If you’re on broadband or higher, expand the entry to view the photos.

We’ll start from the beginning.

This is at a gas station in either Tennessee or Alabama (or maybe even Kentucky), I don’t remember. I just thought it was punny.

I think this is in Tennessee (but I’m not sure). I noticed that we hadn’t seen any traffic in the other lane, but before I could remark to The Partner about it we came upon stopped/inching traffic.

You can’t tell that well from the picture, but we’re on the incline of a hill. The traffic in our lane went up and over the peak. We were slowed for probably half an hour, with a horrible back-up building behind us:

When we finally made it over and down the hill a bit we saw why: a car from our lane went into the north-bound lane, hitting one car head-on and causing a small pile-up. Sorry for the blurriness. Don’t drive and take photos, kids.

The north-bound lane was backed-up for a good mile or two.

This is later into the early evening: the car we rented had a nifty feature that told us how many more miles we could drive on the current tank of gas. When the gauge read half-full, the meter told us we could drive another 450 miles or some such bullshit. We were hoping we would be able to make it across the Louisiana/Mississippi border before having to fill-up again; as the gauge crept down toward empty, the meter was still telling us we could drive more than 100 miles. We didn’t buy it, but none of the exits we were passing had signs for gas stations and damn if we were going to get off in the middle-of-nowhere-Mississippi. So we kept driving.

We pulled off onto Exit 1 in Mississippi, seeing Louisiana just up the way, puttering into the gas station ON FUMES.

We probably stopped five or six or seven times on the way there, making the ride about 15 hours. I was the only driver, because insurance was cheaper that way. Next time, we’re spending the extra money so that The Partner can drive. The last two times we stopped was to allow me to rest my eyes, which had started twitching and going blurry on me. The drive there and back home were made possible by Crack in a Can:

Oh, we also had to stop shortly after crossing into Louisiana because WE DROVE ONTO THIS THING AND ALMOST DIED:

We were in the left-hand lane with no one in front of us, but traffic was on our right and behind us. The speed limit in LA is 70mph and I had on the cruise control, set to 73mph. We saw something reflecting our headlights, but we couldn’t move over without running the other person off the road. So I say, “FUCK!” and hit the breaks, hoping the cars behind us don’t crash into us. We hit it probably going about 50-60mph. We hear metal crunching, the steering wheel starts vibrating, I turn on the hazards, and I’m having visions of the damn thing throwing sparks, puncturing the gas line, and sending us to a fiery death. I pull over as far as I can (still in the left lane) and put the car in park. “FUCK FUCK FUCK” is the only thing escaping my mouth and I’m shaking. I put the car in reverse and press on the gas. The car jitters and shakes. “FUCK FUCK FUCK!” The Partner says, “I’m going to go check it out,” and gets out of the car. Now I’m having visions of him being hit by a car; of our car being hit and slamming into him, pinning him between the car and the concrete divider.

He gets on the ground and tries to pull the thing out; it doesn’t move. “You’re going to have to gun it. Just fuckin’ gun it.” I look in rear-view mirror and a huge fucking semi is heading towards us. I tell him to look out (where’s he going to go?), we might get hit, and the semi starts honking and swerves into the other lane mere inches from our bumper. I put the car in reverse and fucking gun it, gun it until I get off the thing. The Partner grabs it, throws it into the backseat, and gets in. “At least we have an AWESOME souvenir!”

Two minutes after getting back on the road, we pass a truck with a trailer pulled off to the side. There are two guys with flashlights, looking at the end of the trailer. It seems one of their fenders got loose and we ran onto it. So hey, if you were driving in Louisiana and lost a metal fender off your trailer: contact me! We’ve got it!

We made it to the condo about a half-hour later, around 1am, having had to call Anna for directions on how to navigate the French Quarter. We got into the parking lot and I stumbled out of the car, shaking and needing comfort/alcohol. Luckily, the condo was only three blocks from Bourbon Street.

We put our bags inside and Anna took us to Glorious Bourbon Street, where we got some highly liquored-up slushies and walked until my nerves had settled.

The rest of the photos are from throughout our stay; don’t ask me what day is which. We’d wake up, sometimes with a hang-over and sometimes not, eat breakfast, and go outside. During the day, we walked around the French Quarter, seeing the sights, taking photos, eating food, drinking liquor. At night we walked around, ate dinner, went to Bourbon Street, drank more liquor. Rinse, repeat.

This is the view we had from our back balconies, left-to-right:

Click here to see a larger version.

This is some of the art we had in our bedroom:

The title of this one is, “Blue Balls”:

The title of this one is, “Sleaze Balls”:

Here’s a whole bunch of us walking around during the day:

This is me holding a cup of alcohol, on the street, just walking around. Me. Drinking in public. Drunk in public. On the street. Out in the open.

Almost every building had a courtyard, most hidden from our spying eyes behind gates.

And hidden behind gates you wouldn’t dare climbing:

Especially ones like this — these crazy-ass folks put GLASS SHARDS on the ledges (human- and bird-proof):

One of the bars we went in had free condoms on the counter:

“Are you having sex with more than one person without a condom? Then take one of these, it can save your life!”

I thought this was funny, because that black thing to the right of the door is a doorbell and there are no stairs.

I guess they have issues with their postal workers:

“POSTMAN: Please push all mail through this mail slot. Please do not throw any mail into the alleyway. Thank you.”

The Partner and I were able to visit the New Orleans Museum of Art, on Wednesday I think, to see the Femme femme femme exhibit. We also spent a couple hours walking around the rest of the galleries. We didn’t know just how massive the museum was: three floors and a ton of art. We only made it through part of the second floor before our feet could not take it anymore.

And now, the moment you’ve been waiting for: some night shots of Bourbon Street.

One half of Bourbon is a red-light district, with strip clubs and “live sex acts” clubs.

Here are two of my favorite shots:

This dude was fucking trashed but seemed so very happy:

And of course, with all this SINNING going on, you’ve gotta have some godbags somewhere. We found them, reading in unison from the Bible.

The dude in the red shirt was holding up his liquor, but I was drunk, too, and didn’t get the full shot.

Our last night there we went to Philip Chan’s Asian Cajun Bistro for dinner and stuffed ourselves on delicious food:

Then we went to Bourbon one last time and got shit-faced.

—————–

Even though the drive there was hellacious and we almost died, and the car we were in was a piece of shit as far as sleeping in it on the way home went, this was the best vacation I’ve had.

Anna, I thank you so much!

EDITED 07-24-08: Link to Femme Femme Femme information expired.

I have never needed a vacation this badly before, so I am extremely excited.

I’m not sure what sort of Internet connection we’ll be able to get, so I may not be able to post or moderate comments.

But rest assured: I will bring back a ton of pictures to share.

Have a great week!

1. Duke Ellington — Don’t Get Around Much Anymore
2. Count Bassie & His Orchestra — Don’t Worry ‘Bout Me
3. Pete Johnson — B & O Blues
4. Art Tatum — Have You Met Miss Jones?
5. Louis Armstrong — Ory’s Creole Trombone
6. Benny Goodman — That’s The Way It Goes
7. Woody Herman and The Young Thundering Herd — I Got It Bad And That Ain’t Good
8. Lionel Hampton — Million Dollar Smile
9. Dave Brubeck Quartet — Bluette
10. Benny Carter — Dee Blues

In less than 8 days The Partner and I will be driving our way to New Orleans. Our only plans are taking a lot of photos, drinking a lot of beer, wine, and other alcohols, eating some great food (and I think some beignets force-fed by Anna), and taking an afternoon to visit the New Orleans Museum of Art.

Starting March 4 is NOMA‘s installment of Femme, Femme, Femme: Paintings of Women in French Society, from Daumier to Picasso from the Museums of France.

Femme, femme, femme is the fulfillment of a promise made to New Orleans just two months after Hurricane Katrina as the French Minister of Culture and Communication, Renaud Donnedieu de Vabres, and the President/Director of the Louvre, Henri Loyrette, led a delegation of French diplomats and art curators on a visit to the city and NOMA. As a measure of their support for the city of New Orleans and for NOMA, the Ministére de la Culture – Direction des musées de France and La Réunion des Musées nationaux (RMN) has organized an exhibition of nearly 85 works from the Louvre, the Musée d’Orsay, and 40 other museums throughout France. The French commissioners of this exhibition are Madame Danièle Giraudy, honorary director of the Musées de Marseilles and Francis Ribemont, director of the Musée des Beauxs-Arts de Rennes.

While I don’t have any of Anna’s specific requests, our house does have a healthy, continuously growing supply of blues and jazz.

Here’s to the weekend and not-short-enough week ahead.

1. Charles Mingus — Haitian Fight Song
2. Thelonius Monk — Straight No Chaser
3. Bessie Smith and Joe Smith — Baby Doll
4. John Coltrane — Just For The Love
5. Pete Fountain — While We Danced At The Mardis Gras
6. Bennie Moten’s Kansas City Orchestra — Every Day Blues
7. Wynton Marsalis — The Pearls
8. Sidney Bechet — The Sheik of Araby
9. Albort Ammons — Boogie Woogie Blues
10. King Oliver’s Creole Jazz Band — Dippermouth Blues