Road Trip 2024 Day 6

November 15, 2024

 

We started the day with room service. Let me now write an ode to room service because it is one of the best concepts ever devised. Delectable food delivered straight to your room that you don’t have to make yourself and can eat while dishabille. I love room service so much. But I have to admit the oatmeal that I ordered for myself was a little lacking in presentation. It was a very tasty banana brulee oatmeal but damn! A cardboard box for oatmeal?! Great googly moogly! What is this world coming to.

 

The reason for the room service was an early reservation for a swamp tour and we didn't want to spend the time searching out a breakfast place. We were picked up outside our hotel this morning to be motored off to Madisonville which is an hour away from New Orleans. It was a really cool drive because it involved a 24 mile bridge called the Lake Pontchartrain Causeway and holds the Guinness World Record for longest continuous span over water in the world. It was an interesting experience to drive on a bridge for 25 minutes straight. Of course, my mind went directly to what happens if there is an accident or what if you drive over the side of the bridge. My mind can be a weird place sometimes. I tried to concentrate on all the pelicans gathered on the concrete footings instead. That was a much better focus of my attention for the 25 minutes.

 

Once there, five of us loaded on to a dinky little boat at a dilapidated dock – recent rains had rendered their usual docks unusable due to high waters. 

 

Albert grew up in the area and motored us off to the swamp which sounds a bit sketchy but actually wasn’t. Albert was a very nice guy who grew up in the area and knew tons about the marshlands and swamp. It was a nice combination of going slow and appreciating the wildlife and hearing about the cypress trees, Spanish moss, and everything else in the area. And then once he had explained what we were looking at, he would take off like a bat out of hell zipping around corners and scaring the turtles. It was great! Made me feel like I was in an episode of Miami Vice merged with Animal Kingdom.

 

It was all so very beautiful and unspoiled. It was very different from the landscapes that I’m used to, so it was a pleasure to experience it. The ride lasted 2 hours and we returned to the dock with wind swept hair a la Farrah Fawcett. We then faced another hour back to New Orleans over the 24-mile bridge of doom/pelicans.

 

Back at the hotel for a couple of hours of down time. Mum came down with a cold today and is not feeling her best, but she is being an absolute trooper and not slowing down at all. But it was nice for all of us to have a few moments to contemplate the inside of our eyelids for a bit or read a book.

 

We decided on an early dinner to Napolean House which has been around since 1914. It’s known for their muffulettas, which according to their website is a “quintessential New Orleans sandwich”. Basically, it’s a celebration of olives which is a big ol’ HELL NO for me. Mum and Terry love olives (it’s a mystery how I could possibly be related to them) and they loved their sandwiches along with a side of jambalaya. New Orleans food is their happy place. It was a fascinating restaurant with lots of decorations on the wall including way too many framed pictures that were hung crooked. What is wrong with these people that they can allow such a travesty?! It made my eyes twitch.

This is a photo of some of the pictures with relatively straight frames and does not even begin to convey how crooked the frames were on another wall. Harrumph.

After dinner, we were quite close to Jackson Square and decided to take a nighttime stroll in the area. The park is locked after dark, so we were unable to explore but went across the street to take a gander at the Mississippi River. We stopped to admire the Christmas tree

And the full moon over the Mississippi. It’s a Beaver Moon tonight and the last super moon of 2024. Interesting factoid – according to the Farmer’s Almanac, the name was chosen because this is the time of year when beavers start sheltering in their lodges after having prepared food stores for the winter. Now go forth and share your wisdom with your family and friends.

It was fun to walk back to the hotel tonight with all the noise and revelry surrounding us. New Orleans is a fascinating city to visit and we are loving every moment of it.