Skip to content

Rexy Finds a Home

A cross-country RV quest

  • Why an RV?
  • Where we are now
  • Meet the family
Menu

In the light of the Crescent City

Posted on December 4, 2019December 4, 2019 by Analise Zocher

Hey, it’s Analise. We’re halfway through our second week in New Orleans and already planning where to stay for the rest of December. Though we’ve both been fighting off colds this week, New Orleans has offered plenty of food, warm weather, and great sightseeing to keep our spirits up. Also gators. Lots of gators.

Food tourism

Tasty foodstuffs took an early lead in things we’re enjoying most in the Big Easy. For being on the road, our Thanksgiving was pretty traditional for us. In the morning, we watched the Macy’s parade in the followed by the National Dog Show. The only difference was we didn’t help prep a meal – we had a turkey dinner with a Creole twist at SoBou in the French Quarter.

Other yummy highlights so far have included the Showboat Platter at Deanie’s (a mountain of fried seafood at a local institution) and breakfast at the Ruby Slipper Cafe (a solid tie between my shrimp and grits and Mark’s Chicken St. Charles Eggs Benedict). Fun fact: we ate at the Ruby Slipper on Burgundy Street which used to be a bank that was once robbed by Bonnie and Clyde.

Click the pic for a bigger pic

Thanksgiving special at SoBou
Shrimp and grits at Ruby Slipper
Ruby Slipper's Peacemaker eggs benedict: Chicken St. Charles and Sausage in Gravy
Showboat Platter at Deanie's. Future heartburn victim for scale.

Hit the highlights

Some cities have so much going on that it’s impossible to see all the must-sees in just a weekend. We got around those logistical limitations by taking a hop-on/hop-off bus tour. As it happened, our guide was so entertaining we stayed on the bus for the whole two-hour route. We learned about the city’s history, its ongoing recovery after Hurricane Katrina, and the hard distinction between places locals go (Garden District, Frenchman Street) and places tourists go (French Quarter, Bourbon Street). The streets are lined with Mardi Gras trees (live oaks covered in beads from past parades), and graves in cemeteries are built above ground (we saw the pyramid that Nicolas Cage has already booked as his final resting place).

The drive into New Orleans -- highways built on water
Houses in the Marigny neighborhood
One of NOLA's famous cemeteries. Nic Cage has a reservation at the pyramid.
Mardi Gras trees in the Garden District
What's for breakfast in the French Quarter? Humidity.
French Quarter architecture is apparently, historically, Spanish.

We did get beignets in the French Quarter for breakfast one morning. We got there early enough to see Bourbon Street get power-hosed for the day, before the crowds filled in the narrow streets. We enjoyed the architecture – lots of detailed scroll-work balconies and brightly colored facades. But the crowds really are insane, and we high-tailed it before lunch. We found a fun gift shop and a sci-fi/fantasy bookstore a little ways from the Quarter. After a conversation with the bookstore’s owner, we learned that New Orleans does indeed have a nerd scene but it’s subtle and you have to know where to look.

Gator country

My one must-do in New Orleans was an airboat ride in a real bayou. We shipped out with Jean Lafitte Swamp Tours for a morning outing across 1,100+ acres of wetlands. The interconnected waterways run from the gulf coast all the way through the city. We saw part of this on our first day in town, when we drove across a causeway entirely supported by concrete pillars in the water.

Captain John knew all the best spots to find gators, which we learned can be touchy and territorial. We saw a tons of native species (alligators, ibis, buzzards, red-eared turtles, cypress, Spanish moss) as well as oodles of invasive species (nutria rats, apple snails, water hyacinth).

Louisiana's state tree, the bald cypress, covered in Spanish moss
Bayou-front hotels damaged by Hurricane Katrina
Unsalvageable buildings get scrapped for metal
The Gulf Intracoastal Waterway West Closure Complex. Say that ten times fast.
Swamps have a lot more tall trees than we realized.
Part prairie, part bog, part river.
Our first nature sighting! Red-eared turtles.
Our first gator! If this was the only one we'd seen, I'd still be happy.
Baby gator! Our captain and some select people help raise baby gators until they're big enough to fend for themselves. This has helped gator populations recover from near extinction.
His name was Jefferson and he was adorable.
Black birds and a white egret
Sunbathing gator, roughly 7-8 feet long
Tourist for scale
Smile, Gator!
Smile, Mark!
It's amazing how these large dark lizards can blend in with the environment so well.
Biggest gator of the day -- over 11 feet long
Gator in stealth mode

The best views came at the end, though, when our skipper found an 11+ foot alligator sunning itself up out of the cold winter water. And then he found another one! The second one had less patience with the boat and disappeared into the water. If you thought an alligator on land was intimidating, try a largely hidden underwater one.

After the swamp tour, we had lunch just down the road from the boat launch at Restaurant des Familles. We enjoyed catfish and crawfish etouffee overlooking the bayou complete with 3-foot alligator.

RV checkup

A pair of springs that help retract one of the back jacks busted. Both of the back jacks have been tetchy on travel days for a while, so we’ve got replacements for both pairs of springs heading our way.

Lilly watch

Am I in your way now? How about now?

Cat tax: the price you pay for wanting to play a game instead of lavishing your pet with affection.

What’s next?

We’ll finish out the week in New Orleans before heading to the Florida panhandle.

If you have any suggestions for things to see and do or questions about our travels and RV life, let us know in the comments.

Share Rexy's adventure
Posted in DestinationTagged Animals, Food, Louisiana, New Orleans, RV life

1 thought on “In the light of the Crescent City”

  1. Lisa Zuhn says:
    December 5, 2019 at 4:28 pm

    Great info on New Orleans, thanks. If you make it to Panama City,FL a visit to Big Mama’s Country Cooking restaurant is a must!

    Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Copyright © AllTopGuide 2023 • Theme by OpenSumo