New Orleans: Settling In

4:02 pm:

We checked into Hotel Provincial about an hour ago.  The room is spacious and right off one of the courtyards, but we're crammed behind a creaky old stairwell and don't have much of a view.  But that is hardly going to be a problem.  We're just glad to have a place to catch our breath.

The drive this morning only took about five hours, and we were parked next to the Old Mint by about 1 pm.  We wandered the French Market and stopped by the Riverwalk.  From here we could see the familiar (to me) business district and Natchez riverboat.  

Our first several attempts to find a place to eat were fruitless, so we eventually settled for Cafe Pontalba, which is right along Jackson Square near the Cabildo.  As we waited for our food, those seated nearest to the windows were serenaded by a street-performing tuba player.  Hans' jambalaya was passable, and my barbecued shrimp, while well-seasoned, were a little more work than they were worth.  I forgot that "unpeeled" means with the heads on, and not deveined.  I think they were a little overdone too, because the shells were practically welded to the meat.  Very sweet and tasty nonetheless.

Now we're in our room, trying to figure out the next move.  Do we wander the streets some more before dinner?  Do we check out the scene on Bourbon Street later?  I think I need a Hurricane!

9:06 pm:

We started with a turn about the gardens at the Beauregard-Keyes House, on the opposite corner from the hotel.  Next, we headed toward Esplanade Avenue, which Hans and I enjoyed a lot since the street is divided by a tree-lined median and the crowds are fairly absent.  Then, we walked from one end of Royal Street to the other, taking Canal down to Magazine.  I showed Hans where I stayed during the ACS conference two years ago, and suddenly thought we should get dinner at Mulates, an excellent cajun joint with live music.

But since we weren't quite hungry yet, we strolled the mall, sat on the food court balconies overlooking the river, and sipped on frozen lemonade (Hans) and a pina colada (me).  After we happened upon the Algiers-Canal Street ferry, I spontaneously suggested we hop along for the ride (it's free, after all).  During the 25-minute round-trip we took some photos of the city from the river and enjoyed the fresh air.  After we landed back in New Orleans, we went to dinner.

Hans had some ultra-rich shrimp that were packed with crab meat and then deep fried, dipped in some kind of sauce that was at least 80% bacon (yum!).  I had the fried oyster platter.  Wonderful!  They were very lightly breaded, so you could still clearly taste the fresh molluscs, and served with wonderful cocktail and tartar sauces.  Since I figured we probably weren't going to feel up to much partying later, I had a Hurricane while Hans downed large quantities of Sprite for his sore throat.  The meals came with a half baguette of bread, which we toted back to the French Quarter.

Surprisingly, Hans wanted to walk back to the hotel via Bourbon Street.  He seemed to like the look of Pat O'Briens, so I think we're going to pay a visit tomorrow.

Our feet were tired and sore, so we spent a few minutes with our feet dipped in the hotel pool while we sipped the complementary coffee.

Hans seems a little perkier since we've been here.  His cold has migrated to his chest but he's been coughing plenty and keeping the liquids going.  I just hope that he continues to feel better while we're here so that he can enjoy our vacation.

New Orleans: A Head Start

I am so glad that we're starting the 560-mile drive tonight.  I'm a little exhausted from doing some last bits of cleaning, doing the laundry, getting the oil changed, filling the car with gas, and finally packing.  Hans could only take three days of paid leave this week, so as soon as he's done with work (in about an hour), we're going to hit the road and make it at least as far as Memphis.  That way, if we get up early tomorrow (but not too early) we should be in the french quarter by the early afternoon.

I am, however, a little worried about Hans because he hasn't been sleeping well since last week and he seems to be finally succombing to a cold that has been wearing on him.  Those who know him know that he rarely ever takes any medecine, and if he does, only a half dose in a single day.  This afternoon he took full doses of Tylenol and Sudafed.

We shall see what happens.  Hopefully we both can get some rest tonight.

Tomorrow we'll post from The Big Easy!

Edit:

After a wrong exit in Memphis and some cunning directions from Mr. Chipotle Burrito, we're enjoying the excellent vending machines and cable TV at a motel in Senatobia, Mississippi.  Right off the highway behind the Wendy's and BP Gas Station.

Propane.

Return to Hawn State Park

The weather prediction this weekend was pretty spectacular, so we decided to give up our cabin fever and go to Hawn State Park for a day of hiking and a night in our tent.  Since our first attempt at geocaching a few weeks ago was a failure, I downloaded a couple of new caches onto our GPS so we could give it another go.  Here you can see the track we made last time, wandering willy-nilly on a snow-covered hillside, trying to find the cache at Trail of Tears:

The campground was fairly busy, since it had just opened for the season, but still quieter than last year:  We had shown up in the middle of Memorial Day Weekend.  The walk-in sites were abandoned and only one other couple was using the area.

We drove back to the park entrance and started down one of the connector trails, and then did the north loop of the scenic Whispering Pines trail.  Our total distance was about 8 miles.  Along the way we encountered quite a few people, but for the most part we had the woods to ourselves.  We had just seen Alice in Wonderland the night before, so our hike was punctuated several times by Hans turning suddenly to exclaim "You're late for tea!" followed by a flying pine cone.

The first geocache was at the the top of the highest point in the park, left by a geocacher who goes by the name "Strider".  He's obviously a Tolkien fan, or a fan of one of my sister's cats.  Hans charged ahead and found it fairly easily.  Success!  We agreed that the views offered from where we stood made our first find much more rewarding than the one at dreary Trail of Tears would have been.  We opened the musty ammo box and looked at the various treasures inside.  Someone had left a 200-peso note, another had left a laminated card listing prime numbers.  We didn't bring anything to trade, so we just left a note in the log book.

Victory is mine!

The next cache took us a ways off the trail, but it made for fun hunting with the GPS.  Hans was a gentleman and let me find this one.  He even stopped when he spotted the cache first and let me discover it.  It was under an alcove of sandstone cliffs, and neither of us felt like crawling into the hole.  The find itself was enough for us.

Our hike was finished a few hours before sunset.  With stiff legs we set up to make dinner, discovering that I had remembered to bring the hot dogs, but not the buns, and had left the marshmallows at home.  Drat.  Nevertheless, we played a round of Settlers of Catan (if you've never heard of it, well done) and tried to eat brats with spoons.  At least I remembered to bring the beer.  The firewood bundle we bought was a little damp and moldy, so it took quite a while to build a fire that was worth anything.  Once it had died down to coals, we did a little star gazing at the clear sky and crawled into our sleeping bags for the night.

Here are a few more trail shots and the GPS track of our hike.  The little green boxes are the geocaches.

(It was funny at the end of the day when I looked at the trip log on our GPS, because it said that our average speed was 2.5 MPH and that our maximum speed was 27 MPH.  But then I realized I had forgotten to turn it off when we drove back to the campground).

National Parks / Ken Burns Review

Here's yet another post about American holiday destinations.  As you may have already guessed, Hans and I are usually more interested in a walk in the woods than an evening spent checking out new night life pursuits.

Lately we've been watching bits of Ken Burns' series on the national parks.  He presents a small selection in his usual style of wide sweeping shots, interviews with historians and rangers, historic footage, and stories of their foundation.  Nowadays it's hard to imagine the political opposition faced by those who strove to preserve such treasures as the Grand Canyon or Yellowstone.  In fact, there was so much local uproar over Grand Teton, the Atiquities Act was amended to restrict future land withdraws in Wyoming.  If you find it on your local PBS, I'd recommend it to anyone.  Especially those like us who have been meaning to make a pilgrimage to the "big ones", but haven't made the effort or found the time yet.  It just might be the push out the door you need.  For example:

Since we're looking at possibly moving east this year, we were especially inspired by the feature on Acadia National Park in Maine, and we're fairly set on spending a week up there.  As an early birthday present for Hans, I picked up an annual park pass and a guide book published by National Geographic.  It contains some really useful introductory information, as well as suggested side excursions to lesser-known monuments nearby.  The maps are fairly easy to get acquainted with, and I hardly need mention the glossy eye-candy photographs.

We also hope to make use of our access to Shenandoah fairly regularly.  We'll be lucky to cover even a fraction of its 500 miles of trails.

That said, I plan to share reviews of some of my favorite travel series.  I don't typically keep track of the multitude of shows found on the Travel Channel, as many of them don't really appeal to me or have much relevance, eg:

But I do enjoy the narration that goes with many others, and I'm fond of vintage travel series.  Just be prepared to see a lot of posts about Michael Palin, you silly fairy.