Loyola and Audubon Park

Our first full day in New Orleans and while John has to start his conference today, registration doesn’t open until 2pm, so we’re heading to the Ruby Slipper for breakfast which we passed on our walks the day before and took notice of.  We found the “in” spot apparently because we had a 15 minute wait for breakfast at 9am on a weekday when everyone should be at work right?  Well not

 here apparently, they can take all day for breakfast with mimosas and grits.  God, the grits were delicious.  I had forgotten that grits could be so good when fresh, hot and cooked right.  Oscar ate almost a whole pancake and John and I enjoyed omelets that would keep us full for a while.  The story on the wall talked about returning to New Orleans after Katrina and how they named the restaurant the Ruby Slipp

 er because “there’s no place like home”.  Sweet sentiment that went along with their shirts that read, “Ruby Slipper, because you can’t drink all day if you don’t start in the morning”.   Too true.  We went into the Pelham hotel because their bathrooms were also the restaurant’s and I asked the lady at the desk about going through the garden district and we were told to catch the St. Charles trolley that way.  So, 

 we went up a couple of blocks, and waited in line for the second trolley because the first one was full.  Now, don’t ever take these trolleys if you have somewhere to be like a conference, because they don’t run on any kind of schedule and you never know how full they’re going to be.  But we are blissfully unaware of this as we head out past Lafayette Square, Lee Circle and through the Garden District with beads covering every tree along the 

main float route for Mardi Gras.  We passed plenty of good looking restaurants that we could return to and decided to get off at Tulane and see the university and Audubon park.  We actually were in front of Loyola when we first disembarked and we wandered into their visitor’s center hoping for a place to use the bathroom with a possible place to change Oscar that would be convenient.  Well the cleaning lady told me to change him on the sofa that was in the chapel.  So, feeling even more irreverent

than normal in a church setting, I carefully put something under him and hope that he doesn’t take this chance to let loose when the diaper is off.  Luckily, the diaper change went okay, but then Oscar decided that the chapel was a fine place to crawl around because he had been stuck in the high chair, stroller or trolley car in our laps all morning.  We scooped him up tried to check out the art  collection at their library.  I say “tried” because they were in the middle of changing exhibitions and the idea in our head was that we were going to find something like at Vassar when we went and visited my

 niece there.  They’re art collection was a mini museum that would make most cities museums jealous, but that was not what Loyola had going on, so we went over to the park where they had the cool swing for adults that allows you to hold your infant with you so that they can swing.  Had to try that out and John got scared when I put Oscar in the bigger kid one, so we had to move on to see all the water fowl that 

were making such a ruckus in the pond.  We wandered onto a set that appeared to be a film because of all the vans, lights, crew eating, and setting up with magnolias being put in the trees to give the illusion of summer, but found out that it was just a Popeye’s commercial.  Like John said, “I can’t believe that it takes this much equipment, time, … for a commercial.”  You don’t think about the production value of something you want to avoid most times like commercials.