our little day trip

Danny and I took a day trip to New Orleans last Monday. I surprised him with tickets to the Hornets/Lakers game and the game was in NO. He is absolutely obsessed with basketball - especially the NBA - and especially the Lakers. I think it is funny that he has such a passion for basketball because he comes from Latin America where soccer (or "futbol") is the way of life. Of course he enjoys soccer too, but he really, really loves basketball. He was super excited when I told him we had tickets to the game because he has never been to an NBA game before and he absolutely loves Kobe Bryant. We were going to go down on Sunday afternoon and spend the night but decided to just leave Monday morning. We go to New Orleans often since it is just a three hour drive from Jackson, and we had a lot of yard work to get done on Sunday. We didn't end up leaving Jackson until around noon on Monday - way later than we planned. We arrived in New Orleans around 2:45pm, but didn't actually get into the city until around 3:15pm due to a slight detour which took us over the bridge...

....and straight passed New Orleans. I admit it was my fault. I am horrible with directions! So we drove back over the bridge and finally got to the city. Our first stop was the world famous Cafe du Monde for some yummy beignets.

We walked around downtown for a little bit before heading uptown via the trolley. After waiting 20 minutes for the trolley and getting stuck back in the French Quarter we decided to ditch the idea and hang around downtown since we needed to be at the game in less than a couple of hours. As we were walking by the river we saw a crowd on the side of the street and lots of camera crews. Of course we stopped to see what was going on and we were told that Bruce Willis and Morgan Freeman were filming a movie called "Red" in the street! Here is a picture of all the cameras - we were literally standing 20 feet away!

I know the sun is blinding but you can see the bald Bruce Willis standing in the street. He was dressed as a cop and they kept filming the same gun scene over and over again. He was actually shooting a loaded gun!

Danny standing right in front of where they were filming. Bruce kept making jokes and telling all the onlookers to keep moving. Did we move an inch? Absolutely not! We were definitely not going to miss this.

After watching them film the same scene over and over for thirty minutes, we got bored and decided to start making our way toward the stadium. By this time is was almost 5:30pm and the game started at 7pm. Parking was easy (I thought it would be a nightmare) and we got right to our seats with plenty of time. Of course Bruce Willis showed up to the game late and was sitting on the front row right on the court. Ahh the life of a celebrity. So hard.

It was a good game even though I had trouble paying attention. I kept watching the cheerleaders and Bruce Willis (I think I'm obsessed now). The Hornets won which was kind of a bummer for Danny since he is such a big Lakers fan.

Let me just tell you how big of a nightmare it was to find a gas station in New Orleans at 10:30pm. When we left the parking garage after the game our car was literally on empty. We probably had 5-10 miles before we ran out of gas. We asked one of the security officers where the nearest gas station was and of course he gave us wrong directions. Keep in mind it is pitch black outside and the streets are empty because it is a Monday night. So after following the wrong directions that the officer gave us we ended up in a part of New Orleans that I had never been to before. There was not a single gas station in sight. We see a cop driving by and start honking so he would stop and help us because we were seriously about to completely run out of gas. By this time it is 10:45pm. The cop drives right past us so we try to catch up to him at the stop light. He rolls down his window and tells us that he doesn't know where a gas station is and he has to go meet the judge at the courthouse so he can't help us. I almost started crying. The streets are empty, it is dark outside, our car is about to stop in the middle of the street and we had no idea where we were. The only person on the street was a man walking by himself and he graciously told us there was a gas station 6 blocks away. We finally got to the gas station and we both breathed a huge sigh of relief. Apparently the gas stations in the city of New Orleans are few and far between and they all close around 10 or 11pm. After the gas station fiasco we get lost trying to leave the city because we had no idea where we were. The GPS feature on my phone kept messing up so we had to call my parents at 11:15pm and wake them up to give us directions. We made it home by 2am and I fell asleep immediately because I had to be at work at 8am. Whew - I feel exhausted just thinking about it. It was definitely a trip I'll never forget.