The Big Greasy

NEW ORLEANS — The best part about Georgia and Hawaii conducting closed practices today is that it essentially leaves a sportswriter with a getaway day.
As in: Get away from the computer and the media hotel and go see the city.
Having been to New Orleans a number of times in the past for business (previous Sugar Bowls) and for non-business (getting plastered at Mardi Gras), I have formulated a New Orleans To Do list to be completed between now and the time I leave Wednesday morning.
1. Read the paper over coffee and beignets at Cafe Du Monde.
2. Drive the entire length of St. Charles and stare in wide-eyed wonder at all the mansions I will never be able to afford. Award myself bonus points for identifying the home of author Anne Rice.
3. End the St. Charles tour with a bowl of gumbo and a cold Abita at Cooter Brown's.
4. Walk. A lot. Preferably around the French Quarter.
5. Consume a Moonsoon at the Port O’ Call. Let the tourists from places like Omaha and Dubuque have their hurricanes at Pat O’Brien’s.
6. Lunch at Praline Connection, a creole comfort food haven in the Fauburg Marigny district. Remember to pick up a take home box of their delectable pralines so my wife will forgive me for not having taken her to New Orleans.
7. Listen to jazz at Snug Harbor.
8. Use the hotel gym to work off the beignets, pralines and meals like the one I ate upon arriving in town Saturday. Went to Parasol's in the Garden District and treated myself to a roast beef po boy (with gravy) and an order of their gravy cheese fries.
9. Pray that my arteries haven't constricted since that lunch.
10. Learn the haka, the Polynesian-inspired war chant and dance the Hawaii football team does before its games.