City to Swamp

Sunday, 31 March (Part I)
Aviation arbor Famcamp — NAS JRB New Orleans — Belle Chasse, Louisiana
Temps: Lo 58F / Hi 80F (14C / 27C)

It’s raining; it’s pouring.  But it doesn’t really matter; we’re done for the day.  Besides, this was a day at home and we had no sightseeing plans to be rained out.  Işıl checked out of her hotel this morning, and spent the day with us here before Mui took her to the airport for her return flight to Turkey (via Chicago).  The storms moving through the area held off long enough for her plane to take off from NOLA; she’s already in the air on the next leg of her journey home.

We’ll be heading out tomorrow.  So, Mui spent the afternoon working on pre-departure chores.  We’re all set to leave the big city for a quiet state park in Mississippi.  But before we get there, a post to wrap up our visit to NOLA.

Friday, 29 March

This was our day to do the walking tour of the Garden District, a NOLA neighborhood that is best known for well-preserved mansions built by the wealthy in the period between 1832-1900.  Initially developed as a series of plantations, the land was later parceled off and sold.  From these parcels the original neighborhood was born with two large residential lots to a block.

Picking up Işıl from her hotel, we hopped on the St Charles Streetcar for the ride to the bottom end of the district.  Just past Lee Circle, our car blew a fuse, showering sparks everywhere.  After a short delay that brought streetcar traffic in either direction to a standstill, we boarded another car and completed our ride.

Starting our walk at Lafayette Cemetery, we continued from there to each of the 23 houses on the map, reading the brief descriptions included in the brochure.  Beautiful homes — from Italianate and Greek Revival mansions with 20+ rooms, to NOLA’s typical shotgun row houses; and Victorians with gingerbread trim.  What I liked the most was the “iron lace” decorating the balconies of many of the houses.

Lafayette Cemetery — laid out in 1833 by the original residents of the Garden District.  Within its
first 20 years, the cemetery was almost filled with those who succumbed to yellow fever.

I’ll share a few photos from some of the houses that charmed me.  If you’d like to see more and read the captions, visit my online gallery by clicking this link for the Garden District photo series.

2627 Coliseum Street: The gingerbread trim and elaborate iron work flatter this beautiful mansion, which is said to be owned by Sandra Bullock.

1331 Third Street: Decorated in iron lace, this home was built in 1850 for a prominent cotton merchant who was president of the Cotton Exchange and also served as the NOLA postmaster.

1331 Third Street – backyard of the home in the above photos.

2523 Prytania Street: Our Mother of Perpetual Help was once an active Catholic chapel.
Previous owners include Anne Rice (used it as a setting for her novel, Violin) and Nicholas Cage.

During our stroll through the Garden District, we took a break to have lunch.  We ended up at Gott Gourmet, where Işıl satisfied her craving for an American hot dog, and Mui and I enjoyed casual fare.  Mui ordered a muffaletta, a traditional New Orleans sandwich that originated amongst the immigrant Italian population of the city; and I had a shrimp BLT wrap.  The food was quite tasty; and our sidewalk table provided a spot from which to people-watch while we ate our lunch.

Muffaletta, Shrimp BLT Wrap, and Original Chicago Style Hot Dog.
[the two photos on the right are courtesy of Gott Gourmet’s website]

Though Gott Gourmet had something to satisfy each of us, it did not have dessert.  No problem.  I had spied a “sweet boutique” called Sucré across the street and already had plans to check it out.  It was a difficult decision, but we passed on the gelato and treated ourselves to tempting miniature cakes instead.

My Xocolat Sucré (far right) and Mui’s Tiffany (top left) were served on the same plate;
Işıl’s petit strawberry was plated separately.

With a stroll along the Riverwalk in the French Quarter next on our agenda, after dessert we headed to the Washington Street stop to catch the next streetcar.  The stop in the direction of Canal Street was crowded, so we took a car heading in the opposite direction for a few stops before getting off and boarding a car heading in the right direction.  The ride was crowded and noisy, and drained what little energy we had left.  By the time we arrived at Canal Street, we were all ready to call it quits.  Dropping off Işıl at her hotel, we walked to the parking lot where we had left the car and returned home to recharge our batteries.

Saturday, 30 March

A beautiful day of sunshine and blue skies greeted us for our last day of sightseeing. 

To show Işıl a different side of Louisiana, we started off with a boat tour of the Honey Island Swamp with Pearl River Eco-Tours, which we chose based on reviews on Trip Advisor, and the fact that this operator offers a small skiff experience instead of a noisy airboat ride.

Along the Canal near the launch site are abandoned boats like this one.                  
They landed here from 30 miles (48 km) away during Hurricane Katrina in 2005.             

As luck would have it, our tour was the first full one of the season, and we had 20 other people in our group.  A nice enough tour, but I was disappointed when the captain didn’t stop at some of the few wildlife sightings we had — a lone great blue heron, a Kingfisher that was posing nicely on a branch, and turtles sunning themselves on the logs.  On the plus side, Captain John did point out two pairs of nesting yellow-crowned night herons in the bayou, and we did see several young alligators in a canal not far from our launch site.  He also talked extensively about the eco-system through which he was taking us, and the people who choose to make their homes on the banks of bayous.  In the end, it was worth the $23/person price for the tour.

Again, I’m sharing a few photos and a video, but you can click this link to see more in the series of photos I posted online.

The captain estimated this gator to be about 5 feet (1.5 m) long; hence about five years old.

This pair of youngsters sunning themselves on the banks of the canal gave us our best sighting.

The Great Blue Heron was a drive-by sighting as the boat moved into one of the bayous.

A bayou is a slow-moving river.  As we traveled further into the swamp on one of the bayous …

… we learned that bald cypress trees hold onto their dry leaves until new buds
push them off the branches in the spring; and we saw a lot of bald cypress
knees peeking out of the shallow bayou.  Also …

… sightings of water moccasins like this one made me happy that our boat was covered.  And we …

… caught a glimpse of Heckle and Jeckle, a pair of nesting blue-crowned night herons,
who did not cooperate for a photo op.

I’ll wrap up our tour with a short ride through Honey Island Swamp.

26-second boat ride in the swamp.

Our plans included lunch at Café du Bon Temps, which describes itself as serving Cajun/Creole dishes from the Louisiana kitchen.  Maybe it does … but it was closed.  So, we postponed lunch until our return to NOLA and drove into Slidell to check out Bead Town.  That deserves its own post.  Moving along …

Back in NOLA, we parked the car and walked to the French Quarter for a lunch of red beans and rice at Café Maspero.  With a cruise ship in town on an already busy Saturday before Easter, there was a line to get in, but the wait wasn’t too bad.  Since Işıl had expressed an interest in having beignets after lunch, we ordered the appetizer portion of this Creole dish, which is traditionally served on Mondays.  Why?  Because Mondays were washday and this dish could simmer on the stove all day while the women were busy scrubbing clothes.

For beignets, we decided to go to Café Beignet, which is located inside the Musical Legends Park on Bourbon Street.  A three-piece jazz band provided entertainment as we enjoyed our hot beignets and beverages with less hub-bub than what we would have experienced at Café du Monde.

(You can tell I was drained from the bustling French Quarter — I didn’t take photos at either Café Maspero or Café Beignet, and had to resort to screen captures from their websites.)

Our return home ended up being a bit of an adventure.  After picking up the car, we headed out of the city as usual, only to find the traffic at our exit backed up considerably.  So, we drove back into the city and made our way to the ferry terminal at the bottom of Canal Street.  A short ride across the Mississippi put us back on the right track and soon we were home to enjoy a quiet evening.

Catching Up on New Orleans

Wednesday, 27 March
Aviation arbor Famcamp — NAS JRB New Orleans — Belle Chasse, Louisiana
Temps: Lo 44F / Hi 63F (7C / 17C)

I’m no dummy!

Much as I would like to do my usual “journal” posts for the blog, it hasn’t taken me long to conclude that’s not going to be possible while we’re in NOLA.  Even with taking several days off from sightseeing, I’m not going to be able to catch up before we start our next round of sightseeing ... unless I do quick summaries for the days past.  Mind you; quick doesn’t necessarily mean short!

So be it!  I can’t stress over blogging or it will no longer be fun.  And if it’s not fun, what’s the point of writing a blog?

This trip to NOLA has turned into an “overview” trip anyway, and I’ll have another opportunity sometime during our travels for a more in-depth visit over a much longer period of time.  Now that makes me feel much better ;-)

Mui’s out with his sister, who joined us on Monday.  They’re out shopping before Işıl’s presentation at the Sheraton this evening.  Retail therapy is not my thing, so I’m enjoying a quiet day at home today.

My reward for staying home — a hawk that briefly perched on a nearby tree.
[thanks Judy, for further id’ing this bird as a young Cooper’s hawk.]

Today was also the day to get a haircut before we leave NOLA Monday morning.  I don’t normally blog about grooming appointments … but look what I found at the barbershop/beauty salon here on base!

Mural painted by Michelle Levine in 2011; looking towards the barbershop, which shares space with the beauty salon (to the left of the mural).

My last couple of posts brought the blog up to Thursday, 21 March.  Continuing on from there …

Friday, 22 march & Saturday, 23 March

Both days were forecasted to be overcast, with light rain gaining strength and possibly turning into thunderstorms on Saturday.  The storms passed to our north, but we did get some sprinkles with occasional showers — just enough to keep the dust and pollen down.  Our main project during these two days was to spiff up our home and make it guest-ready.  And that’s all we really did … aside from catching up on some reading.

I didn’t take any photos these two days;
here’s an Iris from the Besthoff Sculpture Garden instead (post here).

Sunday, 24 March

With sunshine and temps reaching 75F (24C) forecasted, we were surprised to have the day start out overcast, gloomy, and windy.  So, rather than the early start we had planned, we lazed around until the sun broke through around 8:30a.  And then we were off mural-hunting.

The weekend rate at the Algiers Point parking lot goes up from $5 to $10.  So, today we took the car across the river by way of the Crescent City Connection (no toll presently due to a pending lawsuit brought by the locals who want the bridge crossing to be free).  Since the CBD (Central Business District) is dead on weekends, we found a reasonably inexpensive parking lot on Carondelet Street for $10/day.  The lot proved to be centrally located to the murals I had marked up on the map, and was walking distance to the Garden District as well.

Mural or graffiti?
[located on the wall of a building in the rear of the parking lot]

We wandered through many-a-neighborhood on the outskirts of the Garden District.  Some were rather run-down, but in many of them, improvement efforts were underway.  People were welcoming towards two obviously-out-of-place roamers, often greeting us with a smile and a how-are-you.  No photos — except for murals.  Yes … I am saving them for a future “mural” post, but I will share one with you.

French Market Greetings — by Will Smith Jr — is one of the painted streetcar sculptures
for the “A Streetcar Named Inspire,” project (undertaken by the Young Leadership Council).

(I would have gone searching for these “murals,” but they have been auctioned off and most are no longer where the map I found says they should be.)

By the time we found ourselves in the Garden District it was close to 1:00p.  Hungry, we stopped by Commander’s Palace.  Alas, they could not seat us until after 2:00p.  Or maybe that was their excuse because our attire was too casual.  We’ll never know.

Moving on, we opted to dine at Coquette, a short walk down the road.  It too was busy, but the hostess was able to seat us at the bar, which was perfectly OK since the menu was the same.

Frankly, we liked this place better because it was more casual than Commander’s.  And the food was quite good, too.

The menu offered brunch, as well as a selection of small plates and entrees.  Mui decided on the three course brunch … selecting the salad, catfish, and chocolate tart, with a side of peanut butter sorbet.  I ordered the butternut squash cavatelli from the small plates menu.  It was perfectly sized, thus leaving me with plenty of tummy-room to order my own á la carte dessert — chocolate éclairs.

Left: Mui’s catfish, and chocolate tart with a small scoop of peanut butter sorbet.
Right: My butternut squash cavatelli with shiitake mushrooms and maple syrup;
and, of course, the yummy chocolate éclairs.

After lunch, we walked around the Garden District for a bit before hopping on the St Charles Streetcar.  Initially, we wanted to travel to the end of the line, but those plans didn’t work out since there was work being done on the line past the Loyola University stop.  So, we ended up getting off there, crossing the rails, and getting back on the next car going in the direction of Canal Street.

The New Orleans & Carrollton RR Co. began passenger train service on September 26, 1835. Steam-powered trains and mule-drawn cars transported New Orlenians between Canal and Carrollton, via St Charles Avenue. Improved technology led to the development of electric traction streetcars. The St Charles Line was the first electrified route, opening on February 1, 1893. By 1900, the single line had grown to 28 lines, running over 178 miles. New Orleans' first and last streetcar route, the St Charles Avenue Line, is the world's oldest operating streetcar line.

By this time, the wind had gained strength and the feels-like temperature was quite chilly.  We were prepared.  Getting off the streetcar at the Poydras Street stop, we quick-stepped it to the car for our jackets and then continued with our plans, which included photographing a few more murals and a Wyland Whaling Wall.

Painted by invitation, there are 100 of these walls; the one in NOLA is #69.  The foundation’s website describes this mural campaign as: “one of the largest art-in-public-places projects in history, spanning five continents, 13 countries, and 79 cities around the globe.”  I’ve seen and photographed several of these walls around the US, so I was especially happy to find this one.  I find it interesting that the murals decorate a wall that usually overlooks a parking lot — I read somewhere that this is by design.

Featuring life-size blue whales, this Wyland Whaling Wall is on the side
of the parking structure at the Hilton Riverside.

From here, we wandered back to Canal Street and hopped on a streetcar heading to the cemeteries.  It turns out our timing was bad.  Both St Louis Cemetery #1 and #2 were locked, and we had to be satisfied with a peek through the bars of the wrought iron gates.

St Louis Cemetery #2 (left) and #1.

By the time we got back to the heart of the French Quarter, our feet were telling us that our 10-mile (16 km) wander around NOLA was enough; and our tummies were telling us it was time for food.  Easier said than done on a Sunday.  Many of the restaurants we’d marked on the map were either closed; or, on closer inspection, the menu offered little for a picky eater (that would be me).  Others couldn’t seat us for a while.

In the end, we returned to the Crescent City Brewhouse, where we ate lunch our first day in town.  I ordered the same Brewhouse BLT (with fried basil leaves and fresh mozzarella), but Mui decided to have the grilled grouper this time.  Since we had enjoyed dessert at lunch, there was no sweet ending to this meal ;-)

Grilled Grouper on Flatbread: Fresh gulf grouper on house-made naan bread;
served with avocado, tomato, carrot, pablano pepper, cabbage, cucumber and
cilantro, dressed with a mango mayo; sweet potato fries on the side.

By the time we were finished with dinner, it was time to drive to the airport to pick up Mui’s sister.  Too bad we didn’t dally in town for a little while longer.  We’d parked the car and were walking to the cross-bridge to the terminal when Mui’s phone rang … it was his sister calling to say that she had missed her connecting flight and would not be arriving until the next morning!  So, back to the car we went and drove home to the Phaeton!

Monday, 25 March

Brrrr!  What a change in temperature … a 20+ degree drop to a high of only 56F (13C) today.  With a stiff breeze to boot.

Tracking Işıl’s flight to make sure it had taken off, we left the house around 9:00a to pick her up from the airport.  Her flight was on time, and soon hugs and kisses were being exchanged.

Dropping her off at the hotel to get settled in, we drove to a parking lot at Canal and Marais streets ($2/day from 9:00a to midnight; $5 for overnight).  Hopping on the Canal Streetcar for the trip back to her hotel, we then collected Işıl and headed over to the French Quarter for lunch.

Some — you know who you are ;-) — will find it odd that we decided to eat at Bubba Gump’s when there are so many great restaurants in NOLA to choose from.  However, the movie Forrest Gump holds a special place in Işıl’s heart, so it was the perfect place on this occasion.  The food wasn’t half bad; and I think she got a kick out of the trivia quiz and the photo ops.

Counter clockwise from top left: shrimp shack pasta (me);
New Orleans shrimp (Mui); shrimp scampi (Işıl).

There’s the famous “box of chocolates.”

Nearly 36 hours of traveling, and catnapping at O’Hare overnight, had worn Işıl out.  So we bagged plans for a walking tour of the French Quarter.  Instead, we went inside the St Louis Cathedral, or more properly — the Cathedral-Basilica of St Louis, King of France.  While the siblings took a load off on one of the pews and quietly chatted, I wandered around and took some photographs of what the brochure describes as “the oldest Catholic Cathedral in the United States.”

The current cathedral is the third church built on the site.  Completed in 1794, it
replaced the permanent church that was built in 1727 and destroyed in a fire in 1788.
The first place of worship on this site was built in 1718.

The mural above the altar depicts King Louis IX announcing the 7th crusade;
the statues are (from L to R): Hope, faith, and Charity.

The mural in the center of the ceiling depicts Jesus telling Peter, “Feed my Sheep.”
It is surrounded by four evangelists and ten apostles (minus Peter and Judas).
Bottom left photo shows the organ and clock at the opposite end of the nave from the altar.

Three of the ten stained glass windows depicting scenes from the life of King Louis IX.
L to r: his marriage, coronation, and illness and death.

(For larger pictures click here for a series of photos in my online gallery.)

Our meandering stroll through the French Quarter was periodically broken up with periods of rest.  First at Café Du Monde — for coffee and beignets, of course; and later at Pat O’Brien’s, where, in deference to Işıl’s allergy to all things containing alcohol, we quenched our thirst with a couple of virgin cocktails.

Mui opts for the colorful Sunset; Işıl orders the Eye of the Hurricane.

And on that note, we walked Işıl to her hotel; hopped on the streetcar to go pick up our car; and headed home to rest up.

Tuesday, 26 March

Another cold day!  What happened to spring?

This was the requisite “shopping for gifts to take back to Turkey” day.  Not my thing, so I begged off and stayed home.  After helping Işıl help the US economy, Mui brought her to the Phaeton for a light lunch … Caesar salad topped with grilled shrimp (which we had picked up from the Westwego Fish Market), followed by key lime pie (store bought, I’m afraid).  We took photos with Işıl’s camera, so I have none to share in this post.

The afternoon saw Mui and his sister back in the stores, while I continued to recharge my batteries, which were drained from the hub-bub of the past few days in NOLA.  A quiet evening at our respective accommodations wrapped up the day.

… and finally … back to Wednesday, 27 March

Işıl is a professor of English linguistics (emphasis on sociolinguistics) at Anadolu University in Eskişehir, Turkey.  The purpose of her visit to NOLA — other than spending time with us, of course — is to speak at a symposium.  Today was the day.

This blog would be incomplete without “Satchmo;” the statue is near the Algiers Point Ferry Terminal.

Mui joined Işıl in the city with plans to attend her presentation.  As it turns out, the presentation was moved to the late evening, so he’s back home.  But his trip into town wasn’t for naught.  They dropped by the New Orleans Jazz National Historical Park and caught a free jazz/blues concert.  Performing again was Richard Scott, whom we had the pleasure of listening to last week.

And that catches me up … whew!  Tomorrow starts a 3-day run of sightseeing — some in town; others out of town for a much needed change of pace.