re: NOLA trip next weekend from GA

If you are travelling with an 8yr old, definitely go to City Park. Storyland, kids rides, puppet shows, carousel, etc.
They also have Putt-Putt golf and paddle boats there.
Everything is close in New Orleans, so it will only take you 15 minutes from the Garden District.

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Would love to hear a recap of how the weekend went and what y’all ended up doing.

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Already typing it in my head. Leaving in the morning, about to go to a hipster restaurant in garden district for our last meal. I wanted to go to Mr. Ed's but wife wants something fancier.

Friend,

It is deeply distressing to me that your first day did not hit high marks. The first block off Canal along Bourbon and Royal have always been a gathering place for the depraved. It is for that reason, we usually enter the Quarter along Exchange Place, Chartres, or even Decatur. I am also sorry someone suggested doing a ghost tour. Even the one Pulitzer Prize winning writer Chris Rose leads is not worth the time. Instead, next time, if you want to do a tour of the French Quarter, take one led by a National Park Service ranger. The rangers are more interesting and give real history, which is far more interesting than entertainment stories.

Next time, join Mother and me for a walk on the sidewalks of New Orleans. Whenever the streetcar is too full, we just take a lovely walk into downtown. But oh, how I miss my days of streetcar conducting.

Yours,
TulaneLSU

Part II- Part A

Saturday.


My wife, weeks in advance, purchased front row seats at Preservation Hall for the 3:45 matinee. The Halloween Parade was scheduled to begin around 6 or 6:30 or whenever the parade decides to start.

Game Plan: Daddy wants a po boy from Johnny's because I remembered it fondly from my previous visit 11 years ago. So we'll go to Johnny's for lunch, then "kill time" while making our way to Preservation Hall, then "kill time" waiting for the Halloween Parade.


About 11AM, my wife is chomping at the bit to get to the French Quarter; she's still shell shocked about the previous evening's logistical failures. I tried to tell her we were leaving too early, but she was too spun up to listen to reason so I said fine, we'll leave at 11AM for lunch and a 3:45 jazz concert. That was passive-aggressive of me, I should have been assertive.

We get to the street car stop on St. Charles. The app says 3 minutes. Then 7 minutes. Then 14 minutes. Then 3 minutes. Then brrrrrrrrr closed for maintenance. Check back in a few minutes, etc.

About five minutes later, a bus pulls up, lady opens the window and yells "street car closed, get on the bus!" so we do. Apparently the street car was fricked up in some way so the buses were doing double duty. Again, they never checked our passes/fares, just told us to get on. And then, at each streetcar stop, the bus driver stopped, opened her window, and yelled for the people to get on. Some people ignored her. She screamed back, the street car is shut down, get on the bus! Get on the bus! But they just stood there like morons. So off we went. But I got a bad feeling, like the "there's room for one more" story. Luckily that was just a dark feeling and not reality, as the bus took us right to Canal Street.

We got to Johnny's just about noon. We expected a line. And we weren't in any hurry at the moment. They had softshell crab as a po boy option, and whenever I see softshell crab on the menu, I'm a sucker. So I got the softshell po boy. I had no intention of finishing an entire po boy because I am not a glutton, so I split it with my wife who also ordered her second gumbo of the trip- a seafood gumbo garnished with a large blue crab leg we had no way to open and eat. Her gumbo reviews to come later. The child got a plain cheeseburger. As per usual, the food took forever to come out but we weren't in a hurry and I expected this. Luckily there was a table we shared with other patrons. At one point I had to correct my child for not respecting other people's space. I also had an Abita Purple Haze. The sandwich was delicious. The sweet tea was premade shipped in sweet tea from one of those branded tea urns and was too sweet, even for us dentally challenged Georgia folk. I had to make my way into the line to pour it out and pour unsweet tea, and the leftover residue of the previous tea was sweet enough for the cup. I don't think I'll be back a Johnny's. I have gotten it out of my system.

Now it's about 1 o'clock and there's 2.5 hours to kill before Preservation Hall. My wife wants to go to a museum of some sort, but me and the child find that boring. So she finds a Voodoo museum, and we say yes. But it's a longer walk. We walk to the voodoo museum but they meter the entrants, one cannot simply walk up and pay and enter. The next entrance available is at 2:45, which cuts it too close to our Preservation Hall reservation.

So, to kill more time, we end up strolling all the way back down to Jackson Square and going to Beignet (sp) Cafe, not to be confused with Cafe Du Monde. Open air, but serves more than just hot chocolate and chicory coffee. We kill an hour there. Then go to the Water Walk or River Walk or whatever you call it, yikes. Just as many passed out junkies there as on St. Charles at Canal. I don't say this dismissively, my brother is deceased as a direct result of opioid addiction. Seeing it laid upon this city, in the tourist areas, like nobody gives a single frick, is disturbing to me.

Still having an hour to kill, so go to Jackson Square and sit on a bench like Forest Gump, watch people get their wedding pictures taken. Child is miserable. I start into the "We shouldn't have left at 11AM" but the wife wasn't having it. "Then lets just all go home!". At this point I decide to become assertive and take control of the rest of the vacation.

We get to preservation hall, checked in, walked in, and my initial impression was horrible. I thought what the frick is this mickey mouse bullshite, I thought it was some grand ol opry house shite, I thought there would be concessions, I thought there would be bathrooms, I though there would be air conditioning. But then the music started.

Preservation Hall was my personal highlight of the vacation. Wendell Brunious and his band in an intimate setting is something that I can't even believe is something you can still buy and experience in this world of shite.

We all left with very high spirits after walking in with very low spirits.


And we still have the Halloween Parade that my wife insists upon seeing. That will have to be a Part II-B, as this post is long enough.

I typed up a very long and passionate Part II-B but AT&T fricked me and it wouldn't go through, and I don't have it in me to type it all out again.

Summary-

I hate parades, I have darkness in my heart. But my wife and kid enjoyed the halloween parade; we watched from the gate of Jackson Square on Decatur St. My kid got some stuff thrown from the floats and he was very happy about it.

Transportation back to 1404 was an Uber clusterfrick. We finally made it back home and never even had dinner. We dined on leftovers and snacks we had packed for the drive the day before.

Next up- Sunday: St Louis No 1, Felix's, Bug Museum

deeprig9’s saga so far has reminded me of two of my most cherished travel precepts. The first is to expect that things won’t go as planned, and to adopt an attitude of adventure when that happens. (“We are having an adventure!”) This helps to ensure that whatever Good may be waiting in the wings is not rerouted by one’s negative response to the disruption. The second is to recall that the best stories seem to spring from the worst disasters. Keep the audience you will one day regale in mind as you endure the travel gods’ slings and arrows.