New Orleans: Some Parting Shots

 I'll just finish up New Orleans with a few interesting places and cool pictures I couldn't fit in earlier posts. We took a walking tour of the Garden District with Free Tours by Foot, a business I would highly recommend. They offer several kinds of tours, and they are all "free," or pay what you can. You must make reservations and there is no pressure to pay any particular amount, just what you feel your tour was worth at the end. We were generous with our tour guide, who was knowledgable, competent, entertaining and personable. We couldn't have asked for more.

We started the tour in the Lafayette Cemetery I, which is in the Garden District. Our guide explained why the crypts are above ground (high water table).

She also explained that the heat of NOLA bakes the corpses inside the sealed crypts until near to nothing is left. Those remains are swept off the shelves onto the floor of the crypt so that the shelves can be used again. Thus a crypt is used over and over again, and in the case of these older ones, for centuries! The carved stones below list the "residents" of this crypt from 1847-1988!

She told us about the NOLA social aid and pleasure clubs, one of which is the Muses. The shoe below, on one of the graves, has to do with the Muses - either made by the muse herself, or by her friends.  The whole phenomenon of the clubs and the parade krewes is fascinating and I'd love to learn more.

After the cemetery we walked through the Garden District. It's called that because the homes have large yards with grand gardens and there are large live oak trees growing along the streets. The trees cause a lot of trouble for the sidewalks, but the city has decided that the trees are more important that the sidewalks, so they work around the problems and save the trees.

 She told us the histories of some of the homes and the more contemporary residents of others (Sandra Bullock, John Goodman, among others). There's lots of wrought and caste iron fences and porches.  More beautiful homes than you can imagine.

One day Rick and Glenn went to the World War II museum and Lynn and I went back to the French Quarter to do some Christmas shopping and meander in and out of shops as women like to do at times. We started at Cafe Du Monde for another wonderful breakfast. Do you know, the Cafe Du Monde seems to be completely run and staffed by Asians? That made me really curious.

Back on the streets again, and taking pictures.  The French Market - a glorified flea market really. 

One of the hard working horses pulling buggies.

A long hallway from the street into a back courtyard.

A voodoo doll in the window of Rev. Zombies' VooDoo shop.

The cool dark interior of the Coffee Pot Gumbo Shop. (Great lunch).

A moment of happiness…

...and an everlasting moment of grief.

While we may not be as grief stricken as the Weeping Angel in Metairie Cemetery, we are sorry to leave New Orleans. It's a beautiful, magical, moving place, and I know we'll be back.

New Orleans: The French Quarter

Like every other tourist in New Orleans, we started our day off in line at Cafe Du Monde in the French Quarter.  It took about 20 minutes for us to get seated in the big tent-like structure that covers the tiny tables crowded with ecstatic consumers of beignets and cafe au lait. 

 After our brunch we hit the streets, just following our noses in no particular direction, admiring the architecture that seems to be never ending.  This was the building right across from Cafe Du Monde. You'll notice too the line of horse drawn buggies (one of tourism's greatest inventions) waiting for business in front of Jackson Park on the left. 

 Here's one of the prettiest buggies in town.

In the center of Jackson Square there is a statue of Andrew Jackson with the engraving "The Union Must and Shall be Preserved." Strange sentiment for the south, I'd think, but then I'm not familiar with where New Orleans stood during the "unpleasantness." I know it was crucial because of it's position at the mouth of the Mississippi, and I've heard that both sides decided not to destroy it because of it's value.

The French Quarter is 78 square blocks of historic buildings, about half of which are commercial enterprises: bars, restaurants, boutiques, hotels, and inns. The remaining are either museums, municipal buildings or private residences. The four main streets are Bourbon, Chartres, Royal and the road that runs along the River. Bourbon Street is the road everyone associates with New Orleans, but it's a bore. Mostly bars, loud music and people out to get drunk. Royal St. however, is a treasure. It's where we found the most interesting shops, nicest architecture and the best quality street music. 

One of the most attractive and thoroughly stocked shops was called Sugar and Spice, and carried every kind of edible treat that had anything to do with New Orleans, such as pralines and hot sauce.  Great artwork too.

NOLA is all about partying and costuming, and the Mardi Gras spirit is everywhere, 

even when it's not Mardi Gras season. Lynn got into the spirit with a tutu.

And of course masks were everywhere too. Most are the feathered, inexpensive souvenir type, but we did find a couple of shops that sold exquisite one-of-a-kind, hand crafted masks of all kinds, many costing hundreds of dollars. 

For lunch we stopped at Le Bayou Restaurant and had the good fortune to be able to sit on the second floor balcony and watch Bourbon St. go by. We all tried local favorites, jambalaya, barbequed shrimp (NOLA style), crawfish (my first!) etouffee, andouille sausage gumbo, and more.  Everything we had was great.

NOLA starts the day kind of sleepy, but after noon the streets begin to fill with wandering tourists, partiers and street performers. This was one of the more unique ones, rolling around like a little car (look closely under the back bumper)...

...and transforming into...whatever this guy is.

NOLA is such a creative town, in its funky retro way that always honors tradition. 

As I mentioned earlier, the street musicians on Royal St. were superb, and colorful.

Everyone gets in on it.

One of my favorite performers was a compound band, called the "Super Band." I loved their Bohemian attitude. Doesn't this picture look like something Renoir could have painted in Paris at the turn of the 19th & 20th century (sans the ball caps)?

I appreciate the unique combination of extremely laid back attitude 

and intense commitment to what they're doing. 

 Many of the street bands are not only grateful for cash in the hat, (or maybe pecan pie in the instrument case?), but also sell CD's of their work for about $10-$15.  I bought the Super Band's CD.

Not everyone performs jazz with friends and sells CD's. We saw a solo opera singer, and lots of fortune tellers and magicians. This folkie guy found a quiet, kind of out-of-the-way place to peddle his passion.

We visited the French Quarter three times and I feel like we really got the feeling of it. I'm so glad we got off Bourbon Street. We also visited the Garden District and the Lafayette Cemetery. Rick and Glenn visited the WWII Museum and liked that too. Today is our last day, and we're closing our week here with lunch at Commander's Palace. Hope to post one last time to share a little about these final days. 

Thanksgiving in NOLA, RV Style

Holiday season greetings from New Orleans, Louisiana (NOLA)! We are here at 

Pontchartrain Landing RV Park and Marina for a week, celebrating Thanksgiving with 

fellow fulltime RVers Glenn and Lynn, and seeing New Orleans.

Pontchartrain Landing is located right on the canal between Lake Pontchartrain and the Mississippi River.  During the flooding of Hurricane Katrina in 2005 the mobile home park that used to be here was under 20 feet of water. The current owners are in the process of redeveloping this property toward making it a multi-faceted luxury RV and boat resort. They have RV sites of all sizes with full hook ups, gravel roads and pads, cabins, houseboats and marina slips for rent.  

Amenities include a hot tub and swimming pool, 

restaurant and bar with live entertainment, a shuttle to and from the French Quarter, and the standard restrooms, showers, laundry and office/store.

 We are parked right next to our friends for the week. You can see the sites are pretty close together.

The construction is going on here full force, right through Thanksgiving and the holiday weekend while they are rebuilding or expanding the main building.  It's a kind of unusual structure. The lower story seems to be made out of shipping containers. I don't know what the vision for the final product is, but I assume it will look more polished than it does now.

Like the Tom Sawyer Campground in West Memphis, they've got some challenges here coping with the flooding that is bound to happen. (This park, like Tom Sawyer's is also outside the flood wall.)  Some of the foundations around the park seem to be left over from the previous establishment, and in places its looking a little worse for wear.

Despite and around the construction, we've already come to appreciate first hand the hot tub, restaurant and the French Quarter shuttle. Being here has certainly been perfect for executing our holiday plans.

For the last two years, since we've been on the road, we've had our Thanksgiving dinner at the Cheesecake Factory. It just turned out that way. This year, with the help of our friends, we tackled Thanksgiving in the RV. No, I'm sorry, their RV. Comparing our two rigs, we decided they had more room at their dining table than we did, plus four chairs. We all were very comfortable in their spacious home. (Isn't it interesting how space is totally relative depending on your living situation? I'm sure there are plenty of folks who couldn't imagine Thanksgiving in this kind of space, but it felt homey and festive to us!)

Our day started with snacks and football while Lynn and Glenn worked on the turkey and a marvelous  new sausage stuffing recipe, which was the big hit of the day. We brought crudités, cream cheese and hot pepper jelly, a sweet potato casserole and a pumpkin pie.

The day was a success all around (except for the Green Bay Packers)

 and we were grateful for the fine company and delicious food.

After dinner Rick put out our first RV Christmas lights, under our 5th wheel. It's an approach to lighting we've seen others do, so thought we'd try it. Pretty easy compared to hanging lights on the house or trees. Par for the course with this lifestyle.

Next post with pictures and stories from the French Quarter will be up in a Louisiana minute. 

The Natchez Trace from Tupelo to Jackson, MS

We've been continuing our journey southward since our stop in Memphis, passing through Tupelo, Mississippi and staying at the Campground at Barnes Crossing for a few days. It was a very nice little park with large, long sites, though ours, and perhaps others, was not very level. It pushed our level-up system to its maximum and it wasn't very happy about that. We had a couple of beautiful Fall days, with very cool nights, requiring us to fill our fresh water tanks and put away the hose, lest it freeze up. This is a typical winter routine, even this far south. 

Tupelo looks to be thriving, with lots of new development around the outskirts, like in Barnes Crossing. Tupelo is also the birthplace of Elvis Presley. His tiny clapboard home is preserved and there is a  museum next to it now.  

The Natchez Trace also passes through Tupelo, which is the main reason we stopped here. The Natchez Trace Parkway is a long skinny national park that has preserved the approximate route of the original Natchez Trace, a very old foot path dating back to its use by Native Americans. The Chocktaw and Chickasaw people built mounds in the area, some of which can be seen at stops along the Trace.  Later, "Kaintucks" or boatmen used the trail to walk back north after dropping their boats off at the mouth of the Mississippi. 

We took a day trip north along the Trace to where it crosses the Tennessee River...

...and into Alabama as far as Rock Springs, one of the pull off stops along the Trace.  We took a little walk there, crossing the stream that runs from the springs...

...and along one side of the spring, which has been dammed up by a busy beaver. 

I had been wanting to drive the Natchez Trace, as it is said to be one of the most beautiful roads in the country. We had also heard that it was not RV friendly, but found this not to be the case. The length limit for RVs is 55', and the height limit is 14'. (We're a little over that length, but under the height.) We learned from locals, and witnessed ourselves during our day trip, that RVs of all lengths travel the Trace. So, we decided to go for it from Tupelo to Jackson. 

No problem!  It's a very relaxing route, with a speed limit of 50 mph, no commercial traffic (no trucks!!), no services and very limited access. In fact, it felt so RV friendly that we decided it was a good time for me to try driving the truck while towing the RV, for the very first time! It requires more awareness and alertness than driving the car or the truck alone, but on a slow straight haul like this, it was also no problem. I drove for about an hour and then switched back to the car before we got to local roads again. I didn't want to push my luck. 

We stopped for a few days at Goshen Springs Campground on Ross Barnett Reservoir, near Jackson, MS. Above is our site. It's a very nice campground for big rigs; almost all the sites are double wide, concrete pads, plenty long, and with plenty of space between sites. Most guests seem to be hunters and fisherman, but the place is fine for anyone.  The rate can't be beat: $20/night senior rate, and much lower for extended stays. 

While here we drove over to Vicksburg, about an hour away, in the pouring rain. We weren't sure how much we would want to see in the rain, but we thought we'd give it a shot, based on the recommendations of our friends Lynn and Glenn. 

We started our visit to Vicksburg with lunch at the Main Street Market Cafe, a surprising treasure near downtown. It's a little two room restaurant, maybe it could be called Southern "shabby chic." Everything on the very complete, but modestly sized menu is $10. I love that!  All kinds of deep south/Cajun specialties. I had the red rice and beans. 

Anyway, after driving by the riverwall murals and the kind of depressing downtown area, we headed for the battlefield, took in the Visitors' Center where there is a very helpful map of the battlefield with moving lights describing the movement of the regiments during the battles. Then we drove around the battlefield - still in heavy rain and increasing fog. 

The highpoint was the USS Cairo (pronounced kay-ro) Museum.  

Here is a view of it from under the arched entrance to the museum.

The USS Cairo was one of the ironclad ships used by the Union Navy in the Civil War. It was sunk near Vicksburg by a Confederate mine, and was resurrected from the muddy river bottom and partially restored about 100 years afterwards. In these pictures you'll see it under its huge tent. (Nice in the rain.) The surviving wood and metal parts have been reinforced and supported to suggest what the original looked like.

These two pictures show the iron sides of the ship. 

The inside of the museum has displays of what was recovered from inside the ship. Everything was in surprisingly good shape.  After taking that all in we headed back to the campground - still raining and getting dark early, as it does this time of year.

Our next stop will be New Orleans, for Thanksgiving and some exploring around. Really looking forward to that!