Crescent City Love

Faded grandeur, tattered glamor, places & things that wear the stories of their past as treasured mementos. I love the old and the romantic, anything with a sense of history. 

My youngest is like me in that regard. Her big sister takes after my husband and while they enjoy and appreciate our Liberal Arts mindset, the two of them see the world through engineers’ eyes. I think engineers rock, but the need for clean, structured, organization is a cold wet blanket on the heart of a romantic.

Knowing this, I should have realized that New Orleans would be a hard sell, but love is blind, after all. On a summer roadtrip to the beach one year, I planned a stopover in New Orleans.We stayed at the Marriott Renaissance Arts Hotel in the Warehouse District. Pulling up to the curbside entrance, in the middle of a very urban, chaotic street, Papa Bear was aghast. I was giddy to be there, handing out keys & luggage to bell hops and valets. The kids didn’t know what to think and pretty much each mirrored the parent they most took after.

We might have stood a chance at a good first impression. We had a delicious meal at Barcadia (RIP) and the kids had fun playing games. I was elated to have a big, juicy thunderstorm raging all around the covered patio where we sat, but for someone raised in Tornado Alley, it did not hold the same nostalgia as it did for a Gulf Coast girl who’d been too long on the bald prairie. Sensory shock combined with a self-inflicted room snafu on the sleeping arrangements and Husband was having none of it.

That night after dinner, my girls & I went exploring while he tucked into the hotel wifi and collected himself. On the roof, we discovered a swimming pool. Electronica thumped from hidden speakers and the pool was lit with purple led lights. We dangled our feet in the magical unicorn water and watched the lightning show as the storm moved off across the night.

For my sensibilities, it was a perfect evening. By the next morning, Husband had a better perspective. We found breakfast pastries at Bittersweet Confections and caught a glass blowing demonstration at New Orleans Glassworks, both on the downtown end of Magazine, before continuing on our way.

Obviously, New Orleans isn’t for everyone. Is it gritty and chaotic and visibly coming undone in real time? Yes. But the best stories come from lives lived fully.