The Big Easy

Did you know that Mobile, Alabama is called The Little Easy? Neither did I. In fact, I knew next to nothing about Mobile until I went there. I expected it to be all trailers and very poor people. That's terrible, I know, and it did have that, but it also had a lot of huge, old, beautiful buildings and wide streets with lovely churches. It was a typical southern belle sort of city. Anyway, enough about that. So this morning I was really tired. Like really tired. So I woke up and went to eat breakfast, but then I just went back to bed. I didn't really fall asleep, but I did kind of lay there quietly. At around 11 am, a parade starts happening outside of our window. 

So I crawl into the window to check it out. Just people having a good time. A big band was playing and marching along the street. 

Everyone's having a good time. Dressed up. Dancing. 

Hey, you know what I think is a good idea for a Sunday morning? 

Get dressed up and dance down the street to jazz!

I thought it was over. It was not over. They came back up the other side. 

Some of the people were very active, but I couldn't really get them in photos.

Here you go. The music.

Here's a wild guy.

More music. Always music.

Today I decided I didn't want to wear any of my normal t-shirts, so I safety pinned a scarf into a shirt. It was so long I told Rachelle I could just wear it as a dress.

A blurry photo of the back. I was pretty proud of how it turned out.

Walking down Toulouse Street. A random Fleur Des Lis in glitter on the sidewalk.

This was a shop we went into called Trashy Diva (Rachelle kept calling it the Dirty Tramp). What an awesome store. I love love loved their hats and fascinators. If there was any city so far that I wished I'd had $1,000s to blow, it was this one. I've seen like 8 dresses I wanted to buy and I wasn't even looking.

I was also digging this snake necklace. (Sorry, Ginny.) 

Along the street, we found this place. 

Which had fun stuff like this in it.

And this. 

I loved this little alley way.

It's about to rain!

We went and got readings here. It was a nice place, expensive, but nice. I think Rachelle was really happy with her reading. I got a guy named Charlie, who looked like he was annoyed to be there, and we were in the tiniest room possible, and he told me a lot of stuff I already knew and not a lot of stuff about anything else. He did have a good 3 or 4 step plan on what to do next. He wasn't a bad guy. His people skills could use some work. Here's what I walked away with: Don't date the Cancer. He was adamant about this; the next person in my life will be a Cancer sign. Don't date him. K. Got it. 

But they had cool tables.

And a lot of fun stuff. 

❤

Next up, we went to the Carousel Bar inside Hotel Monteleone. The bar revolves! There weren't any seats when we first got there, so Rachelle was "ready to swoop." She was really good at it, too! She pounced the second someone stood up.

Their menu. 

Rachelle had a View Carre, and a Pimm's Cup (not pictured). 

I got the Fleur Des Lis. It was very good and refreshing.

Classy painting in the bar. There were several of this woman. Rachelle thinks it's Gypsy Rose Lee.

Trying to get a photo of us in the mirror, which was not easy. It wasn't a fast rotation, it took us about 20 minutes to get all the way around, but it was constantly moving and we had about a 10 second window of time. 

But there was a mirror behind us that was easier to get a photo in.

Selfies win the day! What a cute one! 

Oyster shells that have been poured with pottery and fired. Nice!

WHOA. Look at this chandelier shop!

Pretty sure this is the most famous corner. It was lovely, but perhaps not so lovely that you needed to stand in the middle of the street and hold up traffic to get the perfect picture like this couple in the front did. The guy in the red shirt had to take like 8 pictures of them. Pretty nice for a stranger. 

And now it's called Orleans Street. Not that different.

Loving these horse posts. 

The history of this town is very well-documented, which I thoroughly appreciate.

Rachelle and I took a walk for dinner. It was not through an amazing part of town. I was not aware of this when I picked the place. The good news is we made it both there and back again just fine. The other good news is there were many pictures of graffiti to be taken along the way. I enjoyed this one.

We made it! This was quite the place. Evidently it is very famous (and it did have the highest poboy ratings in the city), but it is also very strange as it is half a laundry mat and half a restaurant. 

You order and then go out on the "patio" to get your food. The "patio" is another room.

But they did have really fun artwork. The nice thing about that was that there was a tv screen with lots of people eating at Melba's and some advertisements rotating through, but the artist was also featured.

Our poboys and grits. Rachelle asked what grits were and I told her it was like polenta, only grainier, and lo, the first thing she said when she had a bite was, "It's like polenta!" 

So we're just walking back to our hotel and I was like, "Whoa. That looks like Banksy. Is it Banksy? It has to be a Banksy!" and Rachelle said, "Why else would it have a plastic cover over it and be in such a crappy part of town?" 

Many pictures and exclamations of joy were had. I've never seen one in real life before!! 

So I know these gaslights are all over the city, but I'm kind of intrigued by the skinniness of the gas tubes. They add a lot of ambiance. 

What I learned today: Keanu Reeves, according to my psychic, is a reincarnation of a Sun God. All of his "you're breath-taking," positive attitude, see the beauty in everything, secretly donating lots of money to children's hospitals, NOT AGING: these are all attributes of Sun Gods. Apparently I need to focus on/pray to one of these deities to help me heal and carry on in my life. 

On the agenda for tomorrow: Austin. It's another of our 7 hour drive days. We have two; one to get to Austin, and then one more from San Antonio to New Mexico. It's okay though. We've got each other.