"Geauxing" north on Highway 61

The night before we left NOLA, we celebrated at Irene's Restaurant,

a go-to gastronomic institution in the Quarter, sharing reminiscences with Irene of the long-since burned-down "Club My Oh My!" (if you skipped over that last link, it is a wonderful artifact of the underbelly of entertainment). Ruth's folks saved the menu/playbill from their 1949 road trip around America, where they enjoyed dinner and a drag show. Back then the establishment couldn't publish advertisements in the local newspapers. It burned down twice before receding into the embers of local enthusiast memory.

In the morning, we made a quick stop at the Quarter fire station for an obligatory t-shirt for me and a firefighter-beefcake calendar for Ruth,


then proceeded to the launching point for Highway 61, just a block or two away. We passed through the Warehouse District,

a large section of urban renewal and construction, and from what we could see, all attempts were being made to preserve the originality of the old warehouses and small pockets of French Quarter architecture. New office buildings shared space with former loft warehouses being restored to condominiums for the up and coming new cultural hip and maybe "fracking" dollars. I mean this as an adjective, not a verb! How about a verbjective? (Remind me to tell you the story of the fabulous WWII Museum in this district.)

The start of the Blues Highway must begin with...you guessed it! Some blues! We pushed the "play" button, but our driving didn't mirror that request as we started and stopped at a miles-long series of stoplights. The billboards, roadside attractions, and the music played in syncopation:

Accident lawyers...
"When you get a good-lookin' woman, you got trouble on your hands..."
Barking Irons Firearms...
Walmart...
more helpful accident lawyers, poised and promising...
a scrolling neon sign at one of the endless stoplights announcing "$54,999 for a 3/2 mobile home with A/C (by gum!, they throw in the skirting)...now just $32,999!" (We could have gotten it except Gyp doesn't bark that much, I don't like Bud Lite, and Ruth won't wear a tank top and push out a half-dozen rugrats)...
"...the blues rolled down the highway, stopped at my front door..."
the number of starts and stops made me feel like I was pumping up a kid's jumpy castle with a foot pump...

I started looking for the "Thank You, Jesus, for Gettin' Us Through That Red Light" Church...the music played, "I'm ready for you, I hope you're ready for me..."

And here's some Roadside Americana on Highway 61, just before Natchez and the Mississippi River. This icon was built in 1940, and has gone through several refurbishments, not least of which was a significant skin lightening procedure to make her much more politically correct. Well, um, a bit more anyway...