Bucket List Item #76...

I'm sure that most people either have a physical or a mental bucket list. I started writing mine about 10 years ago and, while I've been able to cross quite a few things off of the list, it just keeps getting longer!

On our super roundabout trip from Denver to Atlanta, SunStars made sure to help me cross item # 76: Eat a beignet in New Orleans" off of my list. This is something that's been on my list since the beginning and it's also something that I never really thought I would do. I've always kind of thought of New Orleans as a place to go for bachelor/bachelorette parties and never set the time aside to explore it.

It's safe to say that I was pleasantly surprised when we arrived and while we only had about 2 hours to wander around, I loved every minute of it. We had basically no plan, aside from "Park the car and wander around and at some point find some beignets." I'm a bit fan of spooky and haunted things, so after parking (coincidentally right outside of a haunted hotel... see the Buzzfeed Unsolved episode about it HERE), we headed to St. Louis Cemetery 1, found the adorable Backatown coffee shop, skipped the cemetery tour because we didn't have time. We then headed towards the Lalaurie Mansion, which we also didn't tour, but it would have been ridiculous for a wannabe ghost hunter not to at least see on our whirlwind trip.

At this point, we only had about 30 minutes of parking left in the meter back at the Dauphine Hotel, but we hadn't found any beignets yet, so we headed in the direction of Café du Monde (and I got to have a quick wander through the French Market- Once again, we had the dog with us and animals are not allowed in that particular spot). The line at the cafe was WAAAAAY too long, so we routed towards Café Beignet, which was closer to the car (we'd actually just about walked right past it at the beginning of our wander, but didn't know it. The café was absolutely adorable (think black and white mosaic tile on the floor, wood paneled walls, banana leaves painted on the curved ceiling, and a giant chandelier) and I got in line just in time. About one minute after getting into the line, the line was out the door. Once I'd placed my order, I received it quickly and the beignets were delicious!

The puppy was super hot at this point and we were overtime on parking, so we took our goodies and ran. We ate them outside of the hotel, and let me tell you: it was an amazing experience. It was about 100 degrees outside with a slight breeze and the powdered sugar ended up blowing and sticking all over me! It was an experience well worth waiting for!

If you plan to have a few hours in NOLA, I highly recommend following the path that we took, but I'd segue to Café Beignet before heading to the cemetery. It's a much more direct route, and you can pick up donuts and munch on them while listening to the various street bands on the way to the coffee shop!