Baton Rouge

After three very long and very awesome days in New Orleans (see previous posts: Day 1, Day 2, and Day 3), we started Saturday morning bright and early in Baton Rouge. One of my co-workers, Jeremy, went to LSU so he gave us a lot of great suggestions and recommendations, which we were very grateful for despite his subsequent corruption of my desk decorations. He gave us directions to free parking on campus, which was awesome.

The game was at 2:30 (central time) so we didn't have a lot of time before the game. Since Bo had never seen the campus, we walked around to check out the tailgating scene. We love a good tailgate, and we were really impressed with how intense everyone is at LSU. It seemed like everyone had the works - grills, TVs, large speakers, multiple massive coolers, chairs, games, etc etc etc.

We had a blast just walking around and checking out everything with our portable tailgate (aka styrofoam cooler, bottle of Jack Daniel's and two large re-fillable coke's).

it was a good day with Jack

On our way towards the stadium, we stopped by Mike's (the Tiger) cage but he never came out. I like to think he was afraid of the Gator Nation, even though his football team, clearly, was not.

The have a Tiger Walk about an hour before kickoff, so we watched that before heading into the stadium. We were hoping to see the team but apparently they went in a few hours before that.

We had great seats for the game - thank you Kristin and Mark!

Tiger Stadium

Mike the Tiger

Go Gators!

Best score of the game... 0 - 0

Albert & Alberta

heeeeere come the Gators!!

After the terrible loss the previous weekend, we weren't expecting much better against LSU. So that helped the pain...just a little. It's still sad to watch your beloved team lose so we tried to make the best of it. Once the inevitable loss was over, we headed out to grab dinner. First, we found a food cart selling jello shots and boudin - perfect.

We went to The Chimes for dinner (great suggestion from Jeremy) which was on the corner of campus. We ordered a bunch of appetizers and hung out for a few hours - it was very similar to The Swamp in Gainesville, except it was a lot bigger and the food was infinitely better.

Grilled Gator nuggets

crab claws

Not your typical spinach & artichoke dip...served with fried bow-tie pasta chips

cheers!

Sunday morning we packed up to head back home. We had lunch in downtown Baton Rouge at Capital City Grill (another great suggestion from Jeremy). Afterward, there was a music festival going on across the street from the old capitol building, so we hung out for a bit before we had to get back on the road.

So in summary, we had 14 different kinds of meats/animals: beef, veal, bacon, pork, chicken, shrimp, oyster, crawfish, turtle, duck, rabbit, alligator, crab, and mahi mahi. In our opinion, that is a successful trip!

When we got home we added the new pin to our world travel map, so the US portion (minus Hawaii/Alaska) now looks like this (clearly we still have quite a bit of work to do!):

We had such a terrific time in New Orleans and Baton Rouge - already looking forward to our next vacation!!

New Orleans - Day 3

Our trip continues... I posted about Day 1 here and Day 2 here.

After walking around the city on the first day and trolleying around the second day, we picked up our sweet rental car on Friday morning so we could drive around for the day.

no upgrade...boo

After a failed attempt the day before, we headed back to Domilise's for an early lunch (second time's a charm).

The line was out the door when we got there. We figured that had to be a good sign. It was a really small, old restaurant that is still cash-only and they make your po' boy right in front of you. Mine was loaded with shrimp and so delicious.

They also served beer in a frosted glass (Bo) and Coke in a bottle (me)! I truly believe Coke tastes better from the bottle.

We debated what to do that afternoon since we had pretty much done everything we wanted to do in New Orleans during the first two days. Bo came up with the great idea to check out the Abita brewery. We love going to breweries and we love Abita beers - sounds like a good plan to me!  A quick check on the iPhone and we found out they are open Friday afternoons for a few hours to give tours and open the tasting room. So off we went.

 The tasting room was really fun - they let you pour your own beer! We all lined up on one side of the bar, and they had a one-way line, so you could keep refilling and trying as many beers as you wanted. And the best part of all...the entire thing was completely free.

waiting for the line to open up

the photo-bomber was our tour guide - he harassed us quite a bit for being gators :)

pour your own free beer = best bar ever

It was probably the quickest brewery tour we've ever been on - less than 10 minutes.

We had to wear these funny booty things over our sandals because we never wear close-toed shoes. They wouldn't have let us in without them on so we sucked it up.

Afterward, we went back to the bars one last time. We met up with Bo's cousin Bryan and a bunch of his friends, and we ran into our friend Jon there too. There were a lot of Gator fans out! Either we were talking too much or my camera must have died because I only have a few pictures from that night.

 

me & Jon

And because I don't have a picture of the sign, I have no idea where we ate dinner that night. Which is a real shame since it was a fantastic meal. We just walked around until we found this really cute place with a patio and an amazing menu and wine list.

Post Edit: I took up Kim's suggestion (below) to check my credit card statement (that I had previously been purposely avoiding - eeek!) and discovered we went to Orleans Grapevine, and then I found a picture of the sign on google images. Bo and I looked over the menu and it all came back to us... baked brie, caesar salads, rack of lamb (Bo), and the rabbit ravioli special (me). Deliciousness.

After dinner we called it an early night since we knew Saturday was going to be a very long day in Baton Rouge for the FL/LSU game (up next!).