Phantom

A few weeks ago Eric and I had a super fun Saturday. Merry and Glen (Eric's mom & her husband), drove to KC Saturday morning. After they arrived that afternoon we went to Nebraska Furniture Mart and looked around, which I always enjoy. Then we came back to house to get ready to go out for the evening. We ate dinner at Houston's on the Plaza. Dinner was fabulous. We all chose to start with a salad and move on to the mouth-watering filet for our main course. The main event for the evening was to watch Phantom of the Opera at Music Hall. The show was spectacular. My favorite song of the musical was performed right before intermission, "All I Ask of You." (I have been pulling the song up on YouTube frequently since the show to listen to it.) Following the show we drove to Crown Center to have a drink at Benton's and listen to live Jazz. Unfortunately we were only able to stay for about 30 minutes since it was almost closing time when we arrived. The band, consisting of a vocalist, pianist, bassist, and drummer, was outstanding.

Louisiana - Part 4

On Wednesday, March 18th before we left Biloxi we went back to the beach for a few minutes. I wanted to get a few more pictures and collect a little sand before leaving. We didn't linger long because we needed to hit the road for New Orleans.

Upon our arrival to New Orleans, we checked into our hotel. The last time Eric and I were in New Orleans, we ate at Acme Oyster House in the French Quarter. It was really tasty so we decided to go there for a late lunch. At the hotel, we looked up the address and entered it into Eric's phone (that has GPS). We followed the directions it gave us, which seemed like a good idea at the time. We didn't think the idea all the way through because they were driving directions and we ended up doing a lot of back-tracking because of the one way streets. After we arrived at the restaurant and were seated, we ordered a round of beers while we looked over the menu. Eric and I ordered a dozen oysters on the half-shell for an appetizer. Eric has eaten oysters several times and really likes them, but this was my first try. The slimy appearance of the oysters had previously always creeped me out too much to try them. I found them to be not too shabby. I ate mine on a cracker with some Chipotle Tabasco sauce. (I still wasn't brave enough to just slurp them out of the shell.) For my meal I ate a shrimp po-boy, Eric had a combination plate with jambalaya, gumbo, and red beans and rice, and Jim had some fried crawfish. We had a few more beers and made our way out to wander the French Quarter. I wanted to go to Fat Tuesday to have one of their delicious mudslides, but we spotted a neat little courtyard and meandered inside. It was a little bar named, Pat O'Brien's. The courtyard was set back from the street and was full of tables with plants all around. We found a table and started ordering Hurricanes. The drinks were huge, and the bartender was generous with the amount of alcohol in each glass. Before we knew it; it was dark, we had a table full of empty glasses, and we were extremely impaired. I guess I should also mention that our drinks were $10 each. We each had 4 drinks. For the low price of $10 a drink, patrons are allowed to keep their glasses. If you don't want to keep the glass, then you can turn it back in for $3. Well, as I mentioned we had each had 4 drinks so we weren't thinking clearly enough to get our $36 back and just left the glasses on the table. When we finally left Pat O'Brien's we headed across to Fat Tuesday's for the much anticipated mudslides. With mudslides in hands, we stumbled around the French Quarter joining a ghost tour group, grabbing a slice of pizza, and ducking into bars to hear bands. Before heading back to the hotel, the guys decided it would be a good idea to get another mudslide, while I managed to have enough sense to decline. We somehow made it back to our hotel and crashed.
The next day the guys seemed to feel pretty good, but I felt absolutely horrible. We got checked out of the hotel and drove to the market area to find Cafe du Monde; where they are famous for their beignets and cafe au lait. We found a table in their courtyard and ordered our breakfast/lunch. The beignets were loaded with confectioner's sugar and were marvelous. We decided to walk along the river walk a while to look at the boats and rest of the scenery. Jim got tricked into getting a shoe shine by some guy along the river walk. We ended up getting back to the car just in time. We hadn't noticed when we parked there, but we parked in a no parking area. The officer was issuing citations and we managed to pull out of the spot before we got one. After that we headed back to Baton Rouge for a peaceful evening at Jim's brother's house. We went out for a little bit to Buffalo Wild Wings for some wings and beer.
The following day we went to a goodbye lunch with Jim's family at Ralph and Kacoo's (it is a nice seafood/cajun restaurant). From there we headed back to Kansas City. We stopped in Natchitoches, Louisiana, where we had planned to stay the night. Jim went to school there, and drove us around the campus area. Natchitoches is famous for their meatpies. Unfortunately the restaurants where they are served are closed on Fridays. We decided to head on home because we couldn't get our meatpies and we were ready to sleep in our own beds. To help the lengthy trip go faster for me I decided to sleep most of the way home. Jim's long drive ended when we arrived in Olathe sometime around 3:00 in the morning.

Louisiana Trip - Part 3

Tuesday morning we got up and hit the road for Biloxi, Mississippi. I wasn't looking forward to this part of the trip because I didn't figure there would be anything to do other than gamble at the casinos. As soon as we got close to Biloxi, I was happily surprised. All along the coast was an exceptionally wide, white sand beach. It was absolutely beautiful. I couldn't wait to take my shoes off and walk in the sand. When we arrived at Hard Rock, we had some lunch and drinks at the cafe before checking in. After we got settled into our rooms we went downstairs to check out the casino. We were underwhelmed by Hard Rock's casino. It was small, so it was fairly hard to find a table. We decided to walk next-door to Beau Rivage to see what their casino looked like. It was very nice. It is owned by MGM, and we noticed it has a similar feel to Bellagio (also owned by MGM). Eric and Jim played black jack for quite a while. I walked around the casino, but wasn't in the mood to gamble so I sat down and people-watched. I noticed that the majority of the people in the casino were over the age of 65. I'm not sure how long I sat around, but after a bit I walked back to our hotel room to read. Eric met up with me not long after and we decided to go for a walk on the beach. We strolled along the beach to find a place to sit and watch the sun set. The view was picturesque, and the sand was soft and cool between my toes. I decided that I wanted to roll up my jeans and put my feet in the water since it was my first time to the gulf. The water was pretty cool at first, but I got used to it quickly. I convinced Eric to test the water as well. The waves picked up and my jeans ended up getting pretty wet while he managed to stay fairly dry. When it got dark we headed back to the hotel to find Jim and get some dinner. Eric and I decided that Mexican food sounded good, so we had the GPS in Jim's car find us a place to go. If I remember correctly we ate at El Saltillo. The food wasn't the best I've had but it was still good. Following dinner we went back to Hard Rock for some more gambling. I still wasn't in the mood to play so I just watched the guys play black jack. A few times I was about to sit down to play, but someone beat me to the open seat. After a while I got tired of standing, and also tired in general, so I went up to bed. The guys continued to play for probably a few hours.