Big Easy, Bigger Fun

Thursday, January 30, 2014
New Orleans, Louisiana, United States
French Quarter RV Resort, New Orleans, LA
Jan 30 – Feb 2, 2014
Trip MileMarker: 2,377

Waking up to cold but sunny, we are more than ready to get on the road. The winter storm of the century had done its business well. Parts of Interstate 10 were being reopened this morning and the highway was packed with trucks who had been waiting out road closures. Fueling up at a truck stop, we had to wait a few moments to get to the pump. In the few minutes it took us to fill our tanks the incoming trucks had lined up onto the interstate exit road, waiting for fuel. Good timing for us.

New Orleans was our destination. With many business trips under my belt I had been to New Orleans numerous times but my exposure was limited to conference rooms, fancy restaurants, the convention center, a superbowl at the Superdrome and the mandatory walk down Bourbon Street. Plus we had not been back to New Orleans since Katrina did its little remodeling job on the city. Our intent this time was to spend a couple of nights with 1½ days to play pure tourist.

The chosen campground was the French Quarter RV Resort, located in downtown New Orleans, only a couple of blocks from the French Quarter area. Navigating city streets in our bus, while dragging a car behind you, is no fun but we made it easily. Several folks, mostly those who had not stayed at the RV resort, had warned us that the resort was located under a noisy interstate, was in a bad area of town and safety was a concern walking to and from the French Quarter. As it turned out the area wasn't the best but the RV park was 200 yards from the New Orleans Visitors Center with a major police station across the street. The park was adjacent to an elevated I-10 with noise not being a major factor. It was bounded by a high security fence with codes required to get in and out of the park. Mary and I made several trips after dark from the French Quarter without concern for our safety. With all that said, the RV resort was ideally located. We didn’t drive our car until the last day, using our feet or the Hop on – Hop off tourist bus to get around. 

Our first afternoon was spent getting to know the area, taking a long walk in the French Quarter, making our one and only trip down Bourbon Street and getting our palates initiated for New Orleans cooking by eating at the Le Bayou Oyster Bar. A walk back to the RV Resort after dark gave us no concerns.

Friday morning, waking up before most tourists, we got our dawn start with coffee and beignets at Cafe Dumond, established in 1829, in Jackson Square. During the day, most anytime during the week, Café Dumond is spilling out into the streets with people in line to order from the four items on their menu, coffee, milk, orange juice or beignets (a square French doughnut smothered in powdered sugar). In our early morning trip we one of the few early riser patrons, had a small table, and got our sugar fix for the day. As a note, the waiters at Café Dumond were mostly Asian descent. Apparently they worked as independent contractors with a process of taking the orders, filling the trays with the order and paying for the food from their pocket before they brought it to the customer who would then pay the server. Assuming the markup gave them an adequate margin, I kind of liked the system because it made the servers entrepreneurs taking the risk and reaping the reward of good service.

On our rambling walk through the Quarter returning to the RV resort, the early morning sun made for some good photographs (far and few between on this trip) and while taking photos of one of the homes, the owner came out to talk with us. Turns out he was a tourist guide and was giving a tour of the St. Louis Cemetery later in the morning and he gave us the information on how we might join him.

We did the tour of St. Louis Cemetery, the oldest cemetery in New Orleans and only 300 yards from our RV resort. Our tour guide, the homeowner we met, Naif Shahady, was excellent, giving us colorful insights into the history of New Orleans as the stories of the cemetery and those interned here were brought to life with his stories.   The cemetery, founded in 1789, consists of raised vaults of different many different shapes, usually as a final resting place for multiple people as family generations or a social society use the vault over and over. The cemetery remains active today. Notable graves consist of Madame Laveau the big momma of voodoo with her vault continuously defaced with the voodoo markings of XXX. Nicholas Cage, known to be a little weird, has purchased a site for his burial in the future and has built a large ugly gray pyramid as his vault. Lots of other notables in history and our tour group consisting of a total of 6 tourists was just right.

With Naif’s recommendation, we headed to Antoine’s for lunch. Founded in 1840, Antoine’s is the oldest family restaurant in the country. I have had business dinners in the restaurant but without an expense account or more money in my IRA it is unaffordable in the evening. We learned from Naif that Antoines had the tradition of a 3 course lunch for the price of the digits of the current year or in this case $20.14 with 25 cent martinis. Tuxedoed waiters, serving two choices of the same sized entrees you would receive at dinner provided value and atmosphere at a price we marked down as a deal. We surmised that those 25 cent martini’s would require a post lunch nap so we chose $4 ice tea. Excellent oysters a fantastic bisque, good entrees and a pecan carmel breadcake to die for.

With overfilled stomachs we sign up for the Hop on – Hop off bus. We took the full two hour circuit noting the places we wanted to return and planned our calendar for the guided walking tours included of the French Quarter and the Garden District all included in our Hop On fee. Bundled up on the top outdoor deck of the bus, we got a good cool view of the city. A short walk from the visitor center back to the motorhome, we worked out our 2 day extension at the office and we settled in for a welcome leg rest and good home cooking.

On Friday, our RV resort started filling up with more RVs and on Saturday morning I met our new next door neighbors.   A family from Frankfort, KY, a former KY state official, now a contractor, was there with their daughter and friends to cheer her on in the upcoming Sunday morning New Orleans marathon. Turns out the runner, Sarah, was a former part time employee at Stewart Home School in Frankfort and knew my brother Steve, who has resided there for over 45 years.   Small world and nice to meet a good family from Kentucky.

We started Saturday with a walking tour of the French Quarter. While we had browsed around the Quarter admiring the architecture and old buildings, the guide for our small group added a lot of color, provided good insight into some of the more interesting historical tidbits and pointed out homes and buildings we wouldn’t have noticed without his help. Brad Pitts home was undergoing renovation and Brad and Angelie were not around to invite us in for a tour.

Rushing to the Hop on bus, we made it to the Garden District for a quick lunch and another walking tour. Beautiful houses everywhere, undamaged by Katrina and this area seems to be the go to place for stars like John Goodman, Sandra Bullock and Archie Manning whose son was the losing quarterback in the superbowl the next day. From our walking tour, we hiked over to St. Charles Street to ride the trolley into Canal Street where we then hiked to Jackson Square and took the long way back through the outer edge of the French Quarter to our RV

Waking up Sunday we had very heavy fog. I had planned to drive through some of the outer wards to see the damage and recovery in process from Katrina. We took off with an intended stop again at Café Dumond for an early morning sugar fix. As we were enjoying our coffee and biegnets we were looking out on the foggy street and had a major uh oh. Police and marathon runners started to pass and we immediately knew our car would be locked into the parking space until the marathon was over. Since there were 14,000 runners and it took a couple of hours to even get this horde over the starting line we knew we were locked in for a long wait.

Changing plans on the fly, we walked 1½ miles to the National World War II Museum, crossing the marathon path three times and got to the museum just as they were opening. Turns out, that fate and a marathon dealt us a good choice. I can’t say enough good things about this relatively new museum. Entering impressive buildings we purchased our tickets including the 4D movie on WWII and a simulated submarine experience. Our first stop was at a desk manned by a veteran who had been among those who stormed the beaches at Normandy. A short conversation with him explaining some of his old war photos was a great start.

The museum does the work few history books could. It uses visuals and audios of people and events leading up to the war, highlighting the sacrifices and leadership involved and it marches you through the defining battles that shaped the outcome. The 4D movies narrated by Tom Hanks is a superb summary and was a good way to start our tour. The 4D includes all of the visuals of 3D but adds vibrating / shaking seats, cold air, a mist simulating rain and snow for the Normandy invasion. Well done. The submarine simulator wasn’t nearly as good but worth doing. The aircraft display has an old B29, P51 and several other notable aircraft suspended from the ceiling, but there are other aircraft museums that would exceed their display. Overall, our lack of knowledge about this museum made it a most pleasant surprise and we consider it a "do not miss event" for a visit to New Orleans.

Finishing up at the museum we did our hike back to our marathon incarcerated car, financed our all day parking fee and drove to the outer wards down river from downtown New Orleans. Obviously the bad damage was cleaned up long ago but there are still many abandoned houses and vacant lots with neighborhoods likely never to recover to their original state. Sad but the reality of nature and building houses below sea level with the hope that levees and pumps will keep you dry will probably see other disasters in the future.

With a little grocery shopping in the Garden District, we were back in the RV preparing our plans to head west to Texas the next day. New Orleans has been a good stop for us. Perhaps acceptable weather, even though a little cool that has been so rare during this vacation but most importantly, our view of New Orleans without the lens of Bourbon Street showed us that this is a great city that hasn’t been killed by Katrina and is a historical asset that is well worth the time.

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