Days 2 & 3- Nashville, Memphis, and New Orleans

As promised, here are a few pictures from the start of the trip:

                               10:30am- the road trip begins!

1st stop- to haave lunch with Zach in Winston Salem!  I was excited to experience my first digital soda machine! What is even better is that Zach told us the story about how they were invented.  Zach, feel free to correct me if I get the story wrong.  So apparently a guy was working on creating water cubes for developing countries to use to filter their water so it could be drinkable. He needed money to complete the project so he approached Coke and built them this machine in return for the funding..  How cool is that?!

                            On our way through the mountains of North Carolina.

                                   Such a pretty drive.

                                      We made it to Tennessee!

We drove through the park in Midtown and stumbled upon a Parthenon replica.  We have no idea what is in it but it looks cool and there is a great lawn area surrounding it where people play frisbee, picnic, etc.

After we saw the highlights on Nashville we go to have a late dinner with Taylor!  Taylor is a family friend from New Zealand who lives in Nashville now and we met up with him and two of his friends at the Whiskey Kitchen (thanks for the great recommendation Claire!).  The pizzas and fish and chips were delicious!

Day 2: We left the hotel around 9:30am and drove to Memphis where Dad was catching his flight back to Raleigh.

                                               Day 2/Peace... either one

                                          Nashville in the background.

                                     Dad at the wheel!  Driving to Memphis.

We had an hour to grab lunch before Dad's flight left so we Yelped quick BBQ places near the airport and found this gem.  It's been in Memphis for 29 years.

                                      The inside of Showboat BBQ.

             My BBQ sandwich plate with coleslaw and fried okra.  As everyone knows, each state in the south has their own version of barbeque and while I am loyal to North Carolina BBQ, I have to admit that Tennessee is almost just as good, just a different style.  This was a great pulled pork sandwich with tender meat and a tasty bbq sauce that was impossible not to get all over you.  The slaw was mustard based and a nice complement to the bbq.  The okra was golden and fried to perfection.  They also had amazing sweet tea that rivaled Bojangles and they gave unlimited refills!

After I said goodbye to dad at the airport I went to Meg's house (thank you, thank you, thank you!) to regroup and then hit the road to New Orleans!

A little blurry because there were cars behind me and I couldn't slow down that much, but it says "Welcome to Louisiana."

I got down there around 8:45pm on the 4th of July and I realize now that I forgot to take pictures that night when I arrived.  But I was staying with a friend, Will Johnson, who lives in New Orleans.  I saw a little bit of the city that night but got the full tour the next day.

Will had an early class in the morning and I drove downtown to the French Quarter to have breakfast at Cafe Dumonde.  It is the famous bakery on Decatur St., which runs along the river, where they only serve beignets, coffee, milk, and water.  I got an order of the beignets and an iced coffee:

                                 Breakfast of champions!

Beautiful church

Will came to meet me after class and drove us all around the city to show me the sights.  What a good sport!  Unfortunately I was a little disappointed with Commander's Palace (the picture above) because I was expecting a much cooler looking restaurant (I was not a fan of the turquoise). Will assured me that I was wrong in my judgment considering they have not only been around forever but they are also quite successful.

I liked this building but what I really liked was the Movie Tour bus parked in front of it.  I did some research and apparently there's an awesome tour that takes you around to all of the sites where movies were filmed in the city to tell you about the scene as they show the clip on the tv in the van.  I was very tempted to do it but it lasts for 3 hours and it was $54.  Here is the website if anyone is interested: http://www.nolamovies.com/.  It got rave reviews on Yelp and TripAdvisor.

               

   Many people warned me that Bourbon street isn't everything it's cracked up to be (I agree), and that Royal Street is actually cleaner and more fun to visit (agreed).  They are one block apart and Royal street has cute shops, restaurants, and fun New Orleans museums.

We went to Domilise's for lunch where their specialty is Po Boys and they were delicious.  We got the fried shrimp and the roast beef.  We also got Zapp's chips, native to Louisiana, Spicy Cajun, Crawtators flavor and they were delicious.

Thanks again for everything Will!  I had a great time and really enjoyed my first trip to New Orleans!

I left New Orleans after lunch and headed to Baton Rouge to see Whitney and Morgan!  Jo, Whitney's mom, outdid herself and planned a Seafood Gumbo for us that was incredible.  She made the seafood stock the day before and then she taught me from the beginning, starting with making a roux.  After about an hour the gumbo was done and she served it with rice, a salad, and bread.

Yum!!!

Jo even shared her recipe with me, so I will

post it the next time I get a chance for

anyone who is interested!

                              A great combination: salad/bread, seafood gumbo with
                                          oysters, crab, and shrimp, and Abita beer!

                                               
       Then if dinner wasn't enough already, then we had Chocolate Dobrege cake that was thinly sliced yellow cake with a chocolate pudding filling between each layer.  Sooooo good.  Thank you Jo and Whitney for a wonderful Louisiana meal and for taking me in for the night!  It was great to see you ladies as well as Morgs, Robert, and Sam!


Now it's back to New Orleans in the morning to pick Mom up at the airport and we hit the road to Houston, Texas to see Katie!