Last winter I took a pre-birthday trip to New Orleans and I am way late in posting all of these photos. Sure, I post quite a bit to Instagram and Facebook, but that’s mostly real-time bragging about what food I’m eating.

Speaking of eating, I legit gained 10 pounds this trip. I was ready bigger going into it, but two different Cafe Dú Monde trips, two different BBQ trips, two different seafood places, and a metric tonne of sugary alcohol drinks will definitely bget you to the upper echelon of scale numbers.

Also, I rarely take photos of my self, but I tend to make exceptions for bigfoots. Funny thing about the squatch selfie in this post — less than a minute later I twisted my ankle and limped to a Jazz bar. It was quite possibly the worst two hours of my trip as the jazz bar, well, was a jazz bar, and also removed its chairs in preparation for the Saturday night crowd. I ended up sitting on a curb waiting for my Lyft as the temperature dropped from the mid-60s to the high-40s. Brrrr.

I start off with a picture of my AirBnB because I have never stayed in a “shotgun” house. Now, I don’t know if this was standard or just a feature of this specific place, but it had 8-foot doorways.

8. FOOT. DOORWAYS.

That honestly set the tone for the whole trip. After that it was a walk in the park. If you’re still reading this and haven’t browsed the gallery yet, I am not sorry for any puns.

Some highlights and musings from above:

• The shrimp po’ boy was consumed at 2:45 a.m. I ordered it hot instead of “Yankee Style” because I didn’t want to seem like a bitch who can’t handle Southern spices. I am happy to report that I, in fact, am a bitch who got his ass absolutely handed to him by a fish sandwich.

• The WWII museum alone was worth the cost of the plane ticket. As a huge fan of museums, it’s on par with the best of them (a top tier that includes Chicago’s Museum of Science & Industry and Seattle’s Museum of Flight).

• The photo with all the planes stacked is in a wing of the museum roughly 150-feet tall. Huge.

• As for Bourbon Street — nobody stays in the bars. The railings are nice for people watching but the bars themselves are practically empty. It’s just get your shit and go, which is something I really wish more people would internalize in Michigan.

• I ended on a beer a group bought for me on the last day. There aren’t too many breweries in New Orleans. I think I saw a dozen on the map, however it being a Monday, only three were open for me to choose from. Coincidentally, there was also another man in the brewery visiting from Michigan. A woman tried to Me, Myself & Irene me while in line. She said she was waiting on her family but she knew what she wanted to order (while I was still staring at the big board). I allow her to go ahead and she starts rattling off over a dozen orders! I do a 180 and realize it’s no longer just me and the Lions fan, but an entire family including an entire generation of Gen Xers, grandparents and three young children. The grandad realizes whats happening and adds my drink order to the mix. Cheers!

• While walking down Bourbon Street, a man approached me asking if I needed any weed. I said no. Dismayed at a sale lost from some tall white guy, he asked, “Well, do you have any cocaine?” Its nice to know I look approachable enough to both might want weed and definitely might have cocaine. Am I upper middle class now?

• My AirBnB had a booklet of dos and don'ts for the area. I satyed near the French Quarter so the list was plentiful. The main don't was “don't go anywhere by yourself intoxicated after midnight.” On Saturday night I went on a solo walk after eating that shrimp po' boy. I guess nobody wants to fuck with a giant at 4 am even if he's brown out drunk.