Continued from Nola Day 1.

Woke up this morning to blue skies and white clouds. There’s rain in the forecast for later, but glad it’s not raining right now. The courtyard was wet from them washing it down this morning.

Breakfast restaurant just a block away.

We are staying at the corner of Frenchmen and Royal.

Here comes baba and Little KL.

Picked this spot because they serve cold brew coffee. Works for me.

Kids are into tea these days.

Let’s eat.

Let’s walk. PL is helping CL get her pony tail into her hat. How sweet.

But apparently it takes 2 people to get this to work.

New Orleans is pretty empty during the summer.

They can use a lot more of this. Lots of broken pavement.

The city just gets a little bit worse every time I visit. So many homeless people out here right now. It’s not the most fun walking your kids constantly past people with mental health issue who are just cussing up a storm. Eye opening for the kids though, so hopefully will be a good learning experience.

It’s getting hot already.

They are just now starting to open up some.

Oh, they don’t look open. I guess a hurricane came here not too long ago?

Kids wanted to go to a sock store.

This section isn’t too kid appropriate.

It’s really hot and humid. Kids are struggling in this heat.

Over a hundred dollars in novelty socks later, we are on the walk again.

We found the only business in French Quarter with customers, lots and lots of customers. So many in fact that there was a long line waiting just to get in.

I told the kids I’d take them to see the Mississippi River.

There you go kids, the Mississippi. They said it was a lot bigger than they thought.

Say cheese. I think New Orleans holds a very dear spot in my mind because it was the first trip that I ever took with RL while we were dating and we had so much fun.

Still crowded. There’s some sort of Christian youth convention or gathering here right now. They are about 90% of the tourists that we saw on in the French Quarter.

Just one block away from Cafe Du Monde, it’s back to the empty streets of New Orleans…and yeah, and lots of homeless people.

I guess we’ll go next door to Sidney’s to get our sandwich.

Kids also got a sandwich, an ice cream sandwich. It’s very hot. I don’t blame them for wanting ice cream.

Girls wanted dresses.

Alright, after that short excursion, let’s head back to our hotel. It’s just too damn hot and humid to be walking around out here.

Back in the comfort of our hotel. There are very few guests here right now, it feels like we are the only ones here and have the whole place to ourselves. Kinda cool.

Did some blogging and the kids did some Minecraft playing. Works for us.

It’s started to rain again. RL and Little KL went to get a haircut together nearby. Hopefully they won’t get too wet on their way home.

Mother and son matchy matchy haircut!

Borrowed some umbrellas from the hotel and walked a couple of blocks to lunch.

Sushi in Nola, you bet.

It’s really coming down hard. Lightening and thunder too.

We see a flash of lightening, a crack of thunder, and the lights go dark. Good thing we’ve already ordered and hopefully they’ll still be able to prepare our order. The servers didn’t seem too phased, probably a semi regular occurrence for them with New Orlean’s dilapidated infrastructure.

The rain just keeps on popping up on the doppler.

Yum!!! It was really good actually. For the duration of our meal, the power never came back on.

Great, it’s raining so much we are now getting a flood warning.

Not gonna let up anytime soon, we’ll just need to brave the rain and get wet even with our umbrellas.

Why not. We are already half soaked from the heavy windy rain. Go and have some fun. How often do you get to play in the rain in a beautiful empty courtyard in New Orleans?

The power is also out at the hotel. The front desk said the power company posted it should be restored in a couple of hours. We shall see…Power did come back, and earlier than they estimated. It’s raining, can’t do anything, time for nap and time for Minecraft for the kids.

Almost dinner time. First, the playground across from our hotel to burn off some energy. It’s still wet, but hopefully the kids won’t get too messy. We shall see.

When we arrived at the playground, there was a homeless man sitting on one of the high elements on the playscape. RL noticed him and pointed him out to me before I saw him. But by.the time we noticed him our kids were already all over the playscape and this homeless man left so that the kids could play. I feel bad, but at the same time, a playscape is for kids to play on first and foremost. Mixed feeling about it.

PL had made a loose leaf art piece on a bench in our hotel. It’s time to find a dinner spot now. It was

Time for dinner, heading to a pizza spot. Kind of amazing, but almost 2 weeks on the road and we haven’t had pizza a single time.

We finally found the unicorn colored Jeep, the Rainbow Jeep!!!!!! We play this game where we point out rare color Jeeps. I think it started when we were at the Jeep topless weekend at Surfside when we saw Jeeps on all different colors. Well, the kids said they wanted to see a Rainbow colored Jeep, and obviously someone would need to either paint or wrap it rainbow colored. It’s finally happened, a tie dye rainbow colored wrapped Jeep. What a momentous time of colorful Jeep sighting. I think I was more excited than the girls regarding seeing the Rainbow Jeep actually…maybe.

Act excited because baba is excited. I think the original conversation was that if they sighting a rainbow Jeep, they’d get A LOT of extra ipad time, or something like that.

Papyrus is a pretty cool looking plant. PL think so too.

Found dinner spot.

Upon closer inspection, it doesn’t seem to be open and we saw this note. We saw other people walking up and seeing this note and walking away too. I guess this is just the way it is in Nola…

Backup dinner option. There’s a deli counter at the back of this small corner store. Let’s give it a try.

They’ve actually got a pretty extensive menu. But the kids are going crazy touching everything in the store it’s turned into a stressful environment to make choices regarding what to order.

We finally made an order, and it’ll be 15min until ready so we’ll talk a stroll around the hood.

This is what I mean about Nola on a decline. So many for sale signs everywhere. I’d like to come back for Jazzfest another year and see what the city is like with the crowds back here.

Oh look, bubbles. The kids fly towards bubbles like moths to a flame.

Hitching post?

Alright, let’s say goodbye to the bubbles, we need to go pick up our food.

As it turns out, our food wasn’t quite done yet. Kids still crazy, so RL walked them back to our hotel while I kept on waiting for the food by myself.

Cool Brew is the best. We drink this cold brew back at home and I believe it’s made here in Nola.

RL took this picture of the kids all drinking something? Tea?

Love this picture. They are all looking at the stray car that’s kind of becoming a the hotel cat.

I wonder who draws these? I took a photo of other koi fish painting on the ground in Nola years ago and here I see them again. I like it.

Back with food, let’s hope they don’t fuss too much about the food. They did a little bit.

The rain cooled down the city and the heavy clouds are blocking the harsh rays. Perfect time for dining in the courtyard. Not to mention the chairs and tables and space to run around.

A different bartender at the hotel bar tonight. She’s making the drinks a little too sweet, but hopefully we’ll dial that in with later drinks.

Dinner. The spaghetti with meat sauce was spicy. Little KL didn’t want to eat his sandwich that we got for him, he wanted my spaghetti. But it was spicy, so he ate it, but complained the whole time while he ate it.

Look at all those fresh herbs. This bar is legit.

Less sweet and slowly moving in the right direction.

Baba like.

Central Grocery Mufellata sandwich. The original, but I think I’ve grown to like the Jason’s deli version better now.

Next drink. Even better. It’s a party now.

The front desk lady at the hotel comes out and feeds the cat. The kids and RL are all obsessed with the cat. The kids have named the cat Key Lime after the key lime pie dessert that I gave them at the end of dinner. Cute name, but I don’t want a cat.

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This was a nice surprised, there are bands playing tonight in the hotel lobby tonight too.

Looking good. All tucked away behind a security gate in the hotel parking lot. Would not enjoy having the Defender parallel parked on the streets over here.

Kids love Key Lime.

Kids are now in bed, I got some much needed toilet paper from the front desk. Time for toilet paper dance.

This is the door to our hotel room with the kids in bed, only a few feet away from where we are sitting in the center of the courtyard. This is turning out to be the perfect night in Nola after what’s been kind of a disappointing day time stroll around the city.

The beautiful fountain(could be a smidge quieter…maybe). RL has gone to the bar getting us more drinks.

This door leads to the hotel lobby where we can hear the live band playing with clarity and it’s not too loud.

And that corner is where the hotel bar is located at. We’ve literally got everything we need surrounding us. Perfection.

I love my wife’s new haircut. Reminds me of when we first met and she had short hair.

The band is really rocking in here. It’s R&B night, we took turns listening to music in the lobby while the other sat in the courtyard to make sure the kids are still asleep in the hotel room. It’s a little odd being the only non black person here. I’m not thrusted into this kind of environment often.

Just rolling a joint right there on the sidewalk. They are very lax about weed here in Nola.

More drinks please.

Did not expect this, but this is turning out to be our best party night on this whole trip. Look at this beautiful courtyard that we have all to ourselves. I think what makes all this work is that are kids are literally safely asleep at a room only a few feet away from us and that comfort makes everything else possible. The weather is perfect out here as well.

No, I don’t want a cat.

Good drunk food.

Look at that moon.

The band done with their set an they had an impromptu jam session at the piano. Cool.

All smiles and laughs.

Alright, it’s time to finally call it at night. It’s almost 11pm, and really grateful that we were able to have a special night like tonight in Nola. I think this is why Nola keeps pulling me back despite all the major flaws. It’s like a terrible abusive relationship…but when it’s good, it’s good.

To be continued at Home, Sweet Home.