Travelogue, Part the Second

If reading the first part didn't bore you to tears, then this one just might. . .

Monday, 14 March, continued

The weather had been great while we were visiting St. Francisville, but it got ugly again after we turned south. Baton Rouge's rush hour was a minor inconvenience (someone in St. Francisville had warned us that it was "really bad"), until we got to the I-10/I-110 junction, where traffic ground to a halt.

A quick redirection from the navigator had us on to the I-12 eastbound to the I-55 south. We made pretty good time after leaving the I-10 and the travel through the great soggy swamp (or whatever it's formal name might be) was fascinating. The entire area from south of Ponchatoula to nearly the I-10 junction near LaPlace seemed to be more water than land. I can't imagine how much money it cost to build that stretch of Interstate: it's pretty much one long, long bridge.

In warmer weather, this area must be totally covered in mosquito clouds. Each one the size of an A-10 Warthog!

It got fully dark before we got in sight of Lake Ponchartrain, so the dramatic scenery had to wait for another day. Liam once again demonstrated his affinity with the weather, because he mentioned rain just as we got into the urban fringes, and less than a minute later, we were deluged with the stuff. Fortunately, the hotel was very visible from the I-10, so it was only a minor inconvenience.

The rain was so heavy that we decided to just eat a late dinner at the hotel, rather than try to find somewhere else. The staff in the restaurant must have been very bored, as we got amazingly fast and friendly service. Juan, our waiter, was as attentive and helpful as we could possibly have wished. The servings were extra-large, and the boys were given extras (which we weren't charged for) without asking.

Some fellow customers in the restaurant heard our accents, and gave us a free sample of their line of Cajun spices on their way out of the restaurant. To our surprise, when we tried it the other night it was excellent — much better than the various blends we'd been able to get here in the Toronto area.

Tuesday, 15 March

After our wonderful experience in the hotel restaurant the previous night, we confidently headed down there for an early breakfast. The contrast was just flat-out amazing: it didn't just suck, it was one of the worst restaurant experiences we'd ever had. Elizabeth and Victor were our advance party, and it took them nearly half an hour just to get a couple of croissants and a small fruit plate — and that was nearly $15. When I got down, it took an additional 20 minutes for them to scare up a coffee for me. The restaurant was busy, but not that busy; certainly not so busy as to justify waits of that length of time.

The coffee was cold, too.

As a result, we decided to get a mid-morning snack downtown. a scary cab ride, the first stop was the original Café du Monde down on the Mississippi riverfront, for beignets and café au lait. Yes, it's hokey and traditional, but it's also good.

Unlike our last visit to New Orleans, it was cold and wet pretty much the entire day. We got seated in the Café du Monde, right up against the tarp they had lowered to cut the wind and rain. The wind was rattling the tarp enough to interrupt our conversation now and again.

In spite of the extra calories from the beignets, the boys were both ready for lunch within half an hour of leaving the Café du Monde, so we struck out for the Court of Two Sisters on Rue Royal. As you can see, the food was appreciated by our starving teens:

And no, your eyes do not deceive you: that is actually a plate of fruit that Victor is eating.

Yes, we were shocked too.

After lunch, we wandered around the streets, looking into stores and picking up the odd souvenier. Victor's hat above is perhaps the oddest souvenir we ended up with. He even picked up a matching feather boa, but I didn't get a photo of him wearing it, as the weather stopped even pretending to co-operate.

We had planned to go on a walking tour of the Vieux Carré, but almost all of the tours are now run in daytime (apparently the crime has become so bad that only one or two of the dozen "ghost" tours can still operate after dark). We were perhaps lucky that the weather was so miserable, as it kept some of the potential trouble-makers off the streets.

Part the third will get done when I get a few more moments to recollect and (if necessary) embroider the details.