Once we got past Jackson, MS the roads became pretty icy. We traveled in one lane for most of the way and when we got to Hammond we had to detour off the bridges. As we were traveling we became aware that we weren't the only ones who were experience travel issues. Our booth was supposed to arrive early Thursday morning but it wasn't able to be delivered until about 2 or 3. Our merchandise was stuck in Jackson. We were able to have an emergency shipment shipped out from Pearl so we ended up with only 5 boxes arriving Friday morning.
Since we had Thursday afternoon free to were able to enjoy lunch at Dooky Chase's. We'd never been and it's been on my to-eat list. We shared the creole gumbo (which was one of my favorite gumbos to date). I had the fried chicken and Bryan had the shrimp creole. Both dishes were excellent.
We bummed around the rest of the afternoon before going to Southern Runner so Bryan could do the group run. Afterwards we meandered over to Freret Street to find some dinner. Normally I have a list of places I want to go, but with this trip I was a bit looser without any must see's or do's. Bryan was craving pizza so we went to Midway Pizza for some deep dish.
Despite Bryan being from the Chicago area he'd never had deep dish pizza before. I found that hard to believe and question his Chicago Bear's fan-hood.
Friday morning we headed to the convention center. Dan, who travels with the booth, had completed set up and we arrived to help merchandise.
The Pearl Izumi booth is a Skyline product. I had flashbacks.
Since most of the product didn't arrive we had the store bring over some of its merchandise. It ended up working out okay. The expo was Friday afternoon and all day Saturday.
Friday night, exhausted from the day, we mustered up the energy to walk over to the Quarter for some oysters. (Seriously, I can't get enough.) When we walked out of Felix's there was a huge float on the corner of Bourbon playing dance music and tons of people around, many wearing beads. It was fun to get a glimpse of Carnival New Orleans on our busy trip.
Saturday morning we went to a French bakery on Magazine for coffee and pastries. We picked up a king cake for the booth.
Tis the season! It was one of the better king cakes I've ever had.
Our brains were fried Saturday evening so we went to Cochon and ordered all the cured meats and fish we could order.
Donald Link knows the way to my heart.
Sunday morning Bryan got up early. It was race day. While he wasn't really racing, he had promised to pace some friends who were doing the full marathon for the first half. The race course went by twice only 7 blocks from where we were staying, so I promised to get up and go watch.
It was a rough morning. I don't do well under sleep deprived and no coffee situations.
I saw the guys around mile 8 or so and then hit the pavement for coffee.
After the race Bryan and I wondered around the Quarter for about 20 minutes before meeting the guys for brunch at Mr. B's.
While not the most relaxing or wonderful trip, we had a great expo despite the circumstances.
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