Rainy River Day

Today was a travel day – 150 miles from New Roads to New Orleans. The boat left at 5:00 a.m. without a sound or a bump so we slept through it.

Cloudy all day with several showers and good winds.

An ideal day to go through the boat for pictures.

The Ladies’ Drawing Room.

The Men’s Smoking Room.

Main Lounge.

Dining room viewed from the Main Lounge.

Lounge Lizard.

Part of main dining room.

The Grand Saloon, home of countless unimaginable music shows.

Our room, from the door to the 4th deck.

Our bathroom. Notice the floor tiles – nice early 20th century touch.

Last look at a real functioning steam-drive paddlewheel.

Dinner tonight had issues. The only surprise was how good the sugarless chocolate cream pie tasted.

And so to bed with a slightly sore throat…….

St. Francisville

 

Actually, not. The St. Francisville dock was under water so we found what looks like a road that disappears into the water, and tied up there. This is the ‘dock’ for the town of New Roads.

After breakfast we took a bus for the 25 minute ride to find a bridge over the Mississippi and hence to St. Francisville. We passed an enormous coal-fired power plant (Cajun II). We were also told that the inhabitants of SF had two occupations: tourism and working at the nuclear power plant.

JJ Audubon came to this area and lived at Oakley Plantation tutoring the daughter of the house. His wife Lucy taught school to support his painting. He painted or started painting 32 of his Birds of America there. I bought a deck of cards with 3-D Birds of Audubon on them.

St.Francisville is a very pretty town with not many people.

All the towns have multiple churches, but this was a new one.

One of the more elaborate small houses.

And a few of them were for sale.

Didn’t find any unpainted or deserted homes.

Truth in advertising.

All of the places we visited had Hop-on buses following us down the river. Today Nancy, Janet, John and I decided to walk and had a good enough time. Alice took the bus just to survey the route and stop if anything looked interesting. She came to the Myrtle Plantation which was not on the map and we walkers knew nothing about it. Also it was not mentioned by the tour person. Nice work, Trip Planners.

Alice says:

the plantation is apparently occupied by lots of ghosts so it was an interesting tour.  The stories were the most interesting. The rooms consisted of the usual Ladies’ and Gent’s parlors, which in this case could be combined to form the ballroom. Apparently the lady of the house enjoyed throwing parties and guests would often stay for a week. Aside from the parlors, there was the dining room and library, each with their own costumed interpreter. Good stories.

Ghosts, verified by authenticated pictures and images in a mirror, seem to haunt this house. Pictured are a slave girl and two children. The slave girl had been demoted to kitchen duty for eavesdropping, but wanted to get back into the owner’s good graces and her former house duties. She thought that by causing the children to become ill, by putting boiled juice from oleander leaves into the birthday cake, and then nursing them back to health, would be her redemption. Unfortunately, the children and wife died instead and she was consequently hung, only to roam the area as a supernatural.

Bummer.

For dinner tonight we have a winner and no loser.

Lobster tail. We worried that producing for 400 people might get us cold lobster, or tough lobster, but it was perfectly cooked and arrived still warm. 10/10

Honorable mentions to the onion tart, seafood chowder and crème brûlée.

Tomorrow we cruise all day, and since it’s going to get cold and possibly rainy, I don’t think we will mind not going ashore.

Baton Rouge

We woke up this morning docked next to the U.S.S. Kidd, a WWII destroyer.

Yes, the American Queen is much larger. After lunch we toured the Kidd and it’s not in good shape. Paint over rust everywhere. It’s constant work to keep up with a ship/boat that starts in good condition. I don’t see how they are going to keep the Kidd going in the next few years.

We were supposed to tie up next to Nottaway Plantation, but high water put us in Baton Rouge. So, it was a 40 minute bus ride to Nottaway.

With its connected buildings it is claimed to be bigger than the White House.

So it gets two opening photos.

Make that three. This is the side they advertise. Not seen, chandeliers in the oak trees for evening festivities.

The White Ballroom, where debutante balls and weddings were and still are celebrated. The floors are cypress which was soaked in the Mississippi for six years before being installed.

Also notice the fireplace. There were coal-burning fireplaces in every room, along with carbon monoxide alarms. Yes. Every room had a caged canary (possibly also other varieties, but…). Our guide said when the canary fell over it was time to open the windows and get another bird.

 
The ladies’ staircase and a neat clock at the top. All clocks in the house are set to 2:00, which is when James Randolph died.

The music room. The daughters received an hour a day of musical instruction on weekdays. The exploding chair on the left is there to show that chairs were stuffed with Spanish Moss, suitably dried and debugged. Our guide told us that Henry Ford used Spanish Moss to stuff the seats in his cars, but had to recall a bunch because the moss had not been debugged.

   
Chandeliers (originally gasoliers suspended by pipes) and their medallions were big attractions. The medallions and other “plaster” work were made of mud, clay and horse hair (the French/Creole name for this mixture eludes me).

The china here seems to be Meissen (crossed swords on the back). The paintings on them illustrated some kind of Proper Maidenly Behavior. In 1859, when the house was completed, seeing a girl’s ankles was a great social sin. Our guide said if you did see them, you had to begin courting her.

You know you’ve hit it big when you have Meissen doorknobs. The small keyhole cover on the inside of the door is to prevent peeping toms, they said.

 
This is Algernon Sidney Randolph, eldest son. He died at Vicksburg. The real question is, as an alert guest asked, “Why does he look like Mickey Dolenz?” Our guide had no clue who M.D. was. Kids!

This painting is even more confusing. Is it a young Mick Jagger? Is a puzzlement.

So we took our leave of Nottaway, headed back for lunch, visited the U.S.S. Kidd while Nancy went to the art museum and had a much better time, and prepared for yet another dinner.

 
Tonight’s worst and best dishes were both from the appetizer group.

• On the left, West Indies Crab Salad: “Marinated blue crab salad, sweet onions, pickled watermelon and crisp toast.” Not so fast. The crab tasted like it just came out of the can, there was one toothpick-sized piece of onion, no pickled watermelon at all, and the toast was cold. And no dressing, although if the crab had been marinated and the pickle juices from the watermelon had been there, who knows how good it could have been? 1/10
• On the right, Grilled Artichoke Hearts: “long-stemmed (!) marinated artichokes served with lemon aioli.” Sounds simple, really. But everyone who got it said it was very very good, so Alice ordered it for dessert! 10/10

Honorable mentions for the parmesan-coated grouper, short ribs, and pan-seared scallops. Except for the crab salad, an excellent meal.

Entertainment tonight was Lewis Hankins doing a Mark Twain one-man show. Well-done. And now we are watching March Madness, just for contrast.

Natchez

This morning I went to play golf at 7:30 at a very nice municipal course, Duncan Park.

 
We have hit the lower Mississippi during peak azalea season. They were all over the course. (With borrowed clubs my score doesn’t count.)

A disturbingly healthful breakfast. Fresh fruit is a strong point on this trip.

Meanwhile the non-golfers went hopping in Natchez. Many luxurious homes remain – Natchez was the richest city in the USA in 1860 because of cotton. Above is Stanton Hall. This was one of many open for tours where no inside photography was permitted.

Across the street from Stanton Hall, a Victorian with azaleas.

Wilkins, an ancestral name – research needed. Built by J.C. Wilkins ~1824.

Perhaps the prettiest, if only because Greek Revival is everywhere, was Glen Auburn  (1875), “Mississippi’s greatest remaining Second Empire structure.”

 
 
Interior scenes at Magnolia Hall. The exterior was less impressive because it was repainted in 1970 from white to faux brownstone, the original appearance.

After lunch Alice and I visited Rosalie, just up the hill from the boat. The owners, during the Civil Way, were northern sympathizers and the Union Army local HQ was put here. As a result of this friendly treatment, most of the furnishings were saved and are still there. The 21 piece living room set is from NY and is very attractive Victorian. Of course, no interior photography. The brochure says it is in Federal style (columns with no capitals?) but shares huge columns with the Greek revival mansions.

Nice view of the river from the upstairs verandah.

Down the street a spectacular azalea garden.

View from the Rosalie overlook south with Vidalia on the opposite shore.

The editorial board has made a change to the nightly gourmet review. From now on only the very best and very worst of the evening will be featured.

Worst, getting 0/10 from Alice and 3/10 from me, Vegetable Spring Rolls: veggies in rice paper with spicy peanut sauce. Visually, it reminds us that we don’t own a cat. Taste-wise, why raw rice paper? There was no taste to speak of except for the spicy peanut sauce.

10/10: Taste of Summer Salad: tomatoes, watermelon, strawberries, goat cheese, greens.

10/10 Roast Lamb with Herbes de Provence and mint jelly. Asked for rare and got medium rare – just what we wanted.

Desserts were Key Lime mousse, Mississippi Mud Pie (brownie and a tower of of ice cream) and because I opted for the sugar-free banana pudding the waitress brought the other sugar-free dessert too (cherry bread pudding), just to make sure I kept up with the mud pie.

Too cloudy for a good sunset tonight, but when barge loads cross in front of it …..

Vicksburg

Having been here once before and done a self-drive tour of the battlefields, we refer you to that entry. We decided to take the Hobble-on Hobble-off bus into town to its farthest point and walk back.

But first, our mooring point. Still some submerged public spaces and trees, but when we got back at noon the water had actually dropped a bit. Still a lot of snow to melt up north though and rain is coming this weekend.

That end stop was at Anchuca Mansion which is both an official Historic Place and a B&B. Again, Greek revival. During the Civil War it was a hospital. All the furnishings are not original, naturally, but attempt to recreate the mid-19th century styles. Job well done, I say.

On the balcony the traitor-in-defense-of-slavery Jefferson Davis made a public address in 1869 after being released from Federal prison.

The very friendly owner, who lives down the street, was there to tell us all about it.

In the Ladies’ Drawing Room was this John Broadwood & Sons piano, circa 1850. We also saw a Broadwood in Greenville, which was an “art” model covered in walnut burl veneer. This one was merely beautiful. But, not tuned and ready for play.

The ceiling medallion was not made of Plaster of Paris. You’d never guess. We were told it was made from marble dust, horse hair and molasses. Surprisingly, this is also the recipe for Coca-Cola (see below).

This is the view from the Men’s Drawing Room into the library. In the library was one of only two in existence (allegedly) Stars and Bars flags that flew in Vicksburg during the siege. It was donated to the house by a descendant of one of the original builders.

One of the jazzier rooms which can actually be used by the B&B customers. The real reason to show it is the print over the fireplace – an original Audubon Pink Flamingo.

And in the hallway an original Audubon Wood Duck. Jeepers. It’s a heck of a risk keeping valuable art like this around at a B&B. There is another one too – Great Blue Heron.

Somewhat stunned, we started to walk back to the main drag.

A nifty Victorian at the top of the hill overlooking the wharf. It seems to be on the road to restoration.

Washington Street, main shopping street. A nice walk, nothing to buy.

On Washington Street is the Biedenharn Coca-Cola museum. Joseph Biedenharn ran a family candy store in Vicksburg and served Coca-Cola at the counter. Because it was a popular drink he wanted to sell it outside of town – until then the only way to get it anywhere was at a soda-fountain. So, in the summer of 1894 he started bottling it and sent it out every day.

1. The tank at the back left was the gas generator. One dropped small quantities of marble chips into the tank which contained hydrochloric acid and water. The reaction produced carbon dioxide and calcium chloride.
2. The tank at the front was the carbonator. When it was filled to the right level with water a tube to the gas generator was opened. When the pressure equalized, the tube was shut and the tank agitated rapidly by the wheel in front, mixing the gas with the water and producing carbonated water.
3. Next to the carbonator is the filling table. One bottle at a time would load an ounce of syrup (see recipe under Anchuca Mansion above) and then be filled with carbonated water. The filler always worked with mask and gloves because the bottles tended to explode. The worker would spend half a day filling for the day’s deliveries.
4. On the far right is the washing table, semi-automated but still one bottle at a time.

And now you know how to make Coca-Cola™ !

During the afternoon I went across the street to an “antique store” and saw nothing but junk. However, Nancy and Janet went there and scored three Beswick figurines (Beatrix Potter) for one quarter the price at home. You have to know what to look for.

And then we pushed off for Natchez and some low bridges.

The smokestacks lie down for low bridges.

We just made it. I think we had three feet of clearance. Now it’s dinner time so you can skip the rest if you’re not hungry.

Again from left to right, top to bottom:

• Shrimp and Avocado Tower: “Boiled Gulf shrimp,  chunky avocado salad and crisp corn chips with sea salt.” 9/10
• Vegan Latkes: “Shredded Yukon-gold potato-and-ancient-grains pancakes with Honeycrisp apple-cinnamon sauce.” Latkes were warm and soggy – aargh. The sauce was delicious. 7/10
• Pasta Edisto: “Paddlewheel pasta tossed with virgin olive oil, asparagus, sun-dried tomato, artichoke, basil pesto, garlic and white wine cream sauce, topped with Parmesan, pine nuts and chopped pistachios.” Too many ingredients. Still, 8/10.
• Strip Steak au Poivre. “Black Angus strip steak seasoned with black pepper,  and served with creamy mashed potato, roast asparagus, tomato rissole and Cognac-green peppercorn cream sauce.” Very good, now that we have learned to order Rare in order to get Medium Rare. 9/10
• Rainbow Trout Amandine. “… with broccoli flan, baby carrots and rice pilaf.” Good fish and well cooked but where were the almonds? Broccoli flan good. 9/10
• Craft Beer Fried Chicken. White meat chicken very moist and tender. Regrettably the country gravy, even though there wasn’t much, turned the crispy coating into flab. 8/10

After dinner we went to a Magic Show with Dante, the master of sleight of hand. We got involved. First he called Alice up on stage to be part of his coin-shuffling act. Then he got me to donate a $20 bill which he sealed in an envelope and appeared to give it to Janet who was sitting on the other side of the room. Then he burned it up (long story short). At the end of the show it mysteriously appeared inside an orange. I dried it off and maybe it won’t stick to my wallet. His patter was good and his tricks were pretty high level. A fun time had by all.

Sittin’ on the Dock of the Bay

Yes, we are not moving and we are not on the Mississippi River. Greenville MS is on a bay connected to the river, and we are here for the day instead of taking a cruise from Memphis to Vicksburg, because the docks in Memphis are submarined.

We got a table in the Big Dining Room for breakfast. For non-family and friends that is me, sister Janet, sister Nancy, and Janet’s husband John. Breakfast was fine except for the temptation to really overdo it.

Around 9:30 we took the Hop-on Hop-off bus down to the old main street in Greenville. All of us were interested in a carousel at the Delta Children’s Museum.

This is the Armitage Herschell carousel, county-fair style, dating between 1892 and 1902. Originally steam-driven it’s now done with an electric motor (it’s indoors, after all). A point of pride – all the horses’ tails are real horse hair.

The Four Horsemen: Alice, Nancy, Janet, John. I was too a’skeert to get on them things.

There was a synagogue (Hebrew Union) in town, and two of the first four mayors of Greenville came from its congregation. We had a talk from the current president who told us a lot about the economic situation in town. Membership has fallen from a high of 200 families in 1964 to 52 families at present. Town population has fallen more than half. It is, he says, due to the falling price for cotton (labor intensive) and switching to easily mechanized crops like soy, corn and rice.

Old downtown Greenville. Too much scenery like this.

A ray of sunshine from this Purple Martin house, right on Main St.

Standing on the levy. Our room is marked with the “X”.

It was BBQ day! We all enjoyed the ribs, and some went back for a hot dog and a hamburger. The café here has a DIY soft serve station. Also. Too.

  

As we departed the dock we had a steam calliope concert. Noisy!

If I did not mention it before, the American Queen has a fully functional paddlewheel. Because of modern safety regulations she has a second propulsion system too, but here we are steaming (literally) on paddlewheel alone.

Passing some barge traffic.

And then it was time for dinner!

John, Nancy, Janet, Moi, Alice.

From the menu, left to right, top to bottom:

• Boiler Room Shrimp: “Crunchy, lightly breaded Gulf shrimp tossed in a sweet and spicy chili sauce.” Really good – as close to perfect as you can get. But, in deference to a group of 150 (!) people from Iowa, not that spicy. 10/10
• Roasted Beet Tartare: “Diced sweet roasted beets, cashew cream and truffle-scented Saratoga chips.” That’s “beet”, not “beef”. And to mangle meaning further, how do you roast something and call it “tartare”? Oh well. The beets tasted good, the greens were limp. 8/10
• Bouquet of Spring Mix: “Assorted greens wrapped in a seedless cucumber ribbon with goat cheese, heirloom tomato.” Cute idea. Not enough dressing, limp greens, only 1 1/2 cherry tomatoes. 7/10
• Baked salmon with Herbsaint (anise-flavored liqueur) Primavera: “Tender, moist salmon, garden vegetables, penne and anise-flavored cream sauce.” Salmon was excellent, veggies were cold. 7/10
• Roast Bone-in Pork Loin: “Slow-roasted sugarcane syrup-glazed-mustard pork loin served with bourbon sweet potato, cranberry chutney, sautéed spinach and pan gravy.” It was actually quite good, but the pork was enormous and could not be finished. 9/10
• Not shown, because enough already: NY steak and baked potato 8/10; pan-seared turbot was small and the advertised lobster smaller 8/10. Dessert was pecan pie 6/10 (not enough pecans) and some very good black cherry ice cream 9/10.

After dinner we took a walk around the boat and watched the sunset. The submerged trees go on forever, it seems.

Elvis has left the bus

After a very ordinary buffet breakfast (the Guest House at Graceland is a new hotel and, we hope, is not up to speed yet, except for the daily dose of Elvis movies) we lazed around until it was time for the bus ride. High river levels made the Memphis dock unavailable, so they berthed the boat at Greenville, 3 hours south. Another bus ride. Oy.

Once on the boat we found a very nice, compact stateroom where even the bathroom tiles took you back a few years. Like 150. The boat was built in 1995 but they scoured the antique stores for the public rooms and furnishing the staterooms. Photos tomorrow.

Getting on board.

In front of the boat a sign that river levels were deceiving.

Nifty smokestacks. There is a steam engine, dated ~1935 and taken from a working  boat, and the paddlewheels actually paddle.

And the steam runs a calliope, partly seen here.

We are traveling with my sisters Nancy and Janet, and Janet’s husband John. That means even more food photos coming up. We only had time to take the photos above and then it was dinner time.

Left to right but row:

• fried green tomatoes with lump crab and remoulade sauce. Really did this one right – just a little pepper instead of a ton of creole sauce. 10/10
• Caesar salad. Not much of a Caesar and the croutons were limp. 5/10
• Spinach salad with candied pecans. 8/10
• Fried Mississippi catfish. Good, light, not-muddy catfish. 9/10
• Roast sirloin with asparagus and sweet potato mash. Not adventurous but exactly as advertised and tasted good. 9/10
• Bread pudding with caramel sauce and vanilla ice cream. Same as the beef – not adventurous but very well done. 9/10

All in all, a pretty good dinner. Tomorrow some photos of the boat’s interior, including the dining rooms. We’ll be moored here all day tomorrow to explore Greenville or just laze around.

Scenes from a train

When we planned this trip we found that flying to Memphis to pick up the boat and flying home from New Orleans was expensive and took us around the barn to get to Memphis. So we decided to get a round trip non-stop to NOLO and take the Amtrak “City of New Orleans” to Memphis. A relaxing ride on the train would be just perfect.

So the river rose and wiped out the first half of the train ride. We took a chartered bus to Jackson and then the train to Memphis. This took about ten hours – not very relaxing. The train had no real food – microwaved in a café and microwaved in the dining car, so we had no dinner. We arrived in Memphis at 10 p.m., got our luggage at 10:30 and arrived at the hotel at 10:50 just after the last restaurant closed. Fortunately, we are lodged on Elvis Presley Blvd. and the hotel has a PB&J bar open from 10 p.m. for one hour. We just made it. Definitely looking forward to the breakfast buffet tomorrow.

Once on the train we had very comfortable seats and a clean window. The scenery was of early spring and many trees are just budding out. So, one cannot call it a ‘scenic ride’ just yet. Here are snaps from the train.

Pulling out of Jackson Station. It looks desolate, but it’s actually a skateboard park.

At least these buildings are in use. By the tracks there were a lot of rusty, burned out and abandoned structures.

Not sure what they sell here.

Yazoo City.

And so to bed.

The Quick and the Fed

A knock on the door at 8:00 a.m. and our breakfast arrived in a cute little basket. Regrettably there was very little in the basket and the croissant was just curly-shaped bread. One demerit.

We spent some time mapping our route through the Garden District and set off. Only a few blocks away the fancy houses began.

Actually the first “house” was St. Mary’s Chapel, but the attraction was this huge flowering tree. We’re not sure what it is – either crepe myrtle or wax myrtle are front-runners.

A mansion, of course, but distinguished by completely encircling verandahs on both floors.

An updated (all those windows) mansion. Greek Revival was the choice of nearly all the rich people.

The cast iron fence around Captain Short’s house was amazing. This elaborate corn motif ran for 200 feet at least.

Captain Short’s house was not awe-inspiring from our vantage point, but the front door was still decked out for Mardi Gras. Must have been quite a party.

We came to the Lafayette Cemetery, right across the street from the Commander’s Palace restaurant. We decided to have lunch but they couldn’t take us for two hours! We didn’t know that (1) it was one of the top 30 restaurants in NOLO, and (2) they have Saturday and Sunday brunch. Well, we took the 1:45 reservation and headed off to the cemetery.

NOLO is famous for burying people above ground. The water table is really close to the surface. These two tombs are reputed to be the oldest, and also to possibly contain slaves. The cemetery is part of a former sugar cane plantation, sold and converted to an enlarged cemetery and around it new housing – the Garden District.

Because buying your own tomb was so expensive, some communal groups (this is the Jefferson Fire Company No. 22) built communal tombs. There are no names on the slots here but the city maintains records of who is interred.

Sometimes, if the family doesn’t visit, things can happen. This tree has ruined the old front and a replacement tombstone has been put on the side. Why they did not take the tree down I can’t say. And the reason the family has to “notice” a sapling is that the city is forbidden to touch the tomb without permission.

The Jewish faith, we were told, mandates real burial in real earth. Therefore, a hole is dug 4 feet down (as far as can safely go), the casket is laid down, and then the hole filled in and two feet more soil is put on top. Kind of like making a raised vegetable bed.

We didn’t find any relatives or even acquaintance names. After a while we went back out to see a few more homes before lunch.

After all the mansions it was refreshing to find a more typical southern style, the Shotgun house. Here are two, side by side. The type is 12 feet wide and has no hallways. The name comes from the idea that you could shoot a gun through the front entrance and out the back without hitting anything.

Here is a duplex, combining two “American Townhouse” style homes. They too are long and thin, but not as thin as a Shotgun.

And so to lunch. This is a huge restaurant with two floors and a large patio. Half the first floor is kitchen, but there are still a lot of diners.

A view from our table. The balloons indicate it’s brunch. Our waitress told us that after we left they would pop most of them and start over for Sunday brunch. Storage issues?

They are hard to see, but there was a musical group: trumpet, banjo and bass. They toured the tables and took requests. I asked for Swanee and the trumpet player looked puzzled. The banjo player went right into it, including the introduction. Turns out his “Banjo Club” is very familiar with it. The next table asked for La vie en rose and the trumpet player did it rhythmically like Louis Armstrong (OK, his voice was different). Very nice.

The difference between a meal and a brunch is that for brunch you must have three courses. What an ingenious profitable idea!

From left to right, by row:

• We both had the Ponchatoula Strawberry Salad: berries, pecans, greens, lemon pound cake croutons(!) and limoncello vinaigrette. I’ve never had a strawberry salad with enough strawberries and we didn’t get one here. But, it tasted good enough. 8/10
• I had Wild Louisiana White Shrimp: rosemary, garlic and lemon seared, with soybeans and ripped(?) herbs. Very large and tasty, in spite of the smoky (don’t like smoky) tomato vinaigrette. 8/10
• Alice had Pecan Roasted Gulf Fish (I think the waitress said it was Black Drum): wild caught with local greens, melted(?) leeks, spiced pecans, Prosecco-poached jumbo lump crab and Woodford Reserve bourbon corn sauce. And a lot of corn. Alice says the Creole seasonings overwhelmed what seemed to be a very nice fish. 7/10
• Alice had their famous dessert, Creole Bread Pudding Soufflé – “The Queen of Creole Desserts.” Throughout our meal we saw countless servings of this dish. It is, in fact, bread pudding on the bottom and a meringue on top. It was very tasty, but Alice called it a fraud – not a real soufflé. Too bad – with one demerit for deception it is reduced to 9/10.
• I had bourbon flavored ice cream in a praline shell. Not worth a photo of a scoop of ice cream, but it was very good. 9/10. Alice ate the praline.

On our way back to the hotel we found yet another gigantic like oak. They say the sidewalks in the Garden District are very uneven, and they are. It’s all about tree roots. The people love their trees. I’m guessing that Louisiana law is a bit less frantic about tripping on sidewalks.

For dinner we just had sandwiches, watched March Madness, and zoned out. We were out walking for 6 hours. The weather was perfect and tomorrow will be almost as good.

Welcome to New Orleans

To add a little spice to our long-awaited Paddlewheeler Mississippi Adventure, we got tickets from LAX non-stop to NOLO on Spirit Airlines. I bought the tickets before reading some really discouraging reviews, but it did not turn out too badly. We opted for their version of Premium Economy so we got big seats. But, they didn’t recline and were not really that comfortable. My sore back did not approve. Good legroom.

Took off on time and arrived on time and got in a taxi with infinitely more comfortable seats. Our near-Eastern taxi driver in Los Angeles spoke barely understandable English, but our sub-continent taxi driver in NOLO was 99% unintelligible. As one ages one loses the ability to understand people with accents, it seems.

Our hotel is the St. Charles Coach House, whose restaurant is under construction, but that means Room Service for breakfast! For dinner we went to Mr. Ed’s (no, they don’t serve Belgian fries) Oyster Bar for seafood. So, today’s photos are all about food.

Fried Green Tomato Stack – four tomato slices and four grilled Gulf shrimp with remoulade sauce. 8/10

Gumbo. Rather bland, surprisingly. 7/10

Grilled redfish. Lots of paprika (reminds one a little of The Sea Lion in days past). Decent, nothing special. 7/10

Grilled Gulf shrimp. Good shrimp but again, nothing special. 7/10

In spite of all the above we did enjoy our dinner. Now we are in our hotel room reading the tourist brochures for tomorrow.