Louisiana in 3 Hours

New Orleans, Louisiana

The next stop on my road trip to California was New Orleans, and this might have been my favorite stop of the trip. Maybe. We only had a few goals on this quick stop; beignets, chicory coffee, Bourbon street.  Success! We did make all of this happen in just 3 short hours. 

The adventure began... with parking. A complete disaster that took 30 minutes within itself, but once that was secured, it was onto Cafe du Monde.  You can get beignets at a number of cafes in the area, but we wanted the entire experience. 

We read our rule book the night before, yes there are actually certain rules you should know before heading into the cafe.

• Don't wear black.  The massive amount of powdered sugar WILL end up all over your black shirt or pants, stick to light colors!
• Know what it is you want to order, you'll really only see your server twice, once for the order, again with your food and the bill.
•  With that, an order of beignets has 3 beignets, I would suggest one order per person.  Then you'll want to wash that down with a classic chicory coffee, it's served with milk, and sugar will be on the table.  
• The line. It almost always blocks long, once you get close to the entrance as tables get up you'll seat yourself wherever you see seats available.

Now, if you read the last rule and thought if the line is blocks long and you were only there for three hours and you went to bourbon street, well "how did you pull that off?"  Let's just say I don't think that should really be on the internet and we can just leave it at that.  

Once we sat down we ordered three orders of the famous beignets and 3 coffees, they came to the table just moments later.  

Holy cow! These were absolutely amazing! The beignets were fluffy and warm on the inside with a perfect golden crunchy outside.  Of course, topped with like a pound of powdered sugar.  Be careful not to laugh, sneeze, or even breathe too hard while eating these precious pastries or powdered sugar will be on everything.  The coffee was rich and smooth, not bitter at all.  I'm a sweet coffee drinker so I couldn't help but add a few sprinkles of sugar to it, but you have to try it without sugar first!  We then headed across the street to the Cafe du Monde store, where we had to buy a bag of chickory coffee beans, yes you can take that on a plane if you were wondering.

Then we took a scenic walk through the French Quarters outdoor market, and off to Bourbon street.  The market had tons of locals selling hand made jewelry or other knick-knacks.  You can also pick up your tourist shirt and hat here but be sure to not overpay!  We didn't have any problems during this time, but for safety measures, you might want to move your cell phones or loose cash from your pack pockets into either a secured backpack or your front pockets because pickpocketers can be an issue in large crowds.    

We were on Burbon street pretty early in the morning and it was a little rainy outside, so there weren't many people, but we took lots of pictures, to prove we were really there... even if it was only three hours.  Then we jumped back in the car and headed to our next very big stop, Texas.