There are three things I fear. One is water. I dont like the ocean, the lakes, the bays, the swimming pool. This makes it good I live in a flipping desert. I dont like crowds. Claustrophobia is real to me. It makes me sweat and bolt. Elevators better be fast and empty or I'm in trouble. The third thing I fear is reptiles. Snakes, Gators all that creepy shit I simply dont like.
So where did we go for Spring Break?
New Orleans of course. Home to water,crowds and reptiles. Never been there. Never been in the South other than Texas and thats its own nation anyway.
After detours to Little Rock and Memphis (more on that later) we drove through Mississippi to get to New Orleans. Thrilling y'all.
Entering Louisiana I immediately hit a 20 mile bridge over swamps and lakes and who knows what. It was causing me to freak out and I hadnt even hit Bourbon Street yet. The bridge over hell finally ended and New Orleans appeared. Who Dat! The Superdome, the Smoothie King arena, gigantic above ground cemeteries and what seemed like hundreds of billboards put up by ambulance chasers promising everybody hundreds of thousands of dollars for just getting hurt. Dope.
The hotel booked for the occasion was called the Le Richelieu and was blocks from the French Quarter and had a Paul McCartney Suite for when Sir Paul stayed there in 1975 recording Venus and Mars. That suite was booked. I asked.
The Le Richelieu was old and hidden away on those narrow ass streets they have down there. Christ a mule was walking down the street and even he was going hee haw these streets are narrow.
New Orleans is a walking city. Well at least for me it was. Bourbon Street awaited and we hit it full steam ahead. Strip joints, bars, hole in the wall restaurants, souvenir shops, and drunks. And that smell of piss and alcohol everybody loves. We arent drinkers so it was all food and walking around. A guy froze for money. A guy's dog froze for money. Barkers tried to get me into the Barely Legal Club, Ricks Cabaret Club, Centerfolds.One barker charmingly told me there were "great tits and pretty good food" in there. Well great, at least it wasnt the other way around.
Traveling with a history major can be trying. Every historical marker, every museum, every battlefield, every place where Huey Long may have taken a bribe must be visited. Hmmm, this sounds familiar. Not sure why. I can hear my parents screeching from the grave, ITS YOU ITS YOU WE HAVE OUR REVENGE!!!
Day 2 was a bus ride to the World War II museum. For the love of FDR, if you read everything there was to read in this place you'd spend as much time as it took to crush the Nazis. That is until they rose again in 2016. It is really a fascinating place to visit. Thanks to the incredible provincialism Americans suffer from the museum tour begins at Peal Harbor. The Brits and the French dont exist. Had they started in 1939, I'd still be there hollering about "Jerries" and the "Bosch". Instead it starts with "Japs". And man oh man do you hear that word over and over. You wonder what the substantial number of Asians think when old guys on film constantly say "Japs". Holy Political Correctness. Im off topic already.
Day 3 was the driving day. Out to the swamps for a boat ride. A nice slow tour boat with a roof and a guide. Driving thru the back roads of Looziana to a real life swamp, the Jean Lafitte Park. Nice slow tour boat? Sold out. A fast moving airboat, twice as much money and not sold out. Ouch. But it was a blast.
The airboat, captained by a Cajun character with tons of stories, a passion for protecting alligators and probably a PHD in some subject way over my head, made that boat fly at times and made it slow down at others, usually to see gators swimming around trying to get out of the way. At one point he stopped in a cove, made a comment about gators loving the food he was bringing them much to my chagrin and then pulled out a bag of marshmallows. This caused the gators to swim at the boat like begging dogs. They were rewarded with marshmallows, and we were rewarded with stories and fact about alligators I never knew. They aint gonna eat you folks. They cant swalla y'all so they pose no threat. It was a great 2 hours.
Off to the Battle of New Orleans site. The actual battlefield with a rampart and a large field where people died. It's places like this that give me the creeps. Knowing this is the exact site this happened sets my Geek meter off. Its a national park and its free. For now, till Trump and his goons think they can drill for oil or some other stupid shit.
Off to the Lower 9th Ward. The Lower 9th Ward was devastated by Katrina. It was the place where people were standing on their roofs begging to be saved. The levees broke here the hardest, barges went thru the neighborhood flattening houses and people died. The Lower 9th Ward is maybe 50% back. Nice new house next to a devastated house. The 9th Ward was a life lesson on how good you have it. A reminder that a helluva lot of people dont.
Back to the French Quarter for a trip thru the New Orleans Jazz Museum. Theres not a lot there since its undergoing a lot of work. But seeing Louis Armstrongs trumpet was worth the time.
The French Market is a trip thru a a flea market of junk and food. Thats where the Praline Begneit reared its ugly head and hooked me for life. Damn, the food in New Orleans is the best ever. Real life creole, jambalaya, gator, gumbo, etoufee, red beans and rice, seafood oh my its just wonderful.
But the piece de resistance of the whole trip was that last night of standing in line for 45 minutes to pay $20 to get into the the Temple of Jazz, Preservation Hall. To stand like a can of sardines along the back of the room and witness a 45 minute jazz jam led by the legendary Charlie Gabriel and the Preservation Hall Jazz Band was one of those moments in my life where I can truly say I will never ever forget. If I had a bucket list, and I do, this check mark really counted. It was 45 minutes in heaven.
The next morning we were leaving New Orleans on the way back to Memphis (more on that later) via Vicksburg for more history geek stuff.
Ever drive over a 24 mile long bridge over Lake Pontchartrain? Where you cant see land for what seemed like ever? Where the lake has white caps and you are driving over it? And it goes up and down and when you come down you feel like you are on a roller coaster to hell?
Yep that was my last memory of New Orleans. Water. Claustrophobia. I dont know if there are any reptiles in that Lake, but we did see a freakin pelican coming right for our windshield.
It was glorious.
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