Ahh.. the city famous for it’s Creole cuisine, bayous, beignets, and so so much more!! There’s so much that I can’t even condense this wonderful city into four measly words.
Lets start from the beginning.
Upon arriving in Louisiana, the weather began to die down. Louisiana wasn’t as white as northeastern Texas but it was just as cold which meant the roads were even more dangerous due to freezing rain and icy slick roads. We made it into Shreveport and debated whether we continue towards New Orleans. However, the main highway that was the gateway to southern Louisiana was shut down for the night!
Since we were pretty starving, we looked for a restaurant in town. We found a vietnamese restaurant called Dahn’s Garden. They served not only Vietnamese food, but Thai food as well. Jeff stuck with the Yellow curry (my favorite) and I decided to get adventurous (AGAIN) and get a tofu dish. Jeff’s was pretty good (AGAIN) but mine tasted like tofu marinated in fish sauce. YUK…Again. I should really just learn to order things that I’m familiar with. ;)
Something kinda fun that I didn’t know before was that Louisiana is full of drive-thru daiquari bars. (and I’m not talking about the virgin kind!) At first this totally boggled my mind!! Coming from California, which has some of the strictest alcohol laws in the nation, I couldn’t wrap my mind around this concept that people could pull into a drive-thru and order an alcoholic beverage in sizes that ranged from 5oz to 1 gallon! I was later informed that DUI laws still do apply in Louisiana (haha) and the rule is that if you poke a straw through the top of the cup, it’s considered an open container. (WHAT?!) Don’t cops know that a logical person would just take the cap off and drink it without a straw?!
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| That's right... DRIVE-THRU daiquiris :) |
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| I guess they had to add that little disclaimer at the bottom ;) Notice you could drive home with a GALLON of mixed cocktail |
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| I thought that no one went through these but sure enough, they had a faithful customers! Go on and git ya sum! |
We decided to stay at a campground for a night or two until the weather looked better for travel. After calling around at multiple campgrounds, we found that many “RV parks” in the Shreveport area are reserved for long-term or permanent residents. We finally found one that catered to overnighters called Tall Pines RV park. We pulled in around 7PM and we disappointed to see that the offices were closed. Now, normally we wouldn’t be bummed about this, but we were near empty on our propane tank. Propane is what fuels the coach’s heater and we would need it in these 30-40 degree temps. The owners were so courteous because they came out and helped us fill our propane. They must have felt sorry for us since it was such a cold night. We decided to stay a couple of days to get things in order before we headed south.
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| It was THAT cold!! (yes, that's ice) |
If any of you are HBO’s Eastbound and Down fans, you might enjoy this photo. Our neighbor looked almost identical to Stevie Janowski from the show!!! HAHA!
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| STEEVIE JANOWSKI!! |
We left the campground rested and ready to go. The weather had cleared and it was about 50 degrees which was fine with us considering for the past couple of weeks we’ve been dealing with temps ranging from 30-60 degrees. BRRR.
We stopped at this health food store in Shreveport, which was super cool. I’ve come to really appreciate these privately owned little mini Whole Foods. It is hard to find good food when you are constantly traveling, especially when you are doing a lot of interstate travel. The most common cuisine you’ll see while driving is usually Subway, Burger King, or Mickey-Dees.
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| Nice little market in Shreveport |
We also had to stop by the skate park in Shreveport called Stoner Avenue Skate Plaza. The name was right, but the skate park was more like a gondola with benches that you could sit on and look at the river.
As we were finally on our way to The Big Easy, we could already feel the anticipation building up inside us. Again, it was nearing dark as we drove along the I-10 on the Atchafalaya Swamp Freeway. This might seem like a minor route towards New Orleans except that we were driving over a bridge that was about 18 miles long that towered over swamps, rivers, and bayous! This impressive structure sprawled all the way from Lafayette to Baton Rouge. I tried to look up some information on this particular bridge, but only meniscule details came up.
Completely awed by the craftsmanship of this bridge, we continued on our way wondering if there were “Cajuns” or originally “Acadians” living in these waters. After a couple of hours of driving in the dark, we neared New Orleans. Our discount membership only offered a campground in the French Quarter for a max of only one day, so we found another campground on the east part of the New Orleans vicinity called Jude Travel RV Park. This was yet again another crowded RV parking lot, but the owners were so nice (more of that awesome Southern hospitality!).
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| Parking lot-style |
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| Jude Travel RV park.... and Gia |
The campground was only 15 minutes to the city (which I found out New Orleanians consider the French Quarter/Downtown area) and from Jeff’s longtime friend, Larry Blossom.
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| Cedar at Larry and Monique's.. on a skate bed |
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| Larry and Cedo |
Larry and his girlfriend Monique live in the Uptown area in the heart of New Orleans. When we first came to visit, they took us to a little French café called La Madeline. It was really good, but not the New Orleans cuisine that I was looking to sample. Now, I fully understand that 95 percent of Creole cooking will contain some sort of meat product, but one could only wish right? I felt no regrets for being vegetarian and actually being in this city famous for it’s cuisine inspired me to veganize the traditional dishes native to New Orleanians.
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| A Giraffe from the Audobon Zoo sneakin' some over the fence grubs ;) |
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| Inside La Madeline |
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| La Madeline cafe |
I managed to make some red beans and dirty green rice while we were there. Some recipes that I vowed to veganize in the near future were fried “Catfish”, Po’Boy bread, King Cake, and beignets just to name a few.
Jeff’s mom, Pam decided to come visit with us in New Orleans. Her hotel, The Omni Royal, was in the heart of the French Quarter, which was a treat for Pam since she’s a walker and could cruise famous French Quarter streets.
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| The Omni Royal... I guess this is popular hotel for celebs |
We came to visit her the first night and did a night walk of the French Quarter. There were many tourists doing the exact thing that we were doing. There was so much to see that we could have walked the streets for a month everyday and still not seen everything about the Vieux Carré (another name for the French Quarter).
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| Night walk on Chartres Street |
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| NOLA hot dog cart |
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| Veggie restaurant in the French Quarter |
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| More restaurants in these awesome buildings |
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| Famous Haunted Bar |
Of course we passed though the most famous street in the French Quarter, Bourbon Street. To me, this was really reminiscent of Las Vegas. There were people with drinks in hand and everywhere you looked, there was something exciting happening. For the month of January, this part of the French Quarter was exceptionally busy or so I thought. Apparently during the actual season of Mardi Gras, the street becomes almost unbearably crowded. I later learned that most of the locals prefer the much milder neighborhood parades than the rowdy French Quarter parades.
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| Bourbon Street madness |
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| Cedar and Papa (and Ba) ready to part-ay!! |
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| Some poor guy getting humped by a festive Bourbon Street performer |
Monique and Larry were kind enough to be our guides through New Orleans. One day, we toured a portion of the Garden District and also got to walk around one of the famous cemeteries.
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| Okay.. kinda random, but we met Larry and Monique at this coffee house in the Garden District. This is a note I found taped above the toilet.... |
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| ...and another sign posted on the cork board outside the bathroom... I just think it's funny when people get so anal about things... |
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| Garden District house |
The Lafayette Cemetery No. 1 is an impressive collection of mausoleums or above ground tombs. Some of these date back to the mid 1800s! These tombs became popular due to the fact that when the hurricanes did flood the land, the buried bodies of the deceased would unearth and corpses would float up to the surface of the water!
Another amazing part of touring New Orleans is the architecture. There were some of the most amazing homes as you drove down St. Charles Street or walked Esplanade Street. The homes are nothing compared to the old Spanish buildings and amazing wrought iron balconies and galleries of the French Quarter. There are only a handful of original old colonial French buildings left in the city. The buildings that are so recognizable in the Quarter are actually Spanish inspired architecture due to the Great New Orleans Fire in 1788 that demolished the old French buildings. During this time, New Orleans was under Spanish rule, so the Spaniards intended the buildings to fit the (then) modern Spanish design.
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| More French Quarter architecture |
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| Amazing wrought iron galleries... |
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| A walk down Esplanade Street |
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| Esplanade Part duex |
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| More awesome homes... |
(As you can tell, I became obsessed with learning everything there was to know about the history and culture of New Orleans during our visit here. )
Pam was kind enough to offer her hotel to us so that we could have a Cedar-free night on the town with our friends. Of course, we didn’t party it up too hard. We ended up having a nice dinner at this restaurant called Pierre Masperos then called it a night.
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| A night view of the city on the Omni Royal rooftop |
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| Date Night!!!! Thanks Pam! :) |
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| Larry and Mo having a funny moment |
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| I'm so darn short... |
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| Group photo!! |
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| ♥♥♥♥♥ YUMMMY!!!♥♥♥♥♥ |
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| Packed on a Saturday day! |
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| Awesome band playing outside of Cafe Du Monde! We got front row! |
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| This guy could play the trumpet with one hand.. |
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| Coffee and beignets! Yum! |
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| Jeff and his mom Pam |
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| My new obsession... |
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| Cedar's like, "Mama stop being so weird... and give me another BITE!" |
After our delicious little treat, we walked maybe less than a block to see a group of men performing for a large audience. Jeff said that he had seen people break dancing in this exact spot about ten years back and was curious to see if these were the same performers. They must have been doing this for ten years because they were really good! They held the audience’s attention and put on an awesome show!
Across the street, we noticed some horse drawn carriages. For 15 bucks a person, one can get a 20 minute carriage ride through the city and divulge in some history based on the driver you get. The 15 dollar one is the least expensive one you could get. Some of these private rides range from $75.00 to $200.00 based on what you want!
For our last meal with Pam, we decided to stop at this restaurant called Muriel’s which is located in the famous Jackson Square. WOW! They had limited vegetarian options, but they ones they had were amazing! We ordered this angel hair pasta with a burnt tomato sauce (yea.. sounds gross) but it was one of the best sauces I have tasted!
As stated before, I had become obsessed with finding out as many facts as I could about this great city. An interesting fact I had not known was that New Orleans (the French Quarter mostly) is one of the most haunted places in the world! Look it up, you’ll be surprised at what you find!
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| Kitties and their mama |
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| Baaaabies!!!! |
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| On our departure day, we found that the kitties left us a little surprise (haha) |
A frequent question I get when I tell people back home that we are in New Orleans is if there is any apparent damage to the city. We didn’t really notice it, but in some parts entire blocks were abandoned so I’m assuming that’s where the flooding was the most severe. Also, when you drive over the I-10, you could see some water damage to the homes that got it the worse. But the city is still in its recovery mode and I think it’s doing a pretty good job!
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| Some abandoned homes due to Katrina... |
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| Another abandoned building... |
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| Funny guy workin' the corner... (haha) |
