Vacation in Nola

So the following year, since the trip to Santa Monica had worked out so well, I decided to broaden my horizons. I took what I like to refer to as a “long weekend” - about Thursday through Monday or Tuesday. I’d decided to take a trip to New Orleans. I still didn’t really know much about it, but I hadn’t been able to get it out of my mind since my evening in the Quarter years before. I found that airfare out there wasn’t too, too expensive - I got a flight from PHX to MSY for just over $200.

Still on a limited budget, I began shopping for a hotel. I knew that I wanted to be in the French Quarter. Unfortunately, the hotels I found there were a bit out of my price range. So I started looking for a place near the Quarter. I narrowed it down to two possibilities, and wound up staying at the Empress Hotel in the Treme (http://empresshotelneworleans.com/).

In hindsight, I think I probably should have gotten a clue about what type of place this would be from the reservation process. The website advertised extremely cheap rooms. They were about $30 or so, while the places in the Quarter seemed to start around $100. This was back in 2000. The website offered very limited information, and there was a number to call and a form to fill out, but there was no way to actually make a reservation through the website. I called the 800 number shown on the website. I was told that they would fax me a reservation form, which I’d have to fill out and fax back to them. When they got my return fax, which would include my credit card number, the reservation would be complete. They would not just take my credit card number over the phone and reserve a room.

Luckily, I did have access to a fax machine, so I got the form, filled it out, and sent it back. The form seemed to put an oddly heavy emphasis on the hotel’s location in the “historic Treme neighborhood.” It seemed a little fishy, but I thought, How bad can it be?

Between the time I made the reservation and the date I was to arrive, I heard from the hotel repeatedly. They’d had a less-expensive room come available, and did I want that one instead? We repeated the fax process again...and again.

I was very excited about this trip. I was doing all kinds of research online about music in the French Quarter. This was the main thing I wanted to do, see live music. I’d found the Offbeat website and was making notes on where to go and who to see. The Famous Door looked promising. I also found maps of the Quarter online and memorized the layout of the streets. I also got a laminated map that had the Quarter on one side and the whole city on the other, just in case, and a guidebook.

I didn’t know anyone in New Orleans, so I posted a note on a message board on AOL saying that I’d be visiting for the first time, could anyone offer advice...? I met a couple of people that way. A nice guy by the name of Rick replied, and we chatted some. During one of our online chats, I told him where I’d be staying and asked about the neighborhood. He was silent for a couple of minutes, and then said, “take a cab when you go home at night.” Oh, boy. I think the best advice I got was regarding music on Bourbon Street - just walk down the street and listen for the music coming out of the bars. Then go into one where it sounds good. This is a great way to go about it.

Finally, the big day arrived. I had packed a suitcase full of my nicest clothes. Hadn’t really learned to pack light yet at that point. I was thrilled to see all the greenery on the ground as the plane approached MSY. Ah, the South. I’ve lived here in the desert all my life, so for me, having all that green around is like a miracle. I love it. The plane landed, and I gathered my things and found the counter for the shuttle.

I think it took us about an hour to get from the airport to the Empress. I was the last one dropped off. Isn’t that always what happens when you take the shuttle? I’d seen people dropped off at some very nice places around town. Pulling up in front of the Empress was kind of disappointing.

The Empress Hotel is on Ursulines, two blocks past Rampart in the Treme. I haven’t been there lately, but at that time (September of 2000), it seemed that about half of the buildings we passed in the neighborhood were about to fall down. And what a shame. The houses had clearly once been beautiful, but they’d just fallen into disrepair. The Empress itself is not a particularly striking building, but it does have a good-sized balcony in the front. If you watched the HBO series Treme, you may have seen the place. It’s the hotel where Annie stayed for a little while.

I got my suitcase, thanked the shuttle driver, and went to the front door. It was locked, so I rang the bell, and the desk clerk buzzed me in. There was no lobby, just a window with the clerk behind it. There was a sign in near the entrance informing me of several pieces of important information: I would pay for all nights at check-in. There were no refunds. No guests were allowed in the rooms. The room key must be surrendered to the desk clerk on leaving the building, and it would be returned to me when I returned. All in all, it sounded like a concerted effort to prevent prostitutes from operating out of the place. I hoped their efforts had been successful. On the plus side, they did serve free coffee on the balcony in the mornings.

The room had a door that didn’t look too sturdy, but it did lock. It was just big enough to house one double bed. There was a very small TV up near the ceiling, and the A/C was a window unit. I discovered two fascinating things the next morning: there was a hole in the ceiling over the shower, and the carpet in the room was so dirty that walking three feet on it made the bottoms of my feet black. Ick. And judging by a review of the place that I found online after the fact, the folks in the room above mine COULD see through the hole in my ceiling, just as I suspected. Nice, right?

Ah, well. I would deal with it. I hadn’t travelled all the way to New Orleans to sit in a hotel room, anyway, so I couldn’t see that it would matter much. I’d gotten a cheap room, and I was within walking distance of the Quarter. After dropping my stuff in the room, I set out on foot and headed down Ursulines toward Rampart.

There were a few people out and about in the Treme that day. Everyone said hello and seemed friendly. I crossed Rampart into the Quarter.

The buildings were closer together in the Quarter. They started to look more like what I was expecting to see. A block or two in, I passed a woman working outside in her yard. She looked at me and said, You shouldn’t be walking around here alone. It wasn’t that I didn’t believe her, exactly, but it was broad daylight and it seemed pretty quiet. But I didn’t really have much choice, anyway. I wasn’t going to take a cab everywhere, and I didn’t really even know where I was going. I was just wandering around. And that was exactly what I wanted to do.

Speaking of what I was expecting to see...I was really completely unprepared for the dilapidated craziness that is Bourbon St. Despite having been there some years earlier, I was still harboring the idea that the French Quarter would be like New Orleans Square at Disneyland. It would be clean, colorful, safe, and elegant. I’d been to Disneyland many times, and my one visit to the Quarter years earlier had been very short, and had taken place at night, and I’d gone into exactly one bar and had only a coke. So I’d packed a suitcase full of my nicest clothes. The RED Georgiou dress, a little black silk dress from Victoria’s Secret, heels, etc. For this first foray into the Quarter, I’d had the good sense to put on shorts and a t-shirt. And not to carry a purse. Everything I needed was in my pockets.

I wandered down Ursulines to Bourbon and turned right. Walked toward Canal, heading for the Famous Door, making note of places that had music that I liked along the way. I believe the band at the Famous Door was supposed to be a blues band that afternoon, but they weren’t. I stuck my head in but the music wasn’t doing much for me, so I turned around and headed back the other way, toward Esplanade. I remembered passing a place a little way back with a sign in front that said simply, R&B.

The R&B Club used to be at 617 Bourbon St, between Toulouse and St. Peter. It was in an old Creole Cottage, and it was owned by Al Harper, who also owned the Blues Club down in the 200 block. Sadly, it’s now a daiquiri bar or some such foolishness. In 2000, it was simply an amazing place to be. I saw The Rooster, Les Getrex, Pat “Mother Blues” Cohen, C.P. Love, and many others there. On this day, I walked inside and got myself a table, right in the middle of the place.