Cougars in the Big Easy

I never wanted my blog to be a travel log. But occasionally, I actually go places and do things that I think are very much worthy of a travel log type post. For the second weekend in a row I traveled to see the Cougars in action, this time in New Orleans, LA.

I'd never been to New Orleans, and most of the advice I got about the city was, the food is great. I went with my friends Dan Nelson, Joe Johnston, and Dan Clark. All the truest of blue BYU Cougar fans. Our plan was relatively simple. Watch BYU play Tulane, while eating our way through New Orleans.

We all took the same flight after work and arrived in NO around 10:00 PM. After checking into our hotel (complete with Katrina damage*) we made our way to Bourbon St. Nothing could have prepared me for this. Bourbon St. is so crazy. New Orleans has very liberal drinking laws, the only law being no glass containers, other than that it is anything goes. People were getting plastered. Bourbon St, is sort up like this:

Bar, Bar, Bar, Strip Club, Bar, Strip Club, Bar, Restaurant, Bar, Strip Club etc.

Yes, you can probably imagine that four Mormon guys were a bit out of place. It truly was Babylon. I think if you had taken a picture of me as I was soaking it all in, you would have seen my jaw dropped. We walked up and down Bourbon St. and were solicited all manner of debauchery. Don't worry my dear sisters, my values and standards remained in tact.

Using his trusty Blackberry, Dan determined that we should eat at the Acme Oyster Co. which was right off of Bourbon St. Unfortunately it was closed by this time. A police officer who was standing near by told us that there was another restaurant that was open. I can't remember what it was called, I know it had Bayou in the title. Frankly it wasn't good. The food was not good, the service was not good. Despite that, we did have balcony seating. We looked over Bourbon St and watched as the insanity kept going. And in case you wondering I did not get any beads. (Joe did, but that's a whole other story). At the end of our meal the bus boy came up to us and asked us what we ordered. He told us, that we had over paid and that we could have gone to the grocery store and got a bucket of that stuff for a lot less. Thanks man. I really appreciate it.

Bourbon Street is wild and a lot of fun, but some of the sleaziest people I have ever seen spend time there. I just kept thinking to myself, man I could really use some Purell.

Bourbon Street

On Saturday Morning, I gave the Dans a wake up call. They were none too pleased. Eventually everyone was out bed and on our way to the French Quarter. Both my sister Chrissi, and Dan's Dad had recommended that we eat breakfast at Brennan's. Apparently it is one of the most famous places to eat in all of New Orleans. I had decided before I got to New Orleans, that I wasn't going to skimp. I don't know when I'll be back so I decided to just go for it. That meant a $50 breakfast. Three courses, a first course of Strawberries and Cream, an entree of Eggs Benedict, and chocolate pecan pie for dessert. We all got different variations of this breakfast. The other guys got Bananas Foster, which they prepare table side.

We sat next to a family from Washington State, that were also in town for the BYU game. Within minutes they knew all about us, and the mom of course asked about the dating scene in Washington, DC. People are very worried about our eternal progression.

New Orleans had a pretty nice temperature, it rained off and on, put really when it poured we were out of it for the most part. After our delicious breakfast we went to Jackson Square, to visit the cathedral (I lit a candle) and checked out the mighty Mississippi River. I stuck my foot in, and it was pretty warm. We stopped at Cafe Dumonde and Joe bought us beignets. I was still completely stuffed from breakfast.

As I am likely to do when I visit a place for a sporting event, I can hardly help but dominate. It's my nature. It's what I do. It has solidified relationships and fractured them. As we were deciding what to do before the game, we headed back towards Bourbon St. which is much more tame in the early afternoon. We visited with some of the locals, and it really began to pour rain. We were all dressed up in our BYU gear, and an intoxicated fellow engaged us in conversation. He wanted to talk about the QB legacy of BYU. We mentioned the greats... Young, McMahon, Detmer, Beck, Sarkisian, Wilson, Boscoe, Walsh to name a few. Somehow the talk turns to BYU basketball and when it was all said and done, I think the guy challenged Dan to a game of basketball and lit him up for being bald. It was epic.

6'5" C Moor Park Joe John, 6' SG Brighton DJ Neltz, 6'3" PF La Serna PBD, 5'11' Lower Marion Academy D Clark

Although the Superdome wasn't particularly far, it wasn't exactly close either, we weren't going to let a little rain stop us. As we were figuring out the proper route to take, I saw a woman wearing a shirt that said Safety Ranger. I think it had epilets so I was fairly certain that she was official. I asked her how we get to the Superdome, she pointed to my feet. I paused, realized what she meant and started walking. She did give Joe a map, so that was helpful I suppose.

As we inched our way through the elements, we came closer tot he Superdome, we saw more and more Cougar fans. One of our favorite games to play (Joe mentioned this on his blog) is to say phrases out loud that only LDS would understand. So when we saw the Cougar fans walking, I started a rousing rendition of Pioneer Children Sang as they Walked. I of course found this extremely entertaining. With the game about an hour and fifteen minutes away we reached the Superdome.

Now in comparison, the new Dallas stadium is so much nicer, but the Superdome was pretty cool as well. I think it holds about 50,000 people. As soon as we arrived we noticed that in exactly the opposite of last weeks game Cougar fans would far outnumber the opposition's fans.

I am not sure who first noticed it, but it was brought to our attention the sheer number of babies that were in attendance. I mean everywhere you looked, there were infants. It was like Sacrament meeting in a BYU married ward. We decided that every time we saw a baby, that we would point it out and say "BABY". This became the running joke of the weekend. As far as I am concerned there were more babies that Tulane fans there.

Now last week I had been sort of dissapointed that I did to run into anyone that I knew from BYU. I thought for sure I would run into someone who had been in my ward or someone. I saw one guy who may have been in my freshman ward, and I saw Jordan's Aunt and Uncle.

It was strange to see the Stadium so empty. I heard paid attendance was 22,000 but I have a hard time believing that . We bought tickets in the lower bowl, but we really could (and did) sit wherever we wanted to. For the first half we settled on the 30 yard line on the same side as the BYU bench. Our friend Darl was sitting with his family right in front of us. When BYU made a nice play and Darl didn't stand up, we got all over him.

It was a little too quiet for my taste, so we started to get wild. We yelled for our team, booed Tulane, and generally enjoyed the first half. Tulane kept it close for the first bit, enough to make me wonder what was going on. A couple of dropped passes helped stall BYU drives, but eventually the well oiled machine started firing on all cylinders.

It was really fun to see all of the BYU fans in attendence. It didn't seem like there were too many students in attendance, it felt mostly like Alum. From chatting with a few people it became clear that many were LDS who lived in the south who had made the trek.

We especially enjoyed this guy who was nursing a beer during the first. Not all BYU fans follow the Word of Wisdom despite what you might think

By half time BYU had a comfortable lead. I was hungry and went for the Shrimp Po Boy. It was fine, just shrimp on a roll with lettuce. We sat next to a very nice family from Atlanta. They had previously lived in Northern Virginia. Surprise surprise, they had a baby and asked how the dating scene was in DC these days. I tell you, it was a running theme throughout the trip.

Deciding that we needed to get on TV we headed for the End Zones figuring that when extra points were being kicked, we would get some camera time. I had scheduled the Tivo to record the game so that I could watch it when I got home. We really started to get rowdy at this point.

I made sure to go and stand in the the Tulane student section. BYU was crushing them by now. One girl turned to me and said "Why are you here, this is the student section?" I turned around and asked her why no one was there. We talked to the cheerleaders, slow clapped a fraternity into leaving, assisted the guys in charge of pulling up the nets ( we called them the sea monsters.) and just had a good time all around.

Sea Monsters

After the game, Sports Beat Saturday a local show from Utah was broadcasting. We chanted K-S-L, K-S-L. Although we didn't get on camera, Joe told the reporter that his grandma was a big fan. He told Joe that he loved his grandma, it was great. We were among the last Cougars to leave the stadium. We had run into athletic director Tom Holmoe earlier but didn't get a picture. Probably a huge mistake on our part. As we left the stadium we took the same exit as the Tulane players, where the families wait for them. It was funny to overhear one of the players say, "Enough with this top ten team, let's go play Nicholls St."

Having totally dominated the Superdome we headed toward Camellia's, a recommendation of Peyton and Eli Manning. They grew up in New Orleans and there was a little blurb about that in this month's issue of Esquire which I happened to be reading on the plane.We took the historic street cars through the historic Garden District (it's the area where Benjamin Button, and the Real New Orleans were filmed) to this diner.

It was a bit crowded when we walked in, I told the host that Peyton and Eli had recommended the place. He looked at me with a WTH expression, and I explained about the Mannings and Esquire. We sat down and were served by the awesome Mr. Leon. He took our orders and was just really cool.We chatted with a guy from Australia who had moved to Louisiana eight years ago. The food was so good. Hamburgers, fries, and these sort of Milk Shake things called freeze's. As we were sitting at the counter two girls walked in and sat down next to us. One of them was wearing a Tulane shirt. I looked at her and said "Is this awkward for you?" as I pointed to my BYU shirt. It took her a second to figure out what I was talking about, and then she laughed. Apparently football is not one of the highest things on the list to why you chose Tulane. Once we finished our meal, Mr. Leon gave fist bumps all the way around.

We went back to the Hotel and watched the USC game. We made one last trip to Bourbon street and called it a night.

The next day we cabbed to the Airport and flew back to Washington. It was a whirl wind of a trip. I had a great time and I'm already looking forward to next year's trip to see the Cougars play.

* Not really