Day 11

Day 11; Winfield Luisiana to New Orleans Louisiana

My ears must be perfectly shaped,  but we will come back to that. Today was supposed to be a short easy day (only 4 hours of riding). For this reason,  we slept in a little before heading out this morning. We had a beautiful ride down 167 to 71 and then to interstate 10 where it started to rain cats and dogs (not really,  figure of speech). Our ride ended up being 7 hours.

The storm was brewing out in front of us, so we stopped to put rain gear on. We rode through the rain today because the wind wasn't bad. As we rode,  my motorcycle started to lose power. I would keep opening the throttle without gaining any speed (very peculiar). Then we got off the highway and stopped at a gas station while the bike dried out a bit before taking off again. Pretty soon after it stopped raining we hit traffic. Shortly after that,  my engine started overheating (it's not liquid cooled). Fortunately,  we got to the exit without too much trouble and rode to St. Pierre's hotel in New Orleans.

It's a really cool place (even though it's really small) to hang out in and has parts that have been around since the 1800's! We took showers, and headed out on the town. Toby (the man at the front counter) gave us a good place to go out for dinner, Pere Antoine. We had a sampler and blacked catfish for dinner.  The sampler included jumbalaya, gumbo, creole shrimp,  rice, beans, bread pudding, and we had bacon wrapped, deep fried shrimp with mushrooms. Amazing dinner. Then we had to work it off.

We walked around town to Pat O'brien's, and down bourbon street to get some daiquiris. They pack a punch!

Now back to why my ears are perfectly shaped! If you have never been down bourbon street,  it's an experience in itself. There were people everywhere trying to get you to go into their establishment. The people who went in decided to go out on the balconies and we're throwing Mardi Gras beads down at people walking the streets. I had three thrown at me that I know of and I caught all three. Two on my ears and on in my hand as it was sliding off my head (the original planned landing spot). We made our way to the park and then back to our hotel. We are going to turn in early tonight so we can get an early start tomorrow.

10 states down,  38 to go!  I'll be writing from Florida tomorrow!

Much love,  LB