We’d been told to take the St. Charles streetcar out to the Garden District to A) see the mind boggling houses and B) visit this little, ancient book shop.

Did someone say book?

So we purchased day passes for the lot of us ($3 each) and hopped street cars all day long. It was such a joy! The sun shone, a gentle breeze blew. Reagan kept saying, “This is the best day ever!” We met interesting tourists, got tips from New Orleans residents and admired the skills of each and every driver. I can’t properly describe how the car works and if I try, Danny will laugh at me but just know there is this giant wheel thingy that they spin and twist and they stand up 90 percent of the time. It was physically exhausting and each of them had their own rhythm to it. Also, they’re talking on a radio, shouting out the upcoming stops, telling my child not to swing from the hand rails and helping the elderly count change or tokens. They were most impressive (please be sure to read that in Darth Vader’s voice).

We even had fun waiting for street cars and found this Mardi Gras tree on the Tulane University campus. It was covered in beads and remains covered in this bling year round.

The number one draw to NOLA for my sweet hubby was the jazz, obviously. This man feels about jazz the way I do Steven Curtis so I knew we had to squeeze in as much of it as we could. The first thing we did (after crossing Lake Ponchatrain, see below) was make our way to the Jazz Museum, a part of the National Parks Service. The girls did their junior ranger thing, we listened to an incredible concert and Danny drooled all over the place and hovered over each exhibit. The best part of any New Orleans jazz experience is, of course, the liveness of it all. It’s everywhere. Honestly the constant stream of musicians made me a bit homesick for the Live Music Capitol of the World but that happens all the time no matter what we’re doing (happened last night while eating our second to last batch of Southside Market sausage). Anyway, live musicians are the best and live jazz musicians make Danny giddy.

We enjoyed the non-music street performers, too especially a particularly sassy magician. We were too busy laughing and participating (Danny was sucked into the show as was Reagan) to get any photos of him but he was a hoot and a holler, for sure! Danny also snapped photos of the weird dichotomy of tarot and palm readers sitting outside the St. Louis Cathedral. Our own street performer wowed us while we rested one afternoon, as well.

When I can form the sentences, I’ll write about our favorite musicians. They deserve their own post but I’m still sorting out how best to express what we felt when we listened to them. I’m on that, I promise. In the meantime, hope you enjoyed these glimpses of wild, zany New Orleans. We left every day at dusk to avoid the mess of cleaning up our children’s eyeballs because we were certain they’d pop from their little, innocent skulls. Oh, who am I kidding? My eyeballs didn’t want to partake, either and Mardi Gras is just around the corner so there was PLENTY to partake of, let me assure you.