Today we arrived in Memphis… we’ll be heading out to visit Beale Street shortly…
Let me think now… we were in New Orleans on Saturday and Sunday. We were up far too early on Saturday morning and did the 7½ hour drive to New Orleans… David (Smoky) didn’t sleep so well on Friday night so by the time we got to New Orleans he was pretty bagged out and opted out of doing anything. I made my way down to the French Quarter and checked out the scene for a few hours. I met a guy playing bass for Rooster and the Chicken Hawks his name was Chile Groove who was a real cool guy who told me about how he released his own album “Blues in my Shoes” and how he was doing well on the XM Radio Blues channel… check him out!
I was pretty burned out myself after all the partying in Atlanta… and travelling so I ended up in bed not too late… teh next day we got an early start with beignet at the Cafe Du Monde 
… we had decided to drive down and I left David in line at the Cafe and drove around looking for a spot… about 40 minutes later he had got a seat and I showed up worn out after having to part at the far end of the French Quarter and jog/walk (I was wearing my leather shoes)… but what the heck! we got all sugared up with three orders of beignet between us and large coffees… then we were ready for anything… we took a bit of a drive around (took me over 40 minutes again to reach David and pick him up in the car… don’t drive around in the French Quarter!!! it’s a pain in the a$$!)…
We drove around and checked out the Garden District a little bit and then ventured up North of the city to see how things were faring there this long after Katrina. We were happy to see that a lot has been fixed up but there are still places that are still unlivable… cracks in foundations and holes in roofs…
We made our way back to the French Quarter and set up at an outdoor bar on Frenchmen Street… a little bit away from all the touristy places around Bourbon Street and stuff like that… we chatted with and greeted passers-by and… some folks thought we were locals… one guy even asked me if I remembered him from last week (I think maybe I have a twin out there somewhere!) 
Later we hit the Spotted Cat … and listened to some cool jazz… though really I couldn’t tell you much about that… it was more a social evening. Smoky and I… and Clive sat at the far end of the bar where we could get a spot and commenced to chatting with anyone and everyone who came up to order a drink.
By the end of the night I’m surprised I was able to walk out under my own volition… but neither one of us can remember buying more than one round of drinks between us… folks in New Orleans are might friendly…
More soon…
