Slithery, creepy, crawly things (NOLA day #4)

Woke up early.  And I mean before the inebriated frat boys had evacuated Bourbon Street.  The blurry hands on the clock read 4:30.  Now, this is explainable:

1. We are old
2. We went to bed at 8:30
3. We are old

But because we are old (so responsible), we got dressed and hurried to see what the French Quarter had to offer in the early morning hours (oh, and we saw that the Cafe dumonde is open 24 hours and no lines in the early morning!).

We arrived and walked up to see the early morning river view and were not disappointed!

Taking pictures woke us up, so we headed for the classic New Orleans Breakfast, Bignet's at the Cafe Dumond.

The wait staff are all Vietnamese.  And as you can see, Marci did like the tasty breakfast delights!

We were pretty tired (because we are old) and went back to the cottage for a nap.  We had a swamp tour booked for noon, so we slept from 8 until 10.

We tried to eat at Willie Maes' (a hole-in-the wall chicken place) the day before, but it was already closed for the day (they only open for lunch).  We arrived at 10:30.  Through they were having plumbing problems (all orders had to be take out - fine with us) we both ordered chicken and enjoyed the time in the "joint".

 This is a true "bucket list" experience.  DO NOT MISS this.  Best chicken in the south, and a true experience...

The swamp tour, no matter how cheesy you think it might be, is a MUST!  We had a fantastic time and saw so much we'd never see otherwise.  Do yourself a favor and book it if you are in New Orleans!

After this nice little adventure, we decided to go for a drive.  Of course, for us that usually means a hundred miles or so!  We drove to the very tip of Louisiana where the Mississippi dumps into the Gulf.  Pretty cool.

There is a large oil facility there, many ships, a whole LOTTA families (we suspect oil rig workers because of the MAJOR league helicopters) and even Fort Jackson (where the Union Navy won the first battle of New Orleans to take the city for the north in the early days of the Civil War).

We meandered back and headed to the Crazy Lobster for dinner.  I bought a Groupon a few weeks ago anticipating this feast.  It didn't disappoint!  We sat on the patio and listened to live music, watched ships go by, and savored fresh gulf shrimp and snow crab (imported of course).  Delic!

Now it is off to blog and bed.

PS  Our hearts go out to the people of Ft. Hood Texas.  This has to stop.