It’s been a month — a month! — since I was in New Orleans. Good heavens, where in 2013 going? That means I’m more than a month behind on blog post ideas. So here goes nothing on trying to get caught up. The trip, a work excursion, was my first to the Crescent City, a crime if you consider I spent 18 years of my life (albeit all underage) living a mere train ride away. New Orleans is one of those perfect kind of destinations for me: it’s gritty and real, it’s scenic and it has really great food. Ok, and the booze ain’t half bad either.

My colleagues and I worked hard and played harder. I can’t tell all the stories, but I might have one to tell in a future post. Until then: my trip in photo form.

The best time to visit the French Quarter, in my humble opinion is on a weekday morning. You can walk without dealing with the hassle of what I would call super-drunk rookie travelers. You can obviously still get your own booze on, because the sun never goes down on the ability to drink in the French Quarter. Also, you get scenes like this to yourself.

That guy was there almost every time we walked through the French Quarter. I never got a chance to stop and find out his story, but I have a feeling the story isn’t necessary.

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Going to NOLA with a bunch of home design nerds meant architecture was high on our to-see list. Unfortunately I forgot to take my good camera, and I had only a little luck using my iPhone outside, even with all the Camera+ filters. I saw this shot when I plunked down in an old theater seat inside a junk/antique store to wait on the group, and I was enamored.

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The Modern Dad likes to say when driving by Protestant megachurches in the South that God is Baptist in the South. He declared God to be Catholic in Italy after visiting there, and I think it’s fair to say God is also Catholic — and French — in the French Quarter after seeing the inside of St. Louis Cathedral.

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Beale Street in Memphis once had its own Pat O’Briens, so my gateway hurricanes-and-dueling-pianos experience was many moons ago. Both are serious guilty pleasures of mine, which meant Pat O’Briens was HAPPENING, no matter how overrun with touristy tourists it was. There’s a reason they’re there. Those hurricanes go down like fruit juice, and everything is just SO MUCH FUN after that. During our first of two Pat O’s outings, the dueling pianos performed Fire and Rain, which is my all-time No. 1 favorite song. There were also people dressed as pirates.

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The last morning we were there, I hopped the streetcar to visit the Garden District. Unfortunately I was too tired and too overwhelmingly hot to fully enjoy anything but hanging out the window of the streetcar.

Well, hanging out the streetcar window and seeing these chickens in the front yard of one stately mansion.

And getting really excited about the FloJo doll I found in a Magazine Street antique store. Children of the ’80s: do you remember the FloJo doll? I remember wanting one thanks to her stylish outfit and decked-out nails. I think I entered a competition to win one but sadly was not the victor. I managed to refrain from purchasing this one, which made 7-year-old me very sad.

(RIP, FloJo)

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Really slow service aside, The Carousel Bar & Lounge was my second-favorite bar (after Pat O’s, natch). As you can see, the center of the bar is an actual center of a carousel. The bar itself and the seats around it are on a platform which rotates (very slowly) around it. I could have watched it all day long.

It sort of has that ethereal Under the Table and Dreaming album cover feeling, doesn’t it?

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This woman. We walked behind her for about six blocks. I would estimate she is in her late 50s. She had to walk with her left hand holding her skirt the entire way so as not to reveal the lady bits. But she managed to hang on to her manfriend’s hand the whole way and all while wearing 6-inch heels. Like a boss.

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We saw a classic New Orleans second line while dining at Restaurant Stanley. I wanted to jump right in.

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Aside from a hot, humid final morning in town, the weather for our trip was abso-effing-lutely perfect. Admittedly I used a filter on this photo to get that perfect glow, but let me assure you that this twilight scene did actually glow and so it’s not so far off from reality.