We're Baaack!

Back from a fantastic three nights in our favorite town. 

We ate. 

ALOT.

We slept: NOT SO MUCH.

Turns out, our room (and we didn't know this going in) was directly above Bourbon street, balcony included.  So that made for quite a few loud, sleepless nights.  In fact, our room was directly above Howl at the Moon, if you know where that is. 

Dueling Pianos at 10pm: fun.
Dueling Pianos at 3am: not so much.

But we had a great time. 

Let's see if I can recap what we ate:
Bourbon burger at La Bayou, a little place on Bourbon.  Was good, but we were hoping for Jaque-imo's.  Unfortunately, it was closed for construction. 

Friday morning: breakfast sandwich on a croissant with a cafe au lait.
Friday Lunch: pulled pork pressed sandwich at Luke.
Friday dinner: BT's' birthday dinner included a salad with creole roasted pecans and a sweet vinagrette, filet topped with truffle butter, garlic sauteed potatoes and spinach for me, and grilled redfish, potatoes, and asparagus for BT.  We split a white chocolate brownie.  Mr. B's Bistro was FANTASTIC.

SATURDAY
Brunch at Stanleys.  I had the classic: scrambled eggs, creole potatoes, and bacon with a big old coffee on the side.  BT had the eggs benedict.  It's in Jackson Square, and owned by the folks that own Stella.  We loved it.
Dinner at Yo Mama's: we heard it had better burgers than Port of Call.  Guess what?  "They" were right.  The burgers were the best I've had in a while.  I had the Roquefort Blue Cheese Burger.  It didn't hurt that the bottom of the plate was covered in melted butter from the baked potato.  Oh. My. Word.

In the meantime, things were exactly as we wanted.  We go (or try to) every year, so it's not like we felt the need to get a lot of tourist stuff in.  I wanted to go check out the new Southern Food and Beverage Museum.  So we did that, which it had some pretty cool little exhibits, but it was a little more like a Louisiana Food and Beverage Museum than the entire south.  Still a good little excursion, especially for two foodies.

The rest of the time was spent walking around (if we felt like it), and napping during the day since the location of our hotel room made it virtually IMPOSSIBLE to sleep at night. 

Even still, it was, as it always is, a respite. 
And we needed just that.

Of course, I forgot my camera. 
So here are some of the phone pictures I remembered to shoot.

Thomas and Gigi starting off their weekend right

Southern Food & Beverage

Southern Food & Beverage

Katrina Exhibit

Abisinthe Exhibit

King Cake/Mardi Gras Exhibit

Red Dress Run People on Saturday Night

Me & the birthday boy on Friday night

Bourbon Street

And of course, Thomas & Doc!

As you can see, we all had a great time, including Thomas, who got in oodles of time with Gigi, Doc, Aunt Mally, and 'cat cat.' 

But I've been a little down since we got back. 
Yesterday, I was driving to work when I realized, it's never going to go away.

This feeling, this underlying pain and sadness because I miss her SO MUCH...is NEVER going away.

It may be better some days than others, but it's always still there.

I cried many tears when that hit me yesterday. 
I guess they were tears of acceptance, I don't know.

I can't explain it to you. 
I hope you never have to feel it.

But in the meantime, we just HAVE to keep going, to not let the dark side win.
And we are trying to do that.

Thank God for an upcoming Fall,
for a new season, for new hopes and dreams.

We needed this getaway, and yet, when we returned, it was just as we left it.
That's the thing about getting away.
Most of the time, you always have to go back.