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The Big Easy

 

From Waveland, we turned west again and got caught in a just-slowly-moving traffic jam from the outskirts of town to the Louisiana border. We figured it was a combination of people returning from Thanksgiving journeys and folks heading to the Saints game in New Orleans. We stopped in Sliddel, a town north of New Orleans, and checked into a motel to consider our next move. They had a laundry room so that worked out well.

We decided to try an RV park in New Orleans, but not in the city proper. From Sliddel, it was only about a 35-minute trip down I-10, where we got off on a very industrial looking road. We were definitely rethinking our decision, but when we got to the New Orleans RV Resort & Marina, it looked fine and we signed up for three nights. It's on the Industrial Canal, which really isn't too industrial any more.

The campground was not as dangerous
as this sign might make you think

Mike did a grand job backing the camping trailer into our site—only the second time he’s done that, we have been depending on pull-through sites until now. We got everything hooked up, then we had a project to undertake: We wanted to make insulating window covers out of a roll of foil-clad bubble wrap we’d bought at a Lowe’s.

We spent part of the afternoon cutting the insulation to size and binding it with masking tape, then adding Velcro so we could attach it around the three windows in the camper. We did a good job, if I do say so myself, but then we had to test them. They definitely kept us warm on a chilly night, but didn’t entirely keep condensation from forming on the windows and the bottom of the camper’s cushions when we run the heater, so we are continuing to experiment with keeping a window and the vent open. We want to stay warm but avoid black mold, a delicate balance, it seems.

Our insulating window covers with fashionable blue binding

We signed up for a tour of New Orleans commencing at the RV park, so we were up earlier than usual the next morning to get ready. We met our tour guide, Adam, and our fellow tourists, Dave and June, up in front of the office and were on our way mid-morning. To say Adam was a great tour guide is an understatement. He really knows his stuff. 


Adam, our tour guide for a grand tour of New Orleans

We learned about the levees, and how they failed during Katrina (Adam’s house was under 10 feet of water from one of the breaks); we saw the new flood gates and pump systems; we had an extensive tour of City Park, which is beautiful and vast and filled with live oak trees, many of which were planted after Katrina. We also took a short hike to see a map of New Orleans on a circular cement pad in the middle of the woods that Adam found by accident one day and shows to any of his tours that are willing to hike back to see it. I can’t find anything about it anywhere on the Internet, it is a cool secret site.


Part of a map of New Orleans hidden back in the woods in City Park

We stopped for beignets at Café du Monde’s cool old pavilion in the park, where a crow tried unsuccessfully to convince us to share. We also saw a flock of ibises, an interesting Storyland feature for kids in the middle of the park, and then we moved on to other parts of the city on our tour.


Enjoying beignets with Dave and June during our tour

We passed the Superdome, which is hosting the Super Bowl this year—right before Mardi Gras, so definitely glad we came in December, not February. Then, we had a unique tour of one of the city’s above ground cemeteries, with lots of historical facts about who was buried there and how the cenotaphs and crypts are built (some very ghoulish). Adam knows his city well, and we wandered around as he told us the cost of the above-ground crypts (expensive!), why the perform burials that way (the water table is less than the 6 feet deep needed to dig a grave), and who was buried where, including the author Anne Rice, the man who started Popeye's restaurants, and the owner of the New Orleans Saints.

One of the cemeteries with above-ground crypts
in New Orleans cemeteries

Highlights of our drive through the Garden District (which is on higher ground than most of New Orleans and so considered a good place to live, obviously) included the house where Jefferson Davis lived and died, the house Anne Rice bought after her vampire books became hits, and the house where John Goodman still lives, as well as the Walgreens where Adam used to be the manager. Then on to the French Quarter, with a few facts about the place where the Louisiana Purchase was signed, Jackson Square, and St. Louis Cathedral, the oldest continually operating Catholic Church in America, or so they say. At that point Adam dropped us off to investigate the French Quarter on our own, and we started with dinner.

Frenchmen Street in the French Quarter

Our fellow tour folks, who were from the St. Louis area, were up for a suggestion from Adam, Coops on Decatur Street. We had some good food, then decided to head to Frenchmen’s Street, which Adam said had lots of music without the attitude of Bourbon Street. We randomly chose a bar called the Spotted Cat that I remembered hearing about on WWOZ’s live music listings, and we walked in. Bars all had a one drink minimum posted, so I went up to the bar to get drinks, and by the time I got them the band had stopped playing.

Dang, I thought, and asked the clarinet player why they stopped. He said, offhandedly, “We just fired the bass player.” Having heard from Mike’s sister Marianne a few days ago that her stepson was a bass player in New Orleans, I jokingly asked if their bassist was named Dylan. “Um—yeah?” was the response. “Dylan James?” At that point, the clarinetist called over to the bass player, “Dylan, I think you’ve been served!”

A coincidental encounter with Mike's sister's
husband's son Dylan at the Spotted Cat!

And yes, we randomly ran into who I guess is our step-nephew in a bar in the French Quarter. He wasn’t really fired, he had another gig up the street, so we followed him up there and listened to some good jazz by the Silver Lining Serenaders until it was time to walk back up to the French Market to meet Adam for our ride home to the campground.

It may have been the busiest day we’ve had since we had since we were on Martha’s Vineyard, but it was a lot of fun, and if you are ever in New Orleans, I definitely recommend Adam as a tour guide—only thing is, you will have to stay at the Marina & Resort to book his tour.

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