Down Time in Dallas + Halloween in New Orleans

Apologies for the radio silence! Coming to you live, now, from Ross’s parents’ house in Palm Coast, Florida, where we have been so busy doing nothing (read: washing Ross’s car, swimming, and going on boat rides) that there’s been no time to write.

Our time in Dallas was wonderful but short, especially since we lost a day to the window fiasco. Our hosts, Jessie’s parents Cliff and Jane Lawson, deserve a special shout-out for housing us and feeding us like their own children. We ate like kings, including a hearty stew upon arrival, heaps of bacon and eggs in the mornings (paired with Jane’s perfect lattes), and a huge lasagna from Jimmy’s Food Store (if you are anywhere close to Dallas, you gotta go, it is a fixture of Italian excellence). On our last night, Cliff and Jessie whipped up a braai, which we learned is a South African-style barbecue featuring many, many meats.

Despite the short time frame, we had plenty to do. One of our days in Dallas was obviously spent repairing the broken car window—the perfect day for a huge storm to roll through. Luckily, Cliff and Ross improvised a rain cover for the window out of an opaque garbage bag, which did mean there was no way to see out of the driver’s side window…so Della rode in the back seat to spot as we drove to a repair shop. Ross found a great barber on Cliff’s suggestion and got a haircut and beard trim (the latter in particular to Della’s delight). We did an afternoon in Lowest Greenville, a wonderfully cute neighborhood on the north side of Dallas. And of course, we also spent some time making homemade Halloween costumes for our upcoming trip to New Orleans.

When we set off on this trip, we were still unsure what our costumes would be. We knew Halloween in New Orleans would be lit, and that ideally we wanted to do a costume together, but beyond that, we were kind of winging it—that is, until we met our friends Jessie and Joey in Austin. You see, space was tight in our car, and yet Jessie had managed to bring with a homemade Meatwad costume. Yes, Meatwad from Aqua Teen Hunger Force. (If you don’t know what that is, Google it, and prepare to be confused.)

Since Joey was planning to go as Carl, we decided to complete the squad and go as Master Shake and Frylock. Please enjoy this photo of Della in progress on assembling her shake straw:

Costume construction went surprisingly smoothly, (thank you Jessie for making a Frylock headband for Ross) and on Sunday, October 30th, we packed up the car—all windows intact—and set off for New Orleans.

The drive was very easy and before we knew it, we were rolling into NOLA. We had an AirBnB in the Treme area of town, about a 5-10 minute drive from the French Quarter and 15 minute walk from the nearest trolley station. We landed, took a few minutes to get unpacked and changed, and had drinks to celebrate. That night we went out for dinner at Landry’s, a restaurant along the Mississippi River. The food was incredible and the perfect intro to Cajun dining, and we had so. many. shrimps. We strolled through the French Quarter to cap off the night and got in a good night’s sleep before Halloween.

Waking up on the 31st, Ross felt a bit under the weather with some sinus congestion, and reluctantly took the day to rest, knowing we had a big night ahead of us. The rest of the group went down to Magazine Street to bum around, sight-see, and shop. Finally, the time had come to debut our costumes:

Without bragging, the costumes were a hit. No less than 3 people asked to take a picture with our group, and about a dozen others gave us enthusiastic shout-outs or tossed beads to us (at us?) from balconies along Bourbon Street. It’s said that Halloween is second only to Mardi Gras in New Orleans, and boy did the city deliver. EVERYONE was in costume, the drinks were flowing, and the jazz bands were swinging in several bars along the route (and were also in costume).

We walked back and forth through the main part of Bourbon Street several times, stopping for fresh drinks whenever we ran dry. It was an absolute blast, everything we wanted and more, and something we’ll surely do again.

The next day was our final day in New Orleans, and we were SO sad to leave!! One thing we really wanted to do before we left was ride the streetcar. The Saint Charles Line is the oldest continuously operating streetcar line in the world and it goes into a really beautiful part of the city (Thank you to our friend Rachel for suggesting it!) We stopped off for drinks at several spots along the way, one of which led us to, yes, ANOTHER tiki bar—Beachbum Berry’s Latitude 29—where we drank the Jet Pilot, which consists of a metric shit-ton of rum and fruit juices in a gigantic conch shell.

We ate dinner at a French restaurant called Luke, where we had a delicious Flammenkuchen and some wonderful duck. (At this point, while writing, Della hands Ross the laptop, because she “goes fuzzy from here”) We’re sure we annoyed the people next to us, but our servers loved us! From there, we headed back to the AirBnB to squeeze the last bits of party out of the night. Jessie and Joey had to board a 5am flight back to San Jose (you two are legends!), so Della and Jessie stayed up watching old episodes of The O.C. (iykyk) and finishing off the last of the champagne before they called their 3:30AM Uber!

The next day was Wednesday, November 2nd, and the time had come to leave. There was one thing left on our to-do list, a classic New Orleans treat—the beignet! We were sure to stop at Cafe Du Monde on the way out of town, which was the perfect way to cap off our first (but certainly not last!) visit to New Orleans.

We got into Florida around midnight that evening and have been having a ton of fun with Ross’s family since. We’ll have more updates soon…only two weeks left in Florida before we go abroad! 😱