite his wealth and fame this American icon chose to live in the lowly socio-economic environs of his upbringing in the Lower 9th. Fats was rescued by helicopter and basket and lived out his life on the west bank, unfortunately unable to return to his home.

Finding our thrill

Not far from Fats' place are the amazing steamboat houses, built by a steamboat captain in 1905 and 1913 respectively, and survived the floods.

Time to freshen up, put the glad rags on and head to the city's finest Italian restaurant - Vincent's.

The advance party arrive...

...followed by the birthday girl

Our two groups convened for a fabulous birthday celebration 

Birthday girl with the dyslexic cake

Rock God speaks from the heart

before enjoying a ride on the St Charles tram (which include a 'pit stop' for the driver, who just stopped the tram and disappeared for five minutes!),

Tickets please

Pit stop!

and a walk back to the IOU via a buzzing Bourbon Street (so we could point out the perils of drunken revelry to the birthday girl!). It's been a great day, and hopefully a birthday that the Aimster will not forget in a hurry.

Our final rest day, so it's off to Gonzales for a spot of shopping at the outlet mall, preceded by a happy brekky at Gatorville.

Happy breakfast

Yep, there are real gators

Frightening really!

It's a 90 minute drive to the middle of nowhere, which is where Hawk's can be found.

The best crawfish on the planet is its claim to fame and the only game in town, and it doesn't disappoint, the critters are HUGE and tasty.

Aimster gets to touch a critter - yay!

Pablo's now officially obsessed with them

Where's crawfish - spot the real one!

Rock God speaks

Don Legsy speaks

Pablo speaks

The 2.5 hour drive back is a stretch (particularly at night after dinner), but them thar Louisiana yabbies are worth it.

We're done, time to prepare for the second weekend of musical festivities....