As we neared Louisiana, our plans were to pass through the
state near Baton Rouge and on into Mississippi and Alabama. As I've mentioned before, we were avoiding
the big cities like New Orleans because it was difficult navigating them with
the camper and because we normally would have to camp outside the city and then
travel in to see the sights, leaving Poppy in the RV. She is OK by herself in the camper for three
or four hours but not longer. I should
say that New Orleans is a city that I have always wanted to visit but I just
figured it would have to be on a future trip. However, I was communicating on
Facebook with my friend, Linda McGregor, who lives in Texas and travels quite a
bit with her RV, and she told me there was a nice campground in New Orleans
just two blocks from the French Quarter.
I looked it up online and we talked about it and decided to go. It was very expensive ($95/night) so we were
only staying one night but we camped the night before in Abbeville, LA, only a
couple of hours from New Orleans. This
way we would get there early and be able to spend the whole afternoon and
evening walking around the French Quarter.
Abbeville was a neat town down in southern Louisiana and the ride from
there to New Orleans took us through the bayou with sugar cane growing
everywhere.
We checked
into the French Quarter RV resort before noon, got set up in record time (we
left the truck attached to the camper), walked Poppy and then headed out on
foot for town. I had gotten a lot of information about New Orleans at the Louisiana Welcome
Center and we had a good map of the town.
It was amazing how busy Bourbon Street was, even early on a Sunday
afternoon. The streets were very much
like I pictured them.
We stopped at Lafitte’s Blacksmith Shop, built between 1722
and 1732 and reputed to be the oldest structure used as a bar in the United
States.
We also spent some time shopping in the French Market area
and got some great Mardi Gras masks for the grandkids. We bought an all day pass on the streetcars
but then found them to be too slow for traveling the city with our limited time so we
went back to walking. We both have some
joint issues so walking for too long a time is somewhat painful but we popped
some ibuprofen and kept walking J.
Late in the afternoon we headed back toward the campground
to rest a little and walk Poppy. Our
plan was to go out to dinner that evening and then to go to Preservation Hall
to listen to some New Orleans jazz.
Preservation Hall had been recommended to us by three different friends
who had visited New Orleans before so we figured that was a “must-see”. As we headed back to our RV, we saw a band
playing on the streets and stopped to listen for a while. They were great!
While we were back at the camper, I made us a dinner
reservation at the Chartres House. There
were lots of choices and I had several recommendations from friends but this
place was reasonably priced and not too far from Preservation Hall so we chose
it. It also had balcony seating and we
were able to reserve a table up there overlooking the streets below.
The food was great.
Our appetizer was shrimp remoulade over fried green tomatoes which was
out of this world. I tried the
traditional crawfish etouffee for dinner and Bob had cashew encrusted
redfish. All was really delicious. After dinner, we strolled up to Preservation
Hall. From what we had read about this
place, there are three shows each night – 8:15, 9:15 and 10:15—and each show is
45 minutes long. The first 100 people on
line are supposed to get seats and after that it was standing room only. We got on the line at 7:15 and at that time
the line was already pretty long.
We
waited for 45 minutes and then the line started moving and we got in, only to
find we had to stand at the back. The
place was really small and was packed with people. Those that had seats were sitting on plain wooden
benches and the rest of us were just crammed in the back. This picture was taken before the show
started as there were no cameras allowed during the show. It’s not a good picture but you may be able
to see how small and crowded it was. Bob
remarked that the fire marshall must be looking the other way because there was
only one entrance and exit to the building and it was an old, run-down wooden
structure.
In any case, the music was great – there were six musicians
on piano, trombone, trumpet, clarinet, bass and drums. We thoroughly enjoyed it but by the end, our
legs were aching and we were ready to get home and put our feet up, which is
what we did. We walked the mile or so back to the campground. We did have to walk for a
short time through a rather seedy part of town and we were the only ones around
so Bob was hurrying me along, but once we got to the RV Park, they had great
security.
The next day, we headed for the Gulf beaches of
Louisiana. We decided to take the
Dauphin Island Ferry across Mobile Bay instead of driving up through
Mobile. The ferry only ran every 1 ½ hours
this time of year and we had to really push but we made the 12:30 ferry. It was a beautiful ride across the Bay. We
had to leave Poppy in the car but it was only about a 40 minute ride so she was
fine. As we crossed, we saw what we
thought were oil rigs but turned out to be drilling for natural gas.
Once we reached the barrier island on the other side, we
were very much reminded of our home in Carteret County – Emerald Isle, Salter
Path, etc. One big difference was that
the beach was nowhere near as built up as ours is. There were long stretches of just beach with free
public access. We stayed at Gulf State
Campground in Gulf Shores, Alabama, which was very large and absolutely
beautiful. It was on the other side of
the road from the Gulf of Mexico but there was a state beach that we could go to just a
couple of miles from the campground. We
drove down there and walked down to wade in the beautiful green Gulf
waters.
The next morning, before we left, we went back to the beach so Bob could go for a swim in those waters. It was too cool for me so I sat on the beach
and watched him.
After we left Gulf Shores, we were really anxious to get
home so we did some longer days with one night stops in Chattahoochee, FL and
Hollywood, SC (just outside of Charleston) before arriving home on Thursday,
October 17th. It was great to
be home (Poppy did a happy dance) but we both were really glad we had done this
trip and seen so much of the country.
As I did this blog, I always wanted to post a map of our
route but never could figure out how to do it.
My friend Rick Perlmutter finally told me how to do it using Google Maps
and the “snipping tool”. I couldn’t map
the whole trip on one Google Map, so here are two that show you our approximate
route, minus the trip home from and back to Nebraska in July and August. We visited 33 states and covered about 15,000
miles, many of them up and down steep mountains.
Thanks to those of you who have read this blog and commented. It was sometimes hard to find the time or the
wifi signal to do it but I’m glad I have an illustrated chronicle of our journey
to look back on.
