Scamp, Travel

New Orleans: Visit. But Not in the Summer.

by stacey

You know that old joke: “it was so hot”, “how hot was it?”

It was so hot: we set up the Scamp at Fontainebleau State Park, and left to go Lake Pontchartrain beach, immediately.

The sky was blue, but not that blue. Way to go, Google editing.

It was so hot we couldn’t go in the water at the beach because of bacterial levels.

Instead, we walked on this awesomely Instagrammable pier.

It was so hot we waded in the splash pad with 3-year-olds.

“We can’t go in there, it’s for toddlers. Want to bet? I’ll offer to babysit.”

It was so hot my junior mints melted through the box.

I threw them away. And I have low standards for food —I totally believe in the five-second rule. I even believe in the 5 minute rule.

It was so hot the trees were melting.

Spanish moss? Or molting?
This one just gave up.

It was so hot there was condensation on the Scamp windows.

It’s only smiling because there’s air conditioning inside.

It was so hot my morning yoga was unintentionally hot yoga.

It was so hot the official weather advice was “don’t go outside”.

It was so hot that we rode our bikes down Tammany Trace railroad bed to the brewery and then needed to sit in the AC for three hours to be able to ride back.

I’m glad he took my picture from so far back, so you can’t see the sweat stains down my spine.
Air conditioning and craft beer. Thank God.

I am a New England girl in my heart and soul because I am definitely not cut out for dealing with this kind of heat and humidity on a regular basis.

We decided to escape the furnace of our campground and head into the heat of the city of New Orleans! More to come on how hot it is there later.

First, it’s superlative time! We drove over the longest causeway in the world (continuous, not aggregate, because apparently, the Guinness Book of World Records delineates these things). Whatever the title is, it’s 24 miles across the Lake Pontchartrain Causeway to get from our campsite to the Big Easy.

Driving on the world’s longest causeway is exciting for 3 minutes. The remaining 35 is less so.

Then, because we were not celebrating (1) a bachelorette party, (2) a significant birthday ending in zero, or (3) a divorce party —side note: divorce parties are apparently a thing?!—as was, apparently, everyone else in The French Quarter, we took an old-people Mississippi River Boat Jazz Tour.

I just need a white linen suit and I could channel my inner Mark Twain.

Welcome onboard the City of New Orleans paddleboat! Ever since I learned to spell Mississippi, I have wanted to take a tour on the Mississippi. While onboard, I learned that we can book a river cruise from Louisiana to Minnesota for 15 days. But first I have to win the lottery.

Jazz on the top floor, historical narration of the sights, and very, very colorful rum drinks. It’s cooling down to a breezy 97.

They took requests. We wanted them to play Bananaphone because it’s the only song we could think of with a clarinet solo.
The Jackson barracks, which originally housed soldiers during the Civil War.
Jackson had nothing to do with the Civil War, but he was the hero of the Battle of New Orleans, and thus, gets his name on, um, everything.
Domino sugar: the second-largest sugar refinery in the world, producing 7,500,000 sugar per day, making it my new favorite type of refinery. (Geek alert: Al Khaleej Sugar is the world’s largest).
Another Jackson tribute: a glimpse from the river of the 100-foot obelisk that commemorates the site of the Battle of New Orleans, where Jackson led a 2-hour battle to defeat the British—after the war was already over.

He didn’t get the text, I guess.

We spent an inordinate amount of time hanging out at the paddle, watched the sunset and moon rise, and then casually but purposefully proceeded down to the bottom deck so we could be one of the first people off the boat. It was only 92 degrees now that the sun went down, and with no sea breeze, I want off. Yep, we’re those people. Sorry.

IT’S REALLY NOISY DOWN BY THE PADDLE! (Shouting for effect there).

Once disembarking, although it was late for us (by that I mean, it was nighttime and you could see the moon) we went over to Bourbon Street to see what all the fuss was about.

Open-toed shoes are going to prove to be the wrong footwear choice to tackle Bourbon Street.
Best picture ever, if the girl in the center was me.
But she’s not.
So, Bourbon Street.

The fuss seems to be about:

Pat O’Brien’s: the dueling pianos bar and creator of the original Hurricane (Have fun!) drink.

Pat O’Brien’s was also a speakeasy during Prohibition. You can find that out if you are so much of a dork that you stop to read the historical plaques on the outside of the bar.
It was so hot out that even the water was on fire.

Lafitte’s Blacksmith Shop Bar: is reportedly the oldest structure used as a bar in the United States.

You’re supposed to get the Voodoo Daiquiri, but it was such an evil-looking purple color that I couldn’t bring myself to order it.

Tropical Isle: home of the hand grenade, a poisonous brew made of vodka, rum, gin and melon liquor. It’s called the hand grenade, in case you needed another reason to avoid it.

This sign was as close as we got to a “hand grenade”. The description online (because I look up drink ingredients, because I’m that cool) called this an “evening ender.”

Hotel Monteleone for excellent live jazz and upscale (grownup) cocktails served—wait for it—on a rotating carousel. But even cooler than drinking on an old Merry Go Round is that Ernest Hemingway, Tennessee Williams, and William Faulkner have all stayed here. (Pretty sure they weren’t downing hand grenades).

The only thing that would make this better is if we were all sitting on carousel horses.
No horses, but all of the chairs are embroidered with carousel animals.
Also, for some reason, I look like I’m taking steroids

We stayed out on Bourbon Street until about 11:30pm, which I felt was a respectably late night until I found out that most of those places are open 24 hours a day.

I’m signing up for AARP.

Early to bed and early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy, and able-to-remember-their-trip-to-New-Orleans.

But the French Quarter isn’t only about hand grenades and hurricanes.

It’s also about food.

SO MUCH FOOD.

It’s also about going into every tacky gift shop you pass because they have air conditioning and sweat is pooling in the small of your back and seeping through your clothing.

But mostly food.

Fried alligator (taste 80% like a slightly rubbery chicken with 20% seafood aftertaste) , and oysters, which I could eat by the wheelbarrow full but restrained myself to a half dozen.

If I’m this close to alligator, it’s probably good that it’s covered in batter. And I’m changing my name to Popeye.

DatDog on Frenchmen Street for Vaucresson hot sausage (Creole seasoned with paprika and cayenne).

Dat Dog
Dat Dog One for the Saints hotdog with creole spices
Dat Dog Embrace your bliss sign with a pig hugging a hotdog

Pro tip: Frenchmen Street is Bourbon Street for people with scruples. Jazz, awesome restaurants, and a decidedly I-am-middle-aged vibe. And street art, which I love. If you’re going to deface public property, you should at least do it with creative, inspiring messages.

street art water cover with encouraging message
street art water cover with encouraging message
street art water cover with encouraging message

Beignets and cafe au lait with chicory coffee. Cafe du Monde is the spot. I can’t vouch for the coffee since I am eleven in my heart, if not 107 in my behavior, and so I got milk, but Jeff said it was good. I can vouch for fried dough for breakfast, which is what beignets basically are. I still had half a cup of powdered sugar in the bottom of my bag when I was done.

I’m not complaining.

We took a not-air-conditioned-but-at-least-in-the-shade five block detour through the French Market on our way to more food.

The entire city is ready for a Mardi Gras party at any moment.
While in the French Market, we discovered Loretta’s Authentic Pralines. I don’t know how I have existed 46 years on this planet without having had a praline, but I will be making a concerted effort to include them in the next 46 years, you can count on it.

Muffalettas from the Central Grocery. If you like olives and sandwiches bigger than your head, this is the sandwich for you. The deli sells one thing. Muffalettas. You can get a whole, or a half. We got the half, cut in half. I need to buy bigger clothes.

Muffaletta half sandwich from Central grocery New Orleans

I won’t lie, I packed our New Orleans itinerary. (We read it out loud to our Uber driver, and he laughed and said we could never do all of that in 2 days. He obviously doesn’t know me.)

Because I’m a history nerd and it was only 87 degrees with a heat advisory at 8:30 in the morning, we had to go see The Louisiana State Museum Cabildo.

This is where the Louisiana Purchase went down in 1803, which doubled the size of the USA, and also gave Lewis and Clark and Sacagewea something to do for 2 years.
Going a bit overboard with the Andrew Jackson worship. Although if you don’t look too closely, you could pretend it’s Wyatt Earp.

History nerdiness took over in full force and we went to spend three hours in the air conditioning.

I mean, we went to the National World War II Museum.

I tried to be a Navy Seabee out of college. Maybe if I had learned to swim they would have taken me?

Whoa.

Just go.

The museum was full of personal, interesting artifacts presented in the context of the battles through the European and Pacific theaters. You can (we did) spend hours walking around the air condtioning.

I mean artifacts.

Plus, four stories of planes and jeeps and inspiring war on the homefront propaganda.

And, children with Ipads playing games instead of leanring about the most significant war in human history.

Sigh.

Never going to be a ball turret gunner. Never, ever, ever.

The Garden District is New Orleans’ answer to Newport, Rhode Island, but with southern charm instead of New England yachts.

You can take a walking tour to these beautiful southern mansions if you like your sneakers literally melting to the asphalt, but we opted for an air-conditioned driving tour where I got out and of the car, took photos, eavesdropped on the walking tour, and then got back in the car.

Call me a coward, but at least I wasn’t a coward dying of heatstroke.

New housing goal: invest in more wrought iron.
And be Anne Rice so I can use my house (the red one with green shutters) as the setting for all my books.

Lots of people come to New Orleans for the haunted things/ghost tours. The realtors apparently know that.

That’s not really our wheelhouse but, if it’s yours, you can buy a haunted house. You can take a ghost tour. Or have your fortune read. Or consult with a medium. Or do all of them at once.

Cool cemeteries, however, definitely are our thing. (Figuratively, not literally. Literally, nothing in New Orleans is cool. Moderately tolerable for short periods of time is as cool as it gets).

The most famous cemetery to visit is St. Louis Cemetary No. 1, (there are 3 total) which is the oldest and purportedly most haunted. It’s only accessible via pre-booked tour, which, in our heatstroke-induced stupor, we neglected to book. The second most popular, Lafayette No.1, was closed for renovation.

So it turns out the best cemetery to visit is the one that was open!

Metairie Cemetery, home of the Chapman H. Hyams mausoleum, and the weeping angel marble statuary.

I’m a Doctor Who fan, so I basically spent the entire visit looking over my shoulder and trying not to blink.

Regardless of which one you visit, all of the above-ground tombs are, serene, beautiful, and a constant reminder that you are below sea level, necessitating the elevation of the graves.

It’s a cruel joke of the nature gods that in a city this hot, rain is a curse.

In a desperate search for some shade where we could eat our muffalettas before the cheese went rancid and the meat spoiled, we ended up under the Singing Oak in City Park.

The tree is adorned with hidden-but-not-really-hidden wind chimes that make the tree sing in the breeze.

A breeze. HA.

We did hear the chimes, softly —chiming?— but it could have been wishful thinking.

I didn’t know Jeff was taking my picture, I was looking for the chimes.
Once I knew, I busted out all the high school yearbook photo poses.
Ducks can smell muffaletta.

And just like that, my “must do” list for New Orleans was complete.

With hours and hours to sweat.

I mean to spare.

Take that, Uber guy.

It’s so hot even the sky is on fire.


Happy trails!