The Big Easy

June 2, 2019
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Well, we are back from a long Memorial Day weekend in New Orleans with friends. The Big Easy is an interesting town, especially if you are in the mood for food and music, and lots of it. There are bars and restaurants everywhere and there are jazz bands playing everywhere. This doesn’t leave out pop or any other type of music. 

But it’s jazz and blues that dominate the city’s musical history. And it is a colorful history. Titular control of New Orleans, the Big Easy, went back and forth between Spain and France in the 17th and 18th centuries before Thomas Jefferson bought it in 1803. The Louisiana Purchase included a lot more than New Orleans. All told it was a vast amount of territory that amounted to 828,000 square miles. Soon after purchasing it, Jefferson commissioned the Lewis and Clark expedition to exploration the land he had purchased for the United States. 

To this day New Orleans proudly displays its French roots. Over the years it kept and developed its unique brand of French culture, while still assimilating into the broader culture of the U.S. There probably is a lesson there.

While we were in town we visited the New Orleans Jazz Museum, went to some historic above ground cemeteries, went for a ride on the Mississippi River on a paddle wheel boat, toured the French Quarter and (of course) went to some fine restaurants. 

Some photos from our trip are included below. You can click on the photos to see bigger, high resolution versions.


New Orleans, Louisiana, USA — May 27, 2019. The paddle wheel tourist boat Creole Queen on the Mississippi River.
New Orleans, LA, USA — May 23, 2019. Photo of an entrance to the New Orleans Jazz Museum in the French Quarter.
New Orleans, LA, USA — May 23, 2019. Tourists down a street against a backdrop of the architecture of the French Quarter in New Orleans; a police woman observes.
New Orleans, LA, USA — May 26, 2019. Photo taken of marble tombstones at St Louis Cemetery #3 on a hot sunny day.

Thanks for visiting.

JFB