N'Orlins and beyond

Tuesday December 2, 2008--Mississippi. We couldn’t wait to get out of Pascagoula, MS—except Mathew. Not only was the Days Inn the most expensive and dirtiest of the motels we’ve stayed in, the coffee maker didn’t work and their continental breakfast coffee was putrid. The reason being that the water ran a light copper color—as in loaded with dirt. I had to pull out my PUR water filter I use for purifying water out of mountain streams to clean up the motel room water. I had always expected to use it one day in the mountains of Mexico, but never at a Days Inn in Mississippi. Thank goodness for bottled water. So, we shorted ourselves on coffee, packed the car, and then…..had to coax Mathew out of the motel room. From the outside. Yes, that’s right, as were packing the car Mathew shut, locked and dead-bolted the door so we couldn’t even get in with a key. What made it more difficult was that we looked at each other through the window as Mathew told us he needed “privacy.” Privacy is his secret word for “I need to find some trouble.” We eventually got him out (or us in) and left.


Finally! On the road to New Orleans. At about 11:00am we approached N’Orlins and headed for the French Quarter for a quick tour and bite to eat. We parked in the Vieux Carrè and walked around a bit as we headed for Mother’s Restaurant. Mother’s is another place we found on Roadfood.com—our new favorite food web site. Prices were reasonable, décor authentic (as in local), and there was a line out the door. Once we got in, we also found it was another buffet style restaurant (I am really starting the like this old concept), where we stood behind about 30 tourists, business-folk, locals and foodies. Debbie ordered seafood gumbo, Mike ordered crawfish etoufèe, and Mathew had some really yummy chicken sticks and fries. But the hit of the meal was the red beans and rice with large chunks of Mother’s renowned ham. After lunch we walked back to the car via Bourbon Street and some other small, less well known streets in the French Quarter to get back on the road.


And we sat in Baton Rouge, LA traffic, worse than any I’ve sat in in NYC, but we’re on our way to Mike’s brothers in Spring, TX (north of Houston) for a few days. See ya'll in a few days.