New Orleans! With no family commitments over Christmas, and some vacation time to burn, we were looking to take a short trip somewhere, preferably someplace warmer than Atlanta. We looked at our list of places we wanted to go, and decided that this would finally be the time we go see New Orleans for the first time.
So on the Saturday before Christmas we got into the car and drove 8 hours straight to NOLA. We arrived at around 6pm, checked into our quirky hotel on the eastern edge of the French Quarter (FQ) hotel, parked the car and marched off into the FQ for dinner and initial look around.
First stop: Coop's Place for dinner, a recommended joint on Decatur Street, which is the main riverfront drag of the FQ. Oh my god, thanks Scott and Terra for that tip, I want to go there again. And again. I had some jambalaya with rabbit in it (tasted like chicken, of course). It was DAMN good and I think I will have that smell of Coop's with me forever.Great food and drinks, relaxed bar ambiance, and That Smell. Everytime we walked by for the next 3 days and sniffed the air I wanted to steer right back into that place.
Next door to Coop's was a little bar called "Perestroika at Pravda" which had virtually nobody in it but looked very unique. A boxy and well-lit space, it had a selection of old ornate furnishing that reminded me of the simple local bars you find in Eastern Europe, as was probably the intent. Providing the hipster angle were the Russian slogans painted on the walls and the Soviet era posters. Apparently it has just changed ownership so it's likely to change a bit over the coming months. We had a few beers, discussed our plans for the next day and head back out into the streets.
To Bourbon Street, which I suppose you need to see at least once, if only to know that you never need to see it again. By the luck of being a Saturday night, I suppose, we were treated to a scene of debauchery that I imagine you would more likely see in February and Mardi Gras. Thousands of people wandering the streets (and overhead on the porches), all with drinks, hollering and whatnot. I eventually noticed that many (if not most) of them had red clothing, and eventually I figured out that these fine human specimens all belonged to the clan of the Ragin' Cajuns, aka fans of the sporting teams of the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. Later I learned that the 2012 edition of the New Orleans Bowl had occurred earlier in the day, with the Cajuns victorious, so there you go.
Back at the hotel, we chatted with the night clerk and bonded with his dog Oyster.
Sunday! Sharon grabbed some breakfast items
from the awesome little bakery across the street, which apparently draws people from far and wide, but which was literally 20 feet from our bed!
We then walked through the FQ to meet up for our prearranged walking tour of the St. Louis #1 cemetery, presented by the Save Our Cemeteries organization. Our tour group turned out to consist of just us and another couple -- the other couple being the most adorably pathetic pair of young goths you'd ever seen. They didn't say much, just kind of slinking around and occasionally eking out a question, so we had the run of the tour guide. Who was a great sources of stories and had a fantastic command of New Orleans history. Well, so say I, who knew nothing about NOLA two weeks ago ...
Anyway, the above-ground burial method involves entombing up to two people, and then when the next person comes along, they just empty out the casket into the hole ("caveau") below the tomb. So there can be dozens of people in a given tomb, and there's always room for more, hooray! Apparently the Big Attraction in this cemetery is the (reputed) tomb of Marie Laveau, and people who make the pilgrimage to the site are supposed to do a little spin three times and then mark XXX on her tomb, and leave something at the site. So, lots of XXX graffiti and a pile of crap on the ground. And I mean crap -- lip balm, scrunchies, matchbooks. Dude.
After the cemetery tour, upon the recommendation of the tour guide we stopped for lunch at the Gumbo Shop, a restaurant in the center of the FQ that offered up the usual NOLA staples. I had a roast beef Po Boy that was delicious. The place was overrun with tourists (including two separate groups, bus tour types) so I guess it was less "cozy hole in the wall" and more "rote destination for the tourists" but I guess it's to be expected.
After a break back at the hotel, we retreived the car and hit the road. The original plan had been to intercept the "Women Of Class" parade, which would give us at least a sampling of the famously raucous New Orleans parades. Alas, we learned during our hotel break that it had been cancelled. So, we simply drove around on that side of town a little bit (Garden district), working our way away from the river and towards the lake and eventually the City Park area. There we explored the very classy New Orleans Museum Of Art and less impressive sculpture garden (oh boy, George Rodrigue again).
We had a little over an hour to kill until the next thing, so we got in the car and meandered through the northern reaches of the park (larger than NYC's Central Park) and stumbled across a dog park! Why YES, I think we CAN kill some time in a dog park! Much hilarity ensued (including a German shepherd with a water fountain addiction) but eventually darkness began to fall.
We hit the road again, because I wanted to find a certain spot. Due to my weird geographic memory (from news and maps), I pretty much knew exactly where one of the three major levee breaches had occurred in the Katrina aftermath. We found the location pretty quickly (Sharon spotted the historical marker as we crept past it in the twilight) and marveled at how the houses had generally all been repaired. I say "generally" because it looked like cheap construction, and the streets themselves might have well been in Baghdad, being pretty busted up, heaving all over the place like a moonscape.
It was nearly 6pm and time to head back to the park for the Celebration In The Oaks festival in the park. Turned out to be more of a kiddie thing, and the lines to get in were astonishing. I thought it would be kind of spread throughout the park, but it was actually inside the fenced/walled off botanical garden. Uh uh, no way, we bailed.
On to the Rock N' Bowl! Which is a large bowling hall with a stage and a dancefloor, with a zydeco dance night on Thursday nights that we'd heard was pretty fun, but this was a Sunday night. The band was a bunch of white guys (and one very white girl) knocking out soul/funk covers, and not really in a good way. It made for good people-watching though, and we knocked back a few drinks and ducked outta there. Oh right, the drinks. I went up to the bar and asked the bartender girl politely, "do you know how to make an Old Fashioned"? "Not very well", she lamented. Beer it is! Sharon ordered the one drink she remembered from college that she figured any idiot knew how to make -- a Tequila Sunrise. Blecch.
Monday! Breakfast from the bakery again, and then back on the streets. Today we'd be mostly hoofing it around the FQ, starting with the Ursuline Convent which was just across the street. Sadly, closed on this Christmas Eve despite our best planning efforts. We'd get to it later.
So we made our way over the levee to the riverfront to get a look at the might Mississippi, which actually isn't so mighty right about now. The drought in the Midwest (yay climate change and disrupted jet streams!) has dropped the river's water levels so low, along its entire length, that it's close to being unnavigable by the barge traffic.
(This is a panorama shot that isn't really formatting correctly here. Click to open and then click to go full screen. It's not my best work and obviously the lighting was poor.)
Our walk along the river led us to the Aquarium area and the Insectarium just beyond it. But -lo- on the way, what do we find? A casino! We ducked into the Harrah's and it's like we were instantly transported to Las Vegas, with the steady chiming of slot machines, old ladies parked in front of them, tired old staffers and the everpresent hint of stale cigarette smoke. We did a 5 minute lap and got spat out the other side of the building, across from the Insectarium.
The Insectarium was an important destination for us -- a museum dedicated to insects. While kid-friendly,
it's well done enough to engage adults, and at the very end we got rewarded with a butterfly garden. Which wasn't as incredible as the one at Callaway Gardens, but we'll take it.
From there, we hoofed it about 10 blocks to the west side of the business district and the Ogden Musuem of Southern Art. One of the major modern art museums of NOLA, the Ogden was shrewdly open on a Monday when most other museums were closed, and was busy with patrons perusing its several floors of exhibitions. From the Tav Falco photography at the rooftop level, to the bewildering installations at the bottom, this was a great place to spend some time and fully check out.
Back to the hotel for a little break, and then back out ...
We wandered from our hotel over to Frenchmen Street, known for lots of music clubs but a bit subdued on this Christmas Eve. We did have some well-prepared drinks and a snack at an upscale bar, and then stepped into the tiny Spotted Cat Music Club to watch a perfectly serviceable jazz combo accompanied by a couple beers expertly served by a very hard-working and non-nonsense bartender. At the combo's set break we stepped out and then down the street stepped into another club (The Maison, I think) and another music performance. This was a much bigger venue and a whole lot more raucous, so we repaired to the back with our beers and soaked it in from afar. Eventually we noticed that a masseuse had a chair and clients going back there, which was a little odd, but she even got a shout out from the band at one point so I guess it was their thing.
Around 11pm it was time to move on, because we wanted to attend the Christmas Midnight Mass at the St. Louis Cathedral. Sharon had never been to one and perhaps didn't know what she was getting into. 90 minutes later we finally escaped. It was really beautiful in there though.
Tuesday! Christmas Day and Sharon's birthday, so we would definitely try to take it slow today, at least at first. We hung out in our hotel room all morning, enjoying some gift-giving, breakfast across the street (open!) and general lazying around. Our hotel for the trip was the Villa Convento, on the eastern edge of the FQ and just across from the old Ursuline Convent. According to the tour guides of the dozens of passing horse-drawn tours outside our window, "...some people say this hotel is the famous House of the Rising Sun." (It's not.) Seriously, every horse-drawn carriage that went by: "and on the left you will see the 'House Of The Rising Sun', from that song by Eric Burdon and the Animals". Every 10 minutes, thus ensuring that that damn song never left our heads. Some of the guides were more convinced/convincing than others.
Eventually we got the car and hit the road to go see some of the outer neighborhoods of NOLA. We drove around the Garden District, got lunch, wandered around the Lafayette Cemetery No. 1, and avoided the celebrity residences that supposedly pepper the Garden District.
For Christmas dinner we had a proper reservation at a nice place just west of the French Quarter called Luke. They were serving a Reveillon dinner, which is a prix fixe dinner that is a Christmas tradition in NOLA, featuring regional specialties like turtle soup.
Afterwards we headed Uptown to the Maple Leaf Bar where the Rebirth Brass Band was holding their weekly late night session. We arrived at this little joint packed to the gills with frat boys and girls and just as the band was about to go on. Their sound guy must have damaged hearing because it was painfully loud (note: Chris has been to hundreds of loud shows, this was bad) and we left after a short while. Down the street was a tiny dive bar called Snake and Jakes, where we had a couple more beers and eventually noticed two dogs wandering around because of their wagging tails hitting us in the legs.
Crazy Cajun, Ragin' Cajun, Huge Ass Beers, wine smoothies, shop after shop selling t-shirts with various ass references.
Ritzy stores on Royal Street, including one that apparently specialized in bawdy corkscrews.French Market on Decatur Street, formerly a local market for actual produce and other wares, but now basically a touristy flea market. Still worth a stroll.
Checked out three EV charging stations for the national databases. Naturally.
Wednesday! Time to leave, but we wanted to check out a few things on our way out, destinations that had been closed Monday and Tuesday.
First up was the Ursuline Convent, the oldest building in the entire freaking Mississippi Valley and a nice museum to the early 1700s history of NOLA. Next was The Cabildo, the main state museum next to the cathedral on Jackson Square. This place was huge and somewhat of a labyrinth but quite good.
Now it was finally time to leave town. But wait! There's more! On our way out we detoured through the lower Ninth Ward, not so much to see the still-extant signs of devastation (high water marks on abandoned houses, the sad and abandoned Six Flags park) but rather to do a drive-by of the Michoud Assembly Facility. This colossal NASA facility was responsible, for over thirty years, for building the External Tank (ET) part of the Space Shuttle system. Unlike the Orbiter and the Solid Rocket Boosters, the ET was the one part that wasn't recovered and reused, so they had to build a new one for each launch. With the end of the shuttle program the factory was mostly shut down, but they are currently surviving on the scraps of the new rocket program that NASA is developing (first Constellation, now SLS).
Now leaving the NOLA area completely, our plan had been to visit NASA's Stennis Space Center, the facility in southern Mississippi where they do most of their rocket engine testing. It's not as elaborate as Kennedy Space Center, but they do have a visitors center and hourly bus tours of the rocket testing grounds proper. Sadly, we had squandered too much time with the day's earlier destinations and didn't make it in time for the last bus tour or even to get into the visitors center. Oh well, next time.
Mobile, Alabama. Had a drink at the "Skyview Lounge" at the top of our hotel, a Holiday Inn in the form of a 14-story circular tower. The bar did not rotate so we just got up and changed seats a few times, which was made asier by the fact that we were virtually the only people there, save for a few traveling salesman types hanging out at the bar proper.
On our way out of Mobile the next morning, we detoured through Foley AL in order to check out a lonely EV charging station; it had actually been the very first public station in Alabama about a year ago and so I went in and chatted up the business owner, also an EV driver of course. The detour extended to Gulf Shores AL so we could at least get a brief look at the Gulf of Mexico that we'd spent the last five days so close to. On the way out we got some pretty great barbeque at Hog Wild BBQ, a roadside joint that happened to be in the right place at the right time. They advertised having the "Best Butts On Beach" (pig butts, I guess) and the lady behind the counter had the most horrible tan I've ever seen in person ("seen" inasmuch as I had to turn away every time I saw her). A handwritten note on the door warned they were cash-only due to broken credit card machine ("we should get that fixed") but we neglected to notice and so after our meal I had to go drive around and find an ATM. My own damn fault for not having cash on me, I guess.
Then the long drive home, and normalcy.