Bayou Segnette State Park, Westwego, Louisiana
As she was being brought out, she sent a message to her father-in-law, “I am pregnant by the man who owns these… See if you recognize whose seal and cord and staff these are.” Judah recognized them and said, “She is more righteous than I, since I wouldn’t give her to my son Shelah.” And he did not sleep with her again. ~ Genesis 38:25-26 Does that mean Judah took her to be his own wife? Did she remain with her father? I’m going to assume that since she had proof that she was carrying Judah’s child, that he made her his wife – at least in name. This would protect her and her reputation, and it would protect his newly created child (which ended up being twin boys). By protecting them, it also protected the Messianic line.
Today began with a small breakfast of cold cereal. Is there some reason you need to know that? Not particularly, other than to say that we left today knowing we’d be consuming mass quantities of food, including taking it upon ourselves to become food critics. How so?
It was the beignets.
Three years ago, we did the same thing.
Just not on the same day.
Café du Monde has long been crowned the best place for beignets – at least in New Orleans, but we strongly disagree. They weren’t the best when we had them three years ago, and they’re not the best today. However, if you want to try them, we discovered the best place is within the confines of New Orleans’ City Park, where there’s no line. Their place on Decatur Street has a line out the door and many, many yards down the sidewalk every day, all day!
As we declared three years ago, Café Beignet is THE place to go for beignets!
We had Café du Monde in the Park for a mid-morning snack, shared a tuna lunch and some carrots (I’m not mentioning the chocolate chip cookies, okay?) for lunch in the Jeep at Lake Pontchartrain, a large dinner at Royal House Oyster Bar, and Café Beignet for dessert. Ugh…..
Our bellies may have been close to bursting, but our mouths got up-close-and-personal to heaven! As you can easily see, I’m going to mourn for a while, as this is my last opportunity do drool over them until we return some day. heavy sigh…..
I suppose I should talk about the parts of our day when we weren’t eating, huh?
It was a lovely day! Bright blue skies, slight breeze, and temperatures that didn’t require coats of any kind. So different from when we went into the French Quarter last week when we were bundled up and still chilled!
It was to be a walking, exploration day today, and our first stop was supposed to be the City Park. But that changed when we drove by a cemetery with gigantic tombs. We had to stop and take a look. I checked into why NOLA buries their dead above ground, and discovered that most people believe it’s the low water table. Digging a hole even a foot deep results in water filling the hole. Several places said that the early settlers had issues with their coffins “floating” up out of the ground over time. Eeewww! There were also those who said it was a French culture thing and that the French brought the idea with them from home. Whatever the reason, New Orleans is the only place where we’ve seen this en masse. It’s wonderfully intriguing!
The figure inside is life sized.
Aren’t people dying to get in??? : )
On to City Park.
New Orleans has a wonderful city park! Since 1840, its 1,300 acres have been a source of recreation and relaxation for the city. There are children’s parks and playgrounds, an art museum, sculpture gardens, tennis courts, soccer and football fields, and a golf course! And probably other stuff as well.
Not sure though, and there was no sign.
But then again, it was a really big garden!
Isn’t that original?!? : )
we saw the necklaces in the tree. : )
We didn’t go in, but I can’t remember why.
If I remember correctly, it’s supposed to be the Mississippi River.
Even prettier in person. : )
Not too many places you can canoe and walk under the water line at the same time. : )
It hasn’t rained for a few days, so they curl up and look like they’re dying.
We walked around a LOT, (and ate beignets) before deciding it was time to head over to the French Quarter to see if we could soak up some street jazz. It’s been a bit disappointing this trip as we haven’t seen the street performers too much. But today, we found a few on some of the streets off Jackson Square. (Strictly for our future reference, we parked in the Canal Place parking garage.)
Doreen and her band were soooo excellent! When we first showed up, she was just sitting and listening to her bandmates, but then she got goin’ on her clarinet! Whooo-weeee! That woman can play! And for their final song, they did “When the Saints Go Marching In”, and she proved that she’s a pretty good deep-voiced singer too!
Actually, we have absolutely no idea who these people are, nor why they stood there so long.
Blaine finally just took the picture. : )
Isn’t the building decorated beautifully?!?
I know I’m jumping around a lot today. Sorry about that! I’m gonna do it again.
On the way to the French Quarter, we drove over to take a look at Lake Pontchartrain and eat our tiny lunch. Did you know that it takes a half hour to drive across this lake because it’s so huge? Or that the 24-mile continuous bridge is the longest one over water in the world? Or that there’s bull sharks swimming around in it? (the result of hurricanes sweeping them in???) Or that it’s not really a lake, but an estuary that averages 12-14’ deep but goes as deep as 64’ and is made up of brackish water? Or that it was named by French explorer Pierre Le Moyne d’Iberville in 1699? Or that this guy’s brother Jean Batiste Le Moyne de Bienville later founded New Orleans in 1718? And did I know that that’s more information than you wanted to read? Yea. Pretty sure. 😊
Dinner in the French Quarter (yes, we’re back to that now) was spur of the moment as we walked by. The restaurant is called Royal House Oyster Bar and we noticed they had empty tables up on the balcony! We had to wait a few minutes for one to open up, but since we weren’t starving to death, it was fine. Food was very good! And the people watching was good entertainment, plus there was just the idea that we did it, as part of our cultural experience.
The sax play stopped before we got up there though. : (
All we need now is for a New Orleans parade to pass by!
He was sitting down on the street.
And then there was dessert . . . . those wonderfully scrumptious mouthwatering irresistible beignets! Other people around the country need to learn how to make these things – but only the Café Beignet kind.
Home to watch playoff games, although Blaine already new the halftime score of the Bengals/Chiefs game because the restaurant had it playing. He got the watch the rest at home and had a grand time! Bengals 27-24 in overtime.
I sat in the bedroom writing for the blog during that game, then switched to TV while he watched the Rams/49ers. Final score Rams 20-17. All of the play-off games this year have been quite exciting! As they should be every year. And so far, all Blaine’s picks have won. Too bad he didn’t know to bet on them. 😊
We walked 20,000 steps today! How far is that? Ten miles! Surely that counteracted at least some of the massive amounts of calories we consumed. . . . Didn’t it?