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My Dad, brothers, and I travel to a destination hosting the first and second rounds of the NCAA tournament each year. It has been 11+ years. The last three years, our weekends were ruined by watching BYU blow their first game of each respective tournament in person. I knew BYU going to OK City while we went to New Orleans could only mean good things for both of us. I was right.

Matt and I started things off right, going to Bourbon Street on St. Pat's. Our biggest mistake of the night: not bringing a my camera. After witnessing the craziness happening on that street, I was feeling pretty good about the relative magnitude of our mistake. Here is a low-class mobile phone pic.


Thursday, we watched ball for about 13 hours. 3 of our 4 games were great...and wouldn't you know it...BYU won in double OT. The hall crowd in the stadium huddled around the TV and most were pulling for the cougs along with us (probably out of hatred for Florida). It felt great to get that monkey off our backs.

Today, we had some beingets (Cafe Du Monde coming tomorrow)...:

..., went on a swamp tour...:


...and topped it off at Preservation Hall, which was super rad - Preservation Hall is basically a historical Jazz hall (if a room so small can be considered a hall) where a great New Orleans Jazz band plays each night. It was awesome - I thought a lot about my sister Holly during the concert...she would have loved it. Even to those ignorant to Jazz and what it takes in general to play those instruments, it was an incredible atmosphere and the talent of those playing was impressive. Walking out of the hall (capping off the intake of the Jazz culture after listing to the many street performers over the past few days), my nephew Preston told my brother Matt, "When I grow up, I want to be a street performer." New Orleans will make you think things like that. Today definitely sold me on the French Quarter...so much history. The culture is almost tangible. I will definitely make my way back here. Here are some pics of the hall: