9 November 2014
Once again up late, I’m happy to get off the 5AM wake-up times. We both used the marina showers for a change. This is a pretty random event for us, the showers on shore need to be an order above what we have on the boat for us to use them. Lots of hot water in a clean big space is the criteria. We’ve only done a few, our gold standard is Richmond’s Marina, very few places make it past that level.
Anyway, we were up, clean, dressed and ready to roll out 8:30AM. Three hours later than our normal 5:30AM departure times we are becoming Looper Slackers. McD’s for a quick breafast and then the long trek to NOLA.
Susan plans these trips with lots of effort. One of the best parts has been we go to places like Milwaukee, I say want to do “Z,Q,P” and she pulls together food, events and all the places to go see. She is the master of finding things.
The day before we had passed a cotton field. The plants were a lot shorter than I had though. Actually my first thought had been “Snow?!?”. Today we saw another field and this one had a cotton picker and two bales of cotton. When I thought bales, I was thinking hay bales about 2′x2′x4′. These things were huge, 8′ diameter cylinders about 12′ long. They were wrapped plastic to keep the cotton balls inside.
Once we got onto Interstate 10 I started to notice that there was lots of white trash along the side of the road. Then white stuff on the highway. There was clumps of it and it was pretty clear that someone in front of us was driving a load of cotton and there was a hole in the bag. Sure enough in about 4 miles we came to the truck, with a pretty decent spray of cotton coming off the top. We both stuck our hands out the window to see if we could snag a handful without success. When we passed the truck Susan got some shots of it for the blog.
We kept driving towards Mobile and were soon going across Mobile Bay. It was pretty nice, it was calm and very pretty. We passed across the causeway and got a glimpse of the USS Alabama, a place to see we have time on the way home. We went under the water via a tunnel, that explained why we only saw one bridge on our way through last week.
Ride was mostly on Interstate 10. I stopped at the rest area at the Mississippi boarder for a quick walk. We picked up info about a gator tour to visit and a brewery to check out on the way home.
Drive into downtown was good. The Saints football team was in town. Spazzed the time, game started at noon, I was thinking 1 PM (I continue to be time zone challenged.) Didn’t run into a lot of traffic, unlike Eagles games. We could not check into the hotel until 4PM, so being a little late would not be an issues. Due to my fault with the GPS we came through a tough part of town. Which turned out to become a really nice section of town later on.
1 mile later we were at our hotel. We dumped out of the car and headed out walking to the Garden District. This is a 6*16 block area of huge homes with amazing gardens and plantings. These are places I could afford to buy and then go bankrupt with the cost of landscaping year after year.
Lunch was at Parasol’s. It’s a dive bar (our quest for dive bars contines) and has a place to eat upstairs. We came in mid-game so it was deadly loud in the bar, fans in Black and Gold 5 deep at the bar rail. We met Carl, the owners daughter upstairs. He gave Susan the lay of the land and soon had beer, Poor Boy’s and gravy fries that made us think of Canada. Susan’s Oyster Poor Boy looked great. I had the roast beef, it came on crispy french bread.
From Parasol’s we wandered up the streets looking at all the garden homes and how amazing they were. Most are two or more stories, huge porches, fancy fretwork along the eaves, etc. The yards were all a match with careful plantings and flowers everywhere.
In our path to get to our next destination was “Commander’s” restaurant. A great place, above our current dress code level of pants and boating shirts. But they passed us through the kitchen to the bar. Susan had a Pyms Cup, I had a beer. Both were good and we got to watch the action in the kitchen. Even though it was 2PM, the kitchen was pretty busy.
We walked across the street to Lafayette Cemetery No. 1. This is the oldest cemetery, it was built in 1836. It’s been in a number of movies across the years. The graves are all above ground tombs with multiple bodies from a family in each one. There are also some special groupings like fire fighters.
It was interesting to walk through and see the weathered limestone. Some of them are very ornate, some are very plain. It’s still in active use, I saw one marker that was dated 2013. We skirted around tours that were pitching Vampire tours for the evening. We decided to pass on them.
At Parasol’s we had gotten the recommendation to get on the St. Charles trolly and ride it out to the end of town. We did that and rode past more fabulous homes, tons of restaurants, LaSalle University and Tulane. The trip out took about 30 minutes. The car we were on was full, so it’s a popular item for lots of tourists. At $3 each it is also a good value.
At the end of the line we switched sides on the cars and pushed the seat-backs so we were facing the forward. The ride back took a little longer since people were coming out of the bars. Not happy people, since the Saints lost in overtime. Lots of stops.
More homes and more restaurants on the way back. Susan took lots and lots of pictures.
We got back to our hotel (Prytania Oaks) and got keys. We are in a refurbished townhouse that has been converted to rooms. We are in a front downstairs room that would have been the parlor in the original layout. We have a fireplace, but it’s been bricked up. We have windows on two sides, so its light and airy. Susan said it was about $75 cheaper than other places, it is one of her super finds she comes up with.
We flopped on the bed and watched TV and did emails.
For dinner we went to the Blind Pelican, it’s claim was NOLA food and 33 kinds of beer. The beers were OK, I had two different kinds I hadn’t had before. I ordered the roasted oysters. They are done on the ½ shell with hard Parmesan cheese then put on a grill to heat them. I like them that way. Susan being more of a hard core person picked the cheese off. I had fried green tomato stack with shrimp and a pretty good remoulade sauce. Susan’s pizza was a mess, it was ½ cooked. We think the waitress knew it since she ducked us the rest of dinner.
Back at our room I got caught up on blog posts and Susan got to watch “The Walking Dead” on a real TV. She’s been suffering through watching on crappy internet connections, so having a big screen TV and a smooth playback made her happy.
On Monday we will head into the French Quarter to see the sights. We are meeting the crew of Mara Beel for dinner and to listen to some music.