Driving from Baton Rouge to New Orleans Julie and I were excited. We had been to New Orleans a year and a half prior on our honeymoon and were excited to go back. The drive from Baton Rouge is pretty interesting. After leaving the city you pass by a few farm fields before you enter the swamps of southern Louisiana. You then go over long stretches of causeways over the shallow water and even over the western edge of Lake Pontchatrain before coming into the New Orleans suburbs. We had booked 5 nights at the New Orleans KOA in which we would be staying at the campground one night on either end of our stay and at a hotel downtown for the middle 3 nights. Once we reached the campground (located about 20 minutes from downtown) we set up camp and relaxed for the night.
The next morning we woke up, packed our bags for the next 3 nights, hailed an Uber and headed downtown to our hotel. Today for the first time a non-family member was joining us on our adventure. Our friend Matt was flying from Rochester, NY and we were excited for his arrival. He was not coming until later on that afternoon so after checking into our hotel Julie and I had a little time for our selves. We started the day by walking down Bourbon Street and into the French Quarter. We reminisced about our honeymoon, which actually was originally planned for Charleston, SC but had to be moved to New Orleans due to a hurricane coming up the east coast. We wandered through the neighborhood ending up at a restaurant called Buffa’s that we had eaten at a year and a half prior. From Buffa’s we walked a few blocks over to a cigar bar for a cigar and drink before heading back to the hotel to move our bags from check in to the room. After a bit of a delay from Matt he finally arrived. It was great to see an old friend and I’m sure Matt was excited to get out of the cold upstate NY weather. Once Matt was settled we headed back to the French Quarter first checking out Jackson Square. Jackson Square is famous as in 1803 the contract for the Louisiana Purchase was signed there. Its quite spectacular at night as well as looking back at it from the Mississippi River you see the statue of Andrew Jackson and the St. Louis Cathedral lit up. From there we walked to the nearby French Market Restaurant for a great dinner. As all 3 of us had been traveling that day and were a bit tired we called it quits after dinner and walked back to the hotel for the rest of the night.
The next morning we woke up ready to tackle another great day. After a good breakfast at the Market Café in the French Quarter we hopped into a cab and headed over to the Garden District section of town. This area of town was developed from 1830 to 1900. As the story goes many wealthy Americans moved to this section of town to build large plantation style homes. They did this, as they did not want to live with the French Creole people living on the other side of Canal Street. Today most of these old plantation style homes still exist looking almost as they did when they were built 100+ years ago. We walked up and down the main commercial street in this section of town stopping in a few stores and shops. We then headed over to Lafayette Cemetery #1 for a tour. This cemetery is the oldest in town getting its start in 1833.
When coming to New Orleans many people take cemetery tours, as they are unique compared to most other cemeteries in the country. In New Orleans, people (entire families) are “buried” in small crypts instead of graves. A misconception is that this is due to a high water table in the area, which isn’t true. People are buried this way, as there is simply not enough land in the city to bury all its dead. This is how the cemetery works in New Orleans. For this process the family must own a crypt in one of the city cemeteries, if not they are buried outside of the city where there is land available. If one of your family members passes away and you own a crypt in the city, the bricked covered opening of the crypt is knocked down and the body is placed inside only covered by a sheet or inside a simple wooden coffin. The opening is then closed with bricks again and cannot be opened for at minimum 1 year and 1 day. As it is very hot in New Orleans the inside of the crypt becomes like an oven and the body decomposes very fast. After the year and day if another family member dies an undertaker opens the crypt once again, puts all of bones from the last person in a small box and places that in a hole in the back end of the crypt. The new body is placed in the crypt and it is sealed once again. This process is then repeated for essentially eternity. At the Lafayatte Cemetery we had a great tour guide that we found through “Save our Cemeteries” who told us the history of the cemetery in total as well as the families that were in the cemetery.
From the cemetery and the Garden District we took an Uber back to the French Quarter to meet up with Julie’s friend Liz at Lafitte’s Blacksmith Shop Bar, which is the oldest continuously operating bar in the country. Liz is one of Julie’s friends from college when they both went to the University of Cincinnati. It was great to see her and catch up as well as see the historic bar. We made plans to see Liz again the next day as we had dinner reservations at Luke (great French/German food) that night. After dinner we headed over to the famous Carousel Bar located inside the Hotel Monteleone. This was really neat as the bar was circular with the patrons’ seats actually revolving around the inner bar like a carousel. There was a great jazz band playing too. It was a great day!
The next day we woke up ready for another fun day. Today we would be going on a swamp tour in an airboat. We were picked up promptly at 830am by our shuttle bus and taken about 45 minutes south to the airboat pickup destination. As we had chosen a larger tour company (Airboat Adventures) there were a few hundred people there when we arrived. When checking in everyone was given a number that corresponded to a particular boat and at 10am we boarded our boat. Captain Danny was our driver and we were off! The tour started heading out through the bayou in the town of Jean Lafitte into Lake Salvador. Once out in the lake Danny really let the engine go. We went from just puttering along to warp speed. Everyone on the boat put on our ear protection as the sound is deafening from an airboat motor. After zooming around the lake for a bit we entered one of the logging channels cut through the swamp. Danny explained to us that these channels were cut roughly 100 years before when companies used to log in the swamps of southern Louisiana. While the practice isn’t done today (it hurt the local environment), it did give us beautiful channels to captain an airboat down. At this point Danny was on the hunt for gators and before we knew it we pulled into an open area where we could see a few warming themselves on the banks in the sunshine. Danny turned off the engine, and pulled out a bag of marshmallows. He then threw a few in the water and the gators slowly made their way over and proceeded to eat a few more as Danny threw them in. Danny said that gators are typically mellow creatures and that if you had seen a show like “Swamp People”, they have to really agitate them to get them that angry. As he said this he reached under a gators head that was next to the boat and proceeded to give it a kiss between the eyes. He then pulled out a small gator out of a cooler on board which everyone got to hold. As Julie would say – “This was so fun!” After holding the gator Danny then piloted the boat back to the starting point and we hopped back into our shuttle and headed back into New Orleans.
Once we got back to town we headed back to our favorite New Orleans restaurant for lunch, Buffa’s. We had been a few days prior but wanted to show Matt so we headed over. It was another delicious lunch. From Buffa’s we walked around the French Quarter stopping in a few shops and touring the French Quarter Market. We all picked up a few trinkets to take home. After heading back to the hotel for a quick shower we headed out for dinner. We were headed to see Liz again who works at the Ritz Carleton. We expected just to have a drink and maybe an appetizer but Liz had another idea. Once we got to the hotel and the restaurant in the hotel Liz had us order a drink (a Sazerac of course) but then said don’t order any food, I’ve got a few things coming for you. The meal started with homemade potato chips followed by gumbo with shrimp, crawfish and cornbread. The next course was jumbo shrimp and grits followed by homemade sausage, pickles, mustard and bread. The meal finished with homemade beignets with 3 dipping sauces (The beignets were 100 times better than at Café Du Monde. If you’re in New Orleans go to the Ritz for them – only $10, well worth it.). After this we were stuffed. We thanked Liz telling her that we would be back soon or invited her to come visit us on the road!
From the Ritz we headed across the French Quarter to Frenchman Street. Frenchman Street is known as the live music area in New Orleans. Most of the bars on this street have live music nightly and tonight was no different. First up for the night we went to a bar called Three Muses for a band called Washboard Rodeo. This was a folk/blues band that did use a washboard as one of their main instruments. We listened to one of their sets before wandering outside and right into a 15 piece jazz/funk band that was performing on the street. As they were pretty good a large crowd had gathered around almost blocking off the entire street. We thought that at some point the police would come to break this up but they never did and people went about their business enjoying themselves. We then wandered down the street and were going to head home but then heard a band playing that we just had to see. Kyle Lacy & The Harlem River Noise were playing the Balcony Music Club and they were great. It was only a 3-piece band with a guitarist, upright base and drums. These guys rocked out though. Seeing them was a great way to end the night.
The next day we woke up, it was our last day in the city. Matt had an early flight and after saying goodbye to him we headed out for a quick breakfast. Julie and I then wandered around the French Quarter seeing if we had missed anything in the past. After our wandering we headed back to our hotel, grabbed and Uber and headed back to our campsite just outside of the city. There we relaxed and planned the next stage of our adventure.
Next up…We explore the historic river towns of Southern Mississippi.
