Until today I thought the North Carolina gas station that sold cowboy boots would be the winner for best accent experience of the trip. I'm so glad I stopped in Mobile, Alabama. Awesome accents! Close to 100% of the people in the restaurant had an accent, the highest percentage of any place I had been so far. But the accent of my server was hands down the best in the place. I lack the vocabulary to describe accents, I can't describe wine either but I know what I like. And my server, who looked normal, had what must be the accent and voice of an Alabama fairy of about 3 inches tall. Awesome. Seriously, if she was selling recordings of her reading books on tape I would have bought one. And then I got my 5 dollar food bill? What? For a full and delicious breakfast? I don't know how to tip on 5 dollars. For me, 5 dollars for food means I stopped by Del Taco for Tami and I wasn't hungry. At 5 dollars for a bill, even tipping 40% just feels cheap.
Continuing on highway 10, the bridge over the Pearl River just before I crossed the border into Louisiana from Alabama had a nice lift to it and I got to look around. Holly arbor-land batman, are these two states one giant forest?
What's that? How's the pavement? Glad you asked. I suspect the man or woman engineer responsible for leveling the surface of highway 10 a couple of miles before New Orleans enjoyed a strange fascination with trigonometry in school and had a positive love affair with the wave length of short wave radio. Driving the speed limit was downright entertaining. Like, laugh out loud entertaining. I wonder how many accidental pregnancies occur going down that road? The more I think about the road undulation frequency, I believe the frequency increases like a Geiger counter approaching Chernobyl as you get closer and finally enter down town New Orleans. It must be some clever way to let you know how close you are to town. To make a scale model of the town, cut up an old corduroy jacket or pants for the streets. Enough analogy? Okay- but you will laugh if you drive west on 10 into town starting from just after the very long bridge.
I'm staying here in the French Quarter for two days. There is just too much to see here. So far I have walked Bourbon Street, had Creole cooking for lunch, bought a mint julep from a place famous for it's hurricanes, bought a hurricane from a place I don't think is famous for anything, saw the church and square, walked into a bunch of tourist shops, and had coffee and beignets (a type of doughnut) at the famous Cafe du Monde. Looking down on the floor, tables, and chairs at Cafe du Monde one could assumed the old plaster from the ceiling is starting to fall. Looking up one would see that the ceiling is wood. Looking around one would see that the beignets are served with a cup of powder sugar on top. By the way, consider where you sit relative to the direction of the wind if you go, or wear white. I assumed I wouldn't find the coffee to be that impressive because it's been so talked up that my expectations would be too high. But, thankfully, it really was quite good and I will surely go again.
Now, time for dinner and a stroll to check out the night life.