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On the second day the Boy's blearily rose oh so early at 9:30 (after only after six hours sleep) to begin the festivities. They drove into the city and checked into a hotel near Tulane University to be closer to the action.
Then, off they sauntered to the French Quarter, to truly discover the pleasures of the Crescent City.
Checking Out the Quarter from Cafe Du Monde !
Cafe Du Monde: Home of Beignets and Chickory Coffee!
No Cares in Jackson Square
In-ee Out-ee at Tak-ee Out-ee!
Why N'Orleans is hot. Everyone has always heard that New Orleans is a "hot" place to go. They found out rapidly that it is both from a party perspective and literal perspective. When you build a city below sea level between a lake, major river, swamps and an ocean, you better understand the saying: "it not the heat, its the stupidity!!!"
When it is hot and sweaty, you need to keep hydrated. To keep a good liquid base, the boys went straight to the French Quarter, Bourbon Street to be specific, to quench their thirst. Unfortunately, poor boys do not tour expensive bars in the Quarter on the cheap. Places like Pat O'Brians are far too expensive for day-long binges on a bohemian budget. There was however an establishment that was heaven for the boys watering eyes (and mouths!), Tak-ee Out-ee!!! Tak-ee Out-ee's are small, walkup Chinese food stands in the French Quarter that sells bad Chinese food and cheap, watery beer. $5 is way too much for a Hurricane drink, but $2 for a 64 ounce beer isn't. The discovery of Tak-ee Out-ee's ensured that Mike, Hadrian and Bone would be in the beer all day long!
So, with a perpetual beer in hand the boys wandered through the Quarter, seeing Jean Lafitte's place, viewing Cafe du Monde, and drinking cheap beer, gawking like tourists at the colorful locals, while proceeding to become fairly inebriated.
No Quarter in the French Quarter
How the River Front looked as the Afternoon Progressed with too many Takee-Outee's
Coming up Snake Eyes!
Keep in mind, the purpose of the trip was to visit the Worlds Fair. Well they did see it! From a distance however, for you see the Worlds Fair was at the foot of Canal Street on the banks of the mighty Mississippi River, but the Tak-ee Out-ee's were only in the Quarter. Now is was a good three blocks from the French Quarter to the Worlds Fair, and any good military general will tell you that you should never be too far from your supply line. With that in mind the boys never went to the World's Fair, however they did spend a lot of money at Tak-ee Out-ee's!
Partying in the Park!
As the day wore on in to twilight, and eventually to night, the Quarter become even more colorful with less tourists, and more eccentric locals with their "pets". Meanwhile our heroes continued their trolling of the Quarter with beer in hand. Around 11:00PM they decided to enter a Blues Bar on Bourbon Street to catch a show when Mike and Hadrian decided to conduct a scientific experiment.
Did Superman really fly? or did he just jump really far? That was the question that Mike and Hadian decided they needed answered when they asked one of the colorful locals to set her Boa Constrictor's head on Bone's unsuspecting shoulder........ Now everyone has their irrational fears, some fear heights, others fear closed in places. Bone don't like snakes. So when the Boa looked Bone in the eyes, Bone decided to be somewhere else,,,,immediately! He jumped over the table they where sitting at in one stride, and was out the door in the second, by the third stride he was two blocks down the street.. The answer dear reader is that he jumped….
After the unfortunate Snake Incident, the boys carried on with the Tak-ee Out-ee Strategy until 4:00 in the morning. Unlike the Midwest, New Orleans never sets a time to stop serving you booze. However, by 4:00AM, the boys had decided it was time to get something to eat. They went to a very nice outdoor Creole restaurant in the Quarter and proceed to order three Family platters of food. Now one family platter contains spicy crawdads, shrimp, and soft-shell crab, that are served in such quantities that they are designed to feed a family of four, Mike, Hadrian and Bone, consumed three platters. To speed the process of eating, silverware was abandoned for fingers. At the end of the dinner they were wearing at least half of one platter, along with the waitress and several other patrons.
With their bellies filled, they continued the Tak-ee Out-ee strategy of beer drinking and wandering until Dawn. At which time the bad beer of the Tak-ee Out-ee strategy began to take its toll on our heroes who retired for another restful three hours of sleep.