# The Big Easy

Last modified by Richard Johnson on 2024/03/24 18:45
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We started the day in Florida, drove westward into Alabama,

then very quickly into Mississippi,

and finally into Louisiana.

States go by quickly along the gulf coast!

Arriving in New Orleans, we headed to our RV Park ("Three Oaks & a Pine", I think it was) (on Chef Menteur highway, or "Big Liar", which is a story in and of itself)

where we met the camp host/owner, "Mr. Billy." He assisted in getting us into the back-in site and then pulled out a map of New Orleans and spent at least the next half hour or more going over all of the places we should go, how to get there, how to avoid street scams, etc.! It was a lot of information and I'm not sure we will remember it all! "Remember where your shoes are at: on your feet." (This is the answer to the scammer statement "Betcha ten dolla I kin tell ya where you got yer shoes at."

Very quickly, we noticed that the wifi doesn't seem to work correctly here. It comes and goes, there one minute and totally disappeared the next. I mentioned it to the host and he even invited me into his house to look at the equipment. It all seems fine and he rebooted it all, but it still doesn't work, so we're back to cellular data connectivity. While we seem to have a good T-Mobile signal, the actual bandwidth seems rather low. We may be able to update some text on this wiki, but uploading pictures is very slow.

We also noticed that there are some very loud bikers on the road just outside of the park and just behind the park is a train yard.

So, we decided to sleep with the AC turned on, which provides a lot of white noise. It was actually sufficient for a good night's sleep!

The next morning, when we turned off the AC, we heard the same type of frog which we heard in Charleston! It sounds like a small dog barking. As a matter of fact, we've been hearing this type of frog ever since we left SC! This time, however, standing directly under the AC unit made it clear the sound was coming from directly overhead! I guess we have a hitchhiker from Charleston in our AC! (N.B. he left sometime during our stay in NOLA).

Since it's raining most of the day today, we'll be running some errands to various stores and driving around town. (The Kitty Boy needs his crunchies! Kelly needs more insulin, if we're going to continue this adventure, otherwise we may be forced to go home!)

We successfully circumnavigated Lake Pontchartrain, got more kitty kibble, spent almost 2 hours getting more insulin (thank you Devin the Pharmacist at CVS in E. NO), got various groceries, and decided we really don't like big cities.

It rained every day while we were at New Orleans, but since it seemed to not rain the entire day, we finally just took an unbrella each and headed out into the town anyway. The first day, we decided to drive into town and visit Audubon Park. Driving next to the north end of the park, we saw some cars parked along the road and didn't see any signs about parking restrictions, so we joined them! From there, we talked through the park.

(pics)

After a while, we met a lady walking a dog, inquired if she was local (she was) and asked about the parking situation (just to make sure). She wasn't entirely sure, but thought we were probably ok.

We walked along Exposition Blvd (which isn't really a street, but a large walkway, taking pictures of the beautiful houses there.

(pics)

After that, we took the St Charles Ave Trolley over to the Garden District and walked along a free, self-guilded, tour of the area. (The tour is huge and after a while all of the really nice historic houses start to look the same, so we cut it short.) Taking the St Charles Ave. trolley back to Audubon Park, we then drove back to the campground.

The second day, we decided to try using public transit. New Orleans has a very nice public transit system with an App for your phone. The App is really great because it shows where all of the busses and trolleys are located, which direction they're going, projected arrival times at any stop, etc. You can even buy a 24 hour pass using the App and use the App to display a scan code for your pass as you board the bus. We bought two 24 hour passes for $3 each. One of the bus routes stopped just on the other side of the street from our campground!

Our plan was to go downtown to the French Quarter area. We walked through this area for a while and then headed toward the river. As we got closer to the river, we saw a large steamboat docked there. Inquiring at the nearby ticket office, we found it was called "City of New Orleans" steamboat and tour, would be doing a roughly 2 hour trip, and would be leaving in 10 minutes! Wow! Quickly purchasing two tickets, making sure not to buy the ones which included dinner, since that would involve too many dietary and allergy issues, we boarded with about 5 minutes to spare! What luck!

(pics)

It was getting closer to sunset now, so we took the same public transit back to our campground. It was a very nice outing and a good day, in spite of a little rain!

On the third day, we left Mr Billy with his wifi problems, left New Orleans, and headed out, visiting the Laura Plantation along the Mississippi River, to the west of the city. There are a large number of plantations along the south side of the river and many of them are paying for themselves by running tours. We selected the Laura Plantation because (1) it was recommended by a New Orleans Information guy with whom we talked during our second day and also (2) it was a Creole Plantation and had a tour telling more of the authentic history of the area.

(pics)

We also drove by the Oak Alley Plantation, took our own picture of the alleyway of oaks leading toward the front (from the road because there was no place to stop), and visit the gift shop there.

(pics)

Returning to the north side of the river (the Mississippi runs east-west through this area), we then headed toward our campground for the night, "Indian Creek RV Park".

Little did we know what we were getting into next!

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Created by Richard Johnson on 2021/05/17 08:17

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