Loving’ Louisiana!
Today was marked by DDDD: Damned Demented-Demon-Dolly: We readied ourselves to leave Texas and head into Louisiana this morning. All went as usual with our preparations to exit our campground. Mike got all the external jobs done, while I cleaned, tidied up and secured the interior. All set to go the last thing we do is hitch up the “towed”. Nothing new or unusual but this morning we struggled to get the Prius on the dolly and the dolly to square up with the MoHo and the straps to stay tight around the towed’s front tires. Let’s just say after 5 full re-hitches, a few tense moments as Mike drove the MoHo around an empty parking lot; and more expletives’ than we normally utter; we finally got the darn thing tied down and back on the road (about 2 hours of fun and games). Oh yes we really are having FUN! Luckily we had a relatively short drive, about 125 miles to Broussard, LA, just short of Avery Island.
Tuesday morning we got on the road and drove down to McIlheny Family’s Tabasco Pepper Sauce Factory on Avery Island. It was a brief tour with a short video and a quick walk along the bottling portion of the factory. We visited the store and bought some Tabasco “stuff” for the pepper guy in our family, and were off to the “BIG EASY”. We found a simple RV park just about 5 miles from the French Quarter. Dinner was at the Bourbon House – great oysters on the half shell, and the most delicious barbecued shrimp!! While we were in eating dinner the big storm that the weather forecasters’’ had predicted HIT!! RAIN, RAIN, And RAIN (and a lot of thunder and lightning too) – we took a taxi back the 4 blocks to the parking lot where we had left our car. Luckily, Maggie, the GPS was able to guide us back to our camp site through the rain, cuz we weren’t seeing much other than the road right in front of us.
Laisses les bons temps roule --- Creole for“Let the good times roll” We love New Orleans, so much fun, so much to see, and so much to do. On our itinerary was the Rum Distillery – we found the Old New Orleans Rum Company. The tour was interesting and the tastings were good. You could see 10 feet up on the wall where Katrina’s water had come into the warehouse; they were shut down for 14 months, but only lost about 15 percent of their rum. Mardi Gras World was our next stop. This was a huge warehouse that houses 80 percent of the floats and props that are used during the 18 day celebration in Crescent City. The floats are parked for the year and restored as requested by the Krewes (clubs of folks that support their floats, costumes, and throws by their membership dues and additional contributions). After the tour we were free to wonder around the floats, and props, seeing up close what the parade goers saw just a few weeks ago. Do think it might be a blast to stay downtown in a hotel and view the “party” just once.
Powdered sugar everywhere – fingers, mouth, face, and all over the table too!! That describes our beignet experience at the Café du Monde. We made our way to the very very, busy café and enjoyed a breakfast of café’ au lait and some yummy French doughnuts covered with the fluffy white stuff, good thing we split an order, I think I could have done a lot more damage. A great New Orleans landmark! The Natchez steam powered paddlewheel Riverboat was on our mid -day assignment. We enjoyed a 3 hour cruise on the might Mississippi River. It was bit chilly, but we remained outside on the deck enjoying sights along the way. This is an amazing river (3rd largest in the world, after the Amazon and Nile) and the biggest port tonnage wise anywhere. We could see where the levees had failed and how low the neighborhoods sit below the river and why Katrina did the horrible damage she did. Back in port we had lunch of a dozen oysters at the famous Acme Oyster House where we had fun to sitting at the bar, with Don our waiter, who shucked our bi-valves right in front of us. Hush Puppies, Cajun bloody mary and a local beer completed our meal. Doesn’t get much better than this.
We enjoyed our last day having an appetizer at the Musical Legends Park listening to a great jazz trio. There is so much music to be heard, one can hardly go a block without hearing a soloist or small combo playing.
This was followed by one more visit to the Bourbon House, an order of oysters and our favorite 4 Roses Bourbon. Our next experience was a Ghost and Spirit Walk, a bit disappointing, not the walk we had thought we might have; New Orleans is supposed to be one of the most haunted cities in the world, no ghosts, no spirits and really not much of anything other than a bit of history of the French Quarter. The tour guide was a bit odd; we think we were just unlucky on this one. Oh well, one has those experiences too. We finished the night up with a bit of nibble at a restaurant on Canal Street, we sat up on the second floor balcony and watched folks strolling by, the weather was pleasant and company great! New Orleans was a wonderful stop, love to come back some time in the future and maybe stay right in the French Quarter, take in more of the great food, entertainment, culture and maybe even the Mardi Gras or one of the many music/art festivals.