In 2025 we took a little trip
Along with the kids, down the mighty Mississip'
We took hats and mittens and flannel-lined jeans
And hunkered down for the Blizzard of New Orleans
In 2025 we took a little trip
Along with the kids, down the mighty Mississip'
We took hats and mittens and flannel-lined jeans
And hunkered down for the Blizzard of New Orleans
We had a plan. We would meet our son and daughter-in-law in New Orleans for four days and five nights of balmy weather, regional cuisine and a smattering of arts and culture. Our son and his wife live in Portland, Oregon. So New Orleans constitutes a midway rendezvous, if one doesn’t do the math.
Our daughter-in-law once lived in New Orleans and still had favorite “haunts” and friends in town. Becky and I were last in New Orleans in December… of 2004. Our plan was to enjoy the Big Easy and it was a good plan.
We flew from Bradley Airport (CT) to Charlotte (NC) and then from Charlotte to Louis Armstrong International Airport in New Orleans. We left our house in CT at 7:30 AM (Eastern Time) on January 17, 2025 and arrived at our NOLA VRBO around 4:00 PM (Central Time).
The weather when we arrived was pleasantly warm. By the morning of January 21 it was snowing.
Andrew Jackson doffs his cap.
This is a photo I made in Late December 2004. The Hotel Monteleone has been around for ever. On its backside, opposite its formal entrance, one finds a rather retro sign. As the sun set on this December night in 2004 light reflected off the Monteleone sign to create spectacular patterns on the adjacent building. A print of this photo has hung in our CT house since 2004.
This is a photo I made in January 2025. The original Hotel Monteleone was built in 1886 and it has been owned, operated, torn down and rebuilt by four or five generations of Monteleones. It’s still a grand hotel and just a block from Bourbon Street. It was fun to see that the sign had not changed in 20 years.
Crash Test Dummies
The Uber drive from the airport to our VRBO was an experience. Brian, the driver, had his car decked out like a casino, with flashing interior lights, blaring music and a video screen displaying trivia questions. He told us he liked to drive fast and did so while swerving from lane to lane on the congested highway. He told us about all the cars he once drove and totalled, specifically the engines they sported. He told us about the time he lost a bumper on the highway in a “close call” and didn’t know it until he dropped off his visibly frightened passengers. He extolled the virtues of the cough drops he sucked like candy. And then he pointed out one and only one New Orleans’ landmark: A CVS (in case you get sick, he said).
Baby, It's Cold Outside. Do golf carts have all-wheel-drive?
Let’s talk about the elephant in the room. No, not the January 1 terrorist attack on Bourbon Street. The other elephant. The blizzard. New Orleans went from almost 70 degrees on Friday, January 17 to a record snowstorm within four days. The National Weather Service issued its first-ever blizzard warning in Louisiana while we were enjoying the Big Easy. Thanks to a stretchy "polar vortex," also called an “arctic blast," New Orleans saw record breaking cold temperatures and a record breaking snowfall - over eight inches of light, fluffy snow was recorded at the airport.
On January 21, 2025, The National Weather Service station at New Orleans/Lake (KNEW) experienced a high temperature of 38°F, with a low of 28°F. The next night, in the wee hours of January 22, the temperature in New Orleans dropped to 26°F, breaking the low temperature record of 1940. That’s 85 years ago.
The snow fell in roughly an eight or nine hour period on January 21, from rush hour AM to rush hour PM. Not that there was a rush hour. This was New Orleans' biggest snow fall in more than 100 years (unofficially). Official records for NOLA only date back to the 1940s.
We rented part of a 200-year-old "Creole Cottage," half of a double shotgun, on Burgundy Street near the intersection of Pauger Street in the Marigny Triangle/ Faubourg Marigny section of New Orleans. We soon learned that Burgundy Street in New Orleans is pronounced “Burr-GUN-dy” - emphasis on the middle syllable. Parts of Marigny were once a plantation owned by Monsieur Bernard de Marigny. Monsieur Bernard liked to gamble and eventually lost most of his land, piece by piece. Burgundy Street was originally named Rue de Craps in honor of Bernard’s favorite game.
In the mid-20th century the area around Washington Square in Marigny was nicknamed "Little Angola" (after the Louisiana prison of that name) for the dangerous criminals living there. But things have changed in the past 70 years. The neighborhood is still mostly residential, a mix of restored historic homes (many are probably Airbnb’s), homes in need of restoration or at least upkeep and the occasional corner store, bar, bakery or restaurant. Our VRBO was located "just 2 blocks from Frenchmen Street and the French Quarter."
Our rental was spotlessly clean, fresh and up to date, with a well-stocked kitchen. It was simply and smartly decorated and very spacious. It had four bedrooms with queen beds and three full baths. Plenty of room to spread out.
Somebody wrote that “Bourbon Street is known for the bars, Royal Street is known for its art galleries and eclectic shops, and Burgundy Street offers up local fare and casual hang-outs.”
The house more or less across the street from our rental - before the freeze. The plants looked very sad a few days after I took this photo. Landscape plants in New Orleans rarely have to endure below freezing temps.
The house next to our rental slowly covered its plants with bedspreads, tablecloths, deflated blow-up dolls... whatever was available.
The yards we saw in Marigny and the Garden District were full of tropical and warm-weather plants: birds of paradise, alocasia/elephant ears, cacti, yucca, bougainvillea, hibiscus, clerodendrum, canna, camellia, ginger, and crape myrtle, to name a few. The southern live oak, southern magnolia, bald cypress, palm and palmetto trees would survive the coming freeze. But the Boston and holly ferns that hung from countless porches and balconies were in for a rough week.
We ate at Palm & Pine on Rampart Street in the French Quarter on Friday night. This fine-dining, southern-fusion restaurant opened in 2019 and survived Covid. We shared a plethora of sides and small plates: fried broccoli, tamarind greens, butter beans, BBQ shrimp, cornmeal fried oysters, gumbo, crab legs, sumac-bronzed gulf fish, a salad and a pickle plate and corn babies (cornbread shaped like an ear of corn). And designer cocktails. I'd go back. A near perfect meal.
Palm & Pine's delicious corn babies - photo from their website.
Left: Mirror Labyrinth, by Jeppe Hein.
Above: "Maybe (Not)," by Elmgreen & Dragset
“Karma,” by Korean artist Do Ho Suh, is made up of 98 human figures stacked vertically.
"Window with Ladder – Too Late for Help," by Argentinian artist Leandro Erlich.
On Saturday we headed over to the New Orleans Museum of Art to walk in its sculpture garden in the drizzle. The sculpture garden occupies approximately eleven acres in City Park adjacent to the museum. Atypical of most sculpture gardens, this garden is located within a mature existing landscape of pines, magnolias, and live oaks surrounding two lagoons. The park has almost 100 engaging and eclectic sculptures along its pathways.
Oaks, moss and a lagoon in the sculpture park.
After the sculpture park, we walked from NOMA along St. John Bayou to the Parkway Bakery. Along the way we passed a festive residence dressed up as the sight-seeing steamboat named the Natchez. A few days later, we saw the Natchez on the Mississippi.
We walked from the sculpture park to mid-city and the Parkway Bakery & Tavern on the corner of Hagan and Toulouse St. Parkway was established in 1911 as a bakery. It still looks like a corner store with a small, unassuming bar and lots of outdoor seating. But it’s famous for its poor boy sandwiches. There are many variations of this classic New Orleans sandwich (Parkway has 25 variations), but the standard consists of a long piece of French bread, dressed with lettuce, tomato, pickles and mayonnaise, and stuffed with fried seafood or gravy-drenched roast beef.
The Parkway's "Approved Clean Rest Rooms" sign looks like it might be original.
Unlike this photo from the Parkway's website, the Parkway was mobbed on 1/18/25. I’ve seen less people at NFL games and Taylor Swift concerts. It was a long wait in line. One line for sandwiches. One line for drinks.
Parkway began selling the po’ boy sandwich during the Great Depression. In 2010, the Obama family stopped by the Parkway for po' boys. In 2024, the Parkway won the “Best Place to Get a Po’ Boy” according to Gambit’s, Best of New Orleans publication.
Riley and I had fried shrimp po’ boys, fully dressed, just like Barack and Michelle. Our daughter-in-law’s college friend met us at Parkway for a Bloody Mary. By the time she arrived - about 45 minutes after we got there - the crush had subsided.
Pal's sought-after plastic cups.
Our next stop was Pal's Lounge on North Rendon Street in mid-city. Pal's was once one of our daughter-in-law's favorite dives. In fact, her friends were waiting for us when we arrived. Pal's is a neighborhood bar. I was told it's Bryan Cranston's favorite New Orleans watering hole. Not sure where that info came from. But Dame Helen Mirren named Pal's as her favorite NOLA bar on “The Kelly Clarkson Show” in 2024. We tried their almost-famous gingeritas. Which were more a take on a Moscow Mule with vodka, effervescence and a strong house-made ginger syrup. We sat outside with the kids and eventually ubered back to the rental, leaving the youngsters at the bar. BTW, the bar's women's room has two toilets side by side, but no stalls. Or so I was told by a guy who looked suspiciously like Aaron Paul.
Our uber driver to Marigny was a guy named Kerry Vinette. He has a burgeoning social media presence, Youtube videos etc, promoting his song "Wun Nut Strut." All I can say, and who could want more: he was a nice guy.
Saturday night we celebrated Becky's birthday at Compère Lapin on Tchoupitoulas Street in the French Quarter. Compère Lapin is located in the Old No. 77 Hotel and is one of New Orleans’ more famous restaurants. From their website: “At Compère Lapin, Chef Nina Compton highlights the indigenous ingredients of the Gulf while melding the cuisine of her Caribbean upbringing with her culinary background rooted in classic French and Italian techniques. The result is an inventive menu that earned Chef Compton the James Beard Award for Best Chef: South in 2018, Food & Wine Magazine’s Best New Chef in 2017, the title of runner up on Top Chef, Season 11. Compère Lapin was named one of Esquire’s Most Influential Restaurants of the Decade in 2019, America’s 38 Best Restaurants by Eater in 2017, and New Orleans’ 2016 Restaurant of the Year by The Times-Picayune.”
There were six of us for dinner at Compère Lapin. Two of the six had curried goat and sweet potato gnocchi. Another had ricotta gnocchi with beef bolognese. Two had crispy fish (snapper) with Delicata & butternut squash. And one went entirely vegetarian. Really good food!
Along with moss, the resurrection fern (above) grows on oak tree branches in New Orleans. It's an epiphyte, which means it grows on other plants for support but not for nutrients. During droughts, they shrivel up. And when it rains, they come back to life.
On Sunday, we met my son’s childhood Connecticut friend outside Commander's Palace and Lafayette Cemetery in the Garden District. He was visiting New Orleans for a long weekend with his girlfriend and two other friends (that he ditched to hang out with us!).
He flew to NOLA from Washington D.C. where he works for the federal government. It was a long weekend - MLK weekend. It was also inauguration weekend.
OK. These giant Mardi Gras glass beads are from NOMA's sculpture park and not the Garden District. But they reminded me (as the artist no doubt intended) of the omnipresent beads and house decor in various other parts of town, including (right) this house in the Garden District.
We spent late morning and early afternoon on a self-guided walk (using a phone app) of the Garden District and then ate a very late second-breakfast at Ruby Slippers, a local chain serving Louisiana-tinged breakfast staples, such as barbecue shrimp and grits or banana pecan pancakes. I had Eggs Benedict with pulled pork on a biscuit. Eggs Benedict plus pulled pork was a first for me. After Ruby’s we took an uber back to the French Quarter. Our Uber driver talked animatedly and articulately about all the cheerleaders in town. New Orleans was hosting a cheerleader competition. He was not fond of the cheerleaders.
Wrought iron lanterns, fences, gates, railings and balconies are a unifying architectural embellishment in the French Quarter. Many date back to the 18th century. The ironwork was supposedly inspired by Spanish architecture, despite the abundance of French fleur-de-lis and coquilles.
The low winter sun acts as a spotlight, illuminating the tops of buildings, leaving the sidewalk in perpetual January shade.
We had beautiful blue skies on Sunday 1/19 and Monday 1/20. Sunday was cool for New Orleans. On Monday, New Orleans was a Ghost Town. Tourists knew it was time to get out of Dodge before the Big Easy became the Big Freezey.
The Historic New Orleans Collection
After wandering around the French Quarter with our now eight-person krewe, enjoying the late day sun and shadow play, we visited the The Historic New Orleans Collection - a free museum and research center. HNOC had a powerful exhibition called "Captive State: Louisiana and the Making of Mass Incarceration" on display.
From the HNOC website: "Louisiana’s present-day distinction as the world’s incarceration capital is rooted in three centuries of history. Throughout this history, people in power have used systems of enslavement and incarceration to hold others captive for punishment, control, and exploitation. Black Louisianians have suffered disproportionately under these systems.
Through historical objects, textual interpretation, multimedia, and data visualization, Captive State investigates these through-lines and arrives at an irrefutable truth: that the institutions of slavery and mass incarceration are historically linked."
The exhibition mixed historic artifacts with contemporary art.
The photographer's mother was murdered. The case has never been solved.
One of the more amazing pieces in the exhibit was a collection of 249 portraits of prisoners by Deborah Luster called One Big Self: Prisoners of Louisiana. These portraits of inmates, dressed and posed to express the individuality of the sitter, were printed on aluminum plates evocative of 19th-century tintypes. On the back of each plate was a hand-written inscription with information provided by each sitter, such as their names and length of sentences etc. Luster loosely arranged the plates in a black metal cabinet reminiscent of a card catalog or an archive. The "audience" was invited to sort through and hold each portrait.
We left the young people in the French Quarter and walked back to our VRBO. Later that night we went to a nearby Marigny restaurant (on North Rampart) called Budsi's Thai. To our surprise, the joint was very popular and there was a long wait. So we ordered take out from Budsi's, skipped the line and ate in the rental, which had a well equipped kitchen. The Thai food was delicious and very spicy.
Sunday was the last day when it was warm enough to sit outside. By Monday restaurants and bars were putting away their outdoor seating.
On Sunday and Monday we saw signs that people were half-heartedly preparing for the weather to come. Some people began covering their plants with sheets, garbage bags, old air-conditioning boxes (ironic, eh?), anything handy.
I was a bit surprised that more of the lush landscape wasn't being protected. The Elephant Ears and Boston Ferns were crying out for a hefty L.L. Bean fleece.
On Monday we ventured to the French Market. But the market was closed! Supposedly, the market never closes. Wracked with disappointment, we forgot to buy beignets at Café du Monde. Though we did buy café au lait with chicory and beignets at the Café du Monde in the airport. Thank goodness there's more than one Café du Monde.
We also missed our chance to visit the National World War II Museum. We were last there when it was still called the D-Day Museum. The National World War II Museum closed on Tuesday and would not re-open until Friday, like most museums in the city.
Joanie on the Pony. Originally cast by French sculptor Emmanuel Frémiet in the late 1800s, this sculpture lived in a French warehouse with its eight or so clones until the mid-20th century, when it moved to New Orleans, only to live in another warehouse until 1972. She kicked around New Orleans for the next couple of decades. Finally, in 1999 a triumphant Joan conquered her current location in the Place de France in the French Market where she is finally "beloved."
We wandered down to the river and through Jackson Square. It was chilly and eerily quiet. We lit candles at St. Louis Cathedral and prayed our flights home would not be disrupted by the pending storm.
I photographed this young lady in Jackson Square as she was posing for a professional. I loved that she was wearing sweat pants under her dress.
On the way to the French Market we visited the Disco Warehouse where Becky bought a holiday "Kramp-ess - The She Devil of Christmas" print to add to our home Christmas decorations. After leaving Jackson Square, we walked up a deserted Chartres Street and stopped into a shop called Dark Matter Oddities & Artisan Collective which sold fantastical taxidermy assemblages, skulls and bones, jars with specimens, Wiccan and voodoo paraphernalia and a broad array of morbid curiosities and horror kitsch. This all made sense at the time, as New Orleans seemed to be on the verge of a Zombie Apocalypse.
Jenavieve Cooke & The Winding Boys at The Spotted Cat
That night we ate at Adolfo’s on Frenchmen Street. Adolfo’s bills itself as Creole Italian and does not take reservations. I had grouper served with two different sauces. Half the fish was smothered in crabmeat and capers, and half was smothered in spinach and lemon. Unusual. Perfect for those who can’t choose. Our only complaint, the crab meat was not well-picked.
Adolfo’s is next to The Spotted Cat Music Club which has been described as “the quintessential jazz club of New Orleans.” Our daughter-in-law knew the bartender and another friend joined us. We heard Jenavieve Cooke & The Winding Boys. They sounded great. Then we caught a set by Dominick Grillo & The Frenchmen Street All-Stars. We were very happy The Spotted Cat was open.
Becky and I walked back to the rental leaving the kids at the club. That evening I began to cough and wheeze. Becky decided to sleep in her own bedroom. Luckily the rental had four good sized bedrooms. We all could get sick.
Above left: Three of the Creole Cottage's four doors two days after the storm. These big old doors had shutters on the exterior. Above right: The view of our doors from the inside. The doors were ridiculously drafty. Light streamed through gaps, as did the below freezing breezes. The wooden doors expand and contract all year long. During the winter, they shrink. Small mammals could probably enter the house unopposed. We stuffed the gaps with 50 or so plastic bags we found under the sink. We were also asked to keep water running from the taps and open the cupboard doors near the pipes. No problem. Let's keep the pipes from freezing.
A couple houses up the street, Saturday, January 18. Yes, that's a cactus in his crotch. It brings the term "prick" to life.
A couple houses up the street, Tuesday, January 21. Is it my imagination, or is the pink dude experiencing a little shrinkage?
It was snowing by 9 AM on Tuesday. And it was snowing at a good clip. And I was coughing up a storm. Becky walked to Walgreens to get me a Covid test. Walgreens was closed.
But Ayu Bakehouse on Frenchmen Street was open. The high-end Ayu had already supplied us with warm bread, croissants and pastries. And beyond belief, it was open in the snow. And had King Cake.
The storm was a once in a life-time event. So in the afternoon I bundled up to see New Orleans' tropical landscape draped in white.
Corner of Bourbon and Governor Nicholls Street. New Orleans supposedly had more snow in January 2025 than Anchorage, Alaska.
According to the Philadelphia Inquirer:
The snowfall and temperatures approached or broke records across the state of Louisiana.
The 8 inches of snow that fell upon the Big Easy on Jan. 21 not only tripled the city’s erstwhile all-time daily record, it ended up exceeding the combined monthly snowfalls of New York and Philadelphia, and came within a few flakes of matching Boston’s.
We walked around the French Quarter. Young people (under 30) were having snowball fights and making snow angels. Grown men were giggling. Every now and then a jeep would slide down the street. The stray cats were confounded. Lafitte's Blacksmith Shop (bar) seemed to be open (as it has been for a few hundred years), but not much else. That night we ate homemade pizza. Everyone (except me) watched a movie. I was quarantined.
King Cake is only made during the Carnival Season. People take King Cake very seriously and there seem to be dozens of different types. It’s kinda a cross between a coffee cake and a cinnamon roll. It's made from brioche dough and can have various types of filling, including a small plastic baby Jesus. It usually has some sort of yellow, green and purple granulated sugar on top. We bought our King Cake from Ayu Bakehouse before the storm and I dare say it kept us alive.
We interrupt the storm coverage with a note about Mardi Gras.
We New Englanders probably celebrate Mardi Gras with the same zest and zeal we celebrate Ground Hog’s Day. While we have adopted many holidays from far away places (St. Patrick's Day, Cinco de Mayo, Boxing Day), Mardi Gras is not one of them.
What I mean is, the average New Englander does not acknowledge Mardi Gras. Probably because we don't understand it. We associate Mardi Gras with booze, beads and bare chests (and not much else). And it is too cold in New England to be bare chested in February.
And Mardi Gras seemingly happens irregularly each year on some random Tuesday during the winter and... randomly beforehand, seemingly for weeks on end. Mardi Gras may start on Halloween. I'm not sure.
What if St. Patrick's Day lasted for months? Boston would be in ruins.
1952 from Conde' Nast.
I had to ask Siri to explain Mardi Gras.
This is what she said: The first Mardi Gras parade in New Orleans, Louisiana took place in February of 1857. Technically, Mardi Gras (or Fat Tuesday) is the last Tuesday before Ash Wednesday. This year (2025) Mardi Gras is Tuesday, March 4. The Carnival Season begins sooner - on the Feast of Epiphany, or Twelfth Night, January 6. There are countless parades during Carnival Season, but the biggest parades and the wildest parties happen the week before Fat Tuesday.
Tropical Isle - Home of the Hand Grenade - New Orleans Most Powerful Drink (made extra potent when icicles hang from the sign).
New Orleans hired 14 plows from an Indiana company at $500 per truck per hour. They were on their way - from Mississippi not Indiana. According to New Orleans news, this was the first time the city ever employed a snow plow. Ever.
I'm pretty sure eight inches of snow in New England would merit a "snow day" school closure. But roads would not close because we have plows. And all essential service providers like Dunkin' Donuts and nail salons would remain open. So while eight inches of snow doesn't seem like a lot to a Vermonter, in New Orleans, the snow might as well have been molten lava. An epic event.
Our Wednesday flights to Connecticut and Oregon were cancelled. The Oregon krewe rebooked for late Thursday afternoon. Becky and I rebooked for Friday morning. Luckily, the VRBO’s next guests wanted to cancel, so we took their nights. We had a place to sleep!
I was still sick and spent most of Wednesday in bed. Becky and kids ventured out, off and on during the day. Mid-day, the gang went out to explore Marigny and the French Quarter and ate lunch at another local establishment: Buffa's Bar on the corner of Esplanade and Burgundy. Buffa's has been described like this: "A neighborhood staple since 1939, this beloved neighborhood destination isn’t so much a dive bar as it is a community center."
The major highways around New Orleans were still closed. Most restaurants, bars and stores were still closed. Walgreens was still closed. The roads and sidewalks were untouched - at least by plows or shovels. Most parked cars were still decorated with a thick white icing.
Later that day the kids found some open bars. They brought back tasty Indian take-out for dinner from Silk Road on Royal Street.
Walgreens was still closed Thursday morning. Did it really matter (at this point) if I had Covid? What to do? Remember Brian the crazy Uber driver from the airport? We did. CVS was the answer. While farther away, CVS was open and their Covid test indicated I had the flu, not Covid. That made me happier. But not so much my traveling companions. I was sent back into quarantine.
Interstate 10, the highway to the Louis Armstrong International Airport in Kenner, Louisiana, which closed on Tuesday, was still closed on Thursday.
The local news reported that the usual 20 minute drive to the airport could take a couple hours via grid-locked backroads.
Becky and Riley went out Thursday morning to explore. temperatures were soon above freezing. They walked through the arts/warehouse district to get to Crescent Park. But the gates to the park were locked. So they walked back towards the French Quarter to the North Peters Street entrance. They were able to climb up the stairs for an elevated view, but the bridge to Crescent Park was still closed.
The Hotel Peter & Paul in Marigny. This hotel was once a Catholic school. It still has a church on its campus. The hotel looked very intriguing and reminded me of how the McMenamins group in the PNW repurposes historic buildings.
The Oregon krewe made it to the airport on time.
It continued to warm up. The snow was melting. I left the house for the first time in 24 hours. It looked like most people had not moved their cars in days.
We wandered around Marigny and brought sandwiches home from Ike's Love and Sandwiches. The manager at Ike's explained that restaurants had no deliveries in days. They were running out of staples. Ike's had no French Fries. There was a surcharge for pickles.
It made us wonder how other restaurants were handling this. Surely, restaurants would not be serving days-old fish on Friday. Right?
The colorfully painted cottages that Marigny is known for.
If this travel story were to be cast as a tragedy, it would star the plants. While the stray cats seemed pissed but perky on Thursday, many uncovered plants were pale, brown and/or limp. As a gardener, I am not sure how long it will take before they bounce back. Some may die back to the ground. In a few days temperatures will return to normal. The tourists will return - even before the Super Bowl. Mardi Gras parades will resume. New Orleans will return to normal. A less green normal. At least for the short term.
The local interstate was still closed on Friday morning. Our Uber to the airport, that should have cost under $40 and taken about 20 minutes, cost over $150 and took an hour and a half. It didn't help that our Uber driver took a wrong turn that hung us up in grid-locked traffic. But we got to the airport in time.
Our American Airline flight was on a small jet with a layover in Washington. In Washington we sat on the tarmac for an hour waiting to take off. We saw first-hand how busy the Washington area airspace was. Less than a week later an army Blackhawk helicopter would collide with a similar American Airlines jet over the Potomac.
No one else caught the flu. I don't know whether to blame Brian the Uber driver for infecting me, or thank him for pointing out the CVS... just in case we needed one.
Postscript: On February 6, 2025 New Orleans set a new weather record: a high temperature of 82°F.