A family's journey around North America
The rain has stopped so I went back to the French Quarter to take pictures. The sun came out for a bit as I walked. There was a lot for my eyes and ears to take in!
Other things I’ll remember about New Orleans are the voodoo stores and the drinks-to-go. There’s no law against drinking on the street, but you can’t drink out of a glass container, so all the bars sell drinks in festive plastic cups.
Today was a full day of exploring. This morning, we took the street car (don’t call it a tram around locals). This was our idea of a cheap tour. For $1.25 each, we rode across town to city park and saw lots of beautiful houses on the way.
We got off at the park to let Morgane play. Then we met a nice lady with a beautiful Golden Retriever named Latte. She told us where we could eat and also said that the average age of a New Orleans house is 99 years old.
After lunch at an excellent Asian restaurant, we took the streetcar back to our hotel. The streetcars have seats for the drivers at both ends. When they get to the end, they just flip all the seats so they are facing the other way and off they go.
Ghis had a nap while Morgane and I went out walking. I wanted to see the Mississippi River so despite a bit of rain, we walked in that direction. The first thing I saw by the river was the aquarium, so we decided to go.
It was fun and Morgane got to pat stingrays and a little nurse shark. There was a tank that was like a tunnel that we walked through. There was also a room with a giant aquarium and you could sit on the bleachers and watch it like it was a giant TV.
Then we walked through the French Quarter because I had heard that there was a free concert at happy hour. We didn’t find much (maybe because of the rain), but I did like seeing this area. The buildings and streets are beautiful, even in the rain! We met up with Ghis at Cafe du Monde where we heard an accordion player.
It started to get dark and we walked through the narrow streets up to Bourbon Street. Ghis laughed about how people told us that New Orleans is dangerous. It doesn’t feel that dangerous to us. Bourbon Street was full of bars with live music and local drinks like the powerful grenade. There were also a lot of girly clubs and we were glad that Morgane didn’t seem to notice.
By the time we got to Canal Street near our hotel, I was sick of being out in the rain. It was really pouring! We looked around for some affordable, good food, but gave up and ended up splurging on an upscale dinner.
Morgane was ecstatic to see a kid’s menu. She inhaled her parmesan cheese and butter pasta. She didn’t like the side order of zucchini, so I told her to eat the yellow ones. She didn’t clue in that they were also zucchinis as I made up an elaborate name for them. She said they tasted like nothing.
Tomorrow the weather is supposed to be nicer. We have one last day to explore before we head into cajun country – Lafayette and Baton Rouge, I think.
After Mississippi, we drove to New Orleans. Our first impression was that downtown looked like Vancouver. Then we saw the French quarter and thought it looked like Montreal, but not quite as nice. We haven’t even been down by the water (the Mississippi River) yet, so we’ll reserve judgment until then.
We did a detour on the way to our hotel. The GPS brought us to the other branch of our hotel – the one by the airport. We got way out there and then realized that we were nowhere near the French Quarter! Then we heard the really loud planes over our heads and hoped that we hadn’t booked there by mistake. Luckily, it was only a matter of setting the GPS to bring us to our real hotel.
Our hotel is very comfortable and is walking distance from the French Quarter. Names here are French, but nobody speaks it anymore, it seems. We all went for lunch at Mother’s, a famous spot. We had Jambalaya and a Po’ Boy. Finally figured out what a Po’ Boy is. It is made of what they call debris – the pieces of meat that fall into the gravy. Restaurant owners used to sell pieces of French bread topped with gravy and debris to poor boys at the back door. Poor Boy = Po’ Boy. Jambalaya is with rice and sausages and chicken. Tomorrow we’ll try the gumbo. And bread pudding seems to be big here, too.
Morgane and I spent the afternoon at the Children’s Museum. She LOVED it, but I think I’ve had my fill of these places for now.They did have a great section of Mr. Rogers and you could play the songs and go in his house and put on his sweater. It brought back some nice memories. Maybe I’ll look up some clips on youtube to show Morgane.
(Note: I have added some things to the previous two posts!)
I can hardly remember all the places we’ve driven through lately. After we left Homosassa, we were driving along when Ghis spotted something on the road. I think he shouted, “Opossom!” He braked and I stared at the creature. Then I yelled, “Armadillo!” It was an armadillo. Ghis managed to stop and we watched her walk off the road and into the bushes. We didn’t even know there were armadillos around.
We spent the next night in Tallahassee, the capital of Florida, and then drove to Fort Walton Beach on the Emerald Coast.
We visited a science center and bought a membership which can be used at 300 other science centres and museums in the States and in Canada, too.
We stopped at the beach to see the green water and white sands. It was raining a bit, but it turned out to be a great shell beach. Morgane even found two giant sand dollars. The swimming must be great here when the weather is warmer.
Then we drove into Alabama, continuing along the Gulf of Mexico coast. We camped in a state park that was only $16. I was afraid of the bayou that our campsite was next to since it was dark and I’d heard about crocodiles liking areas like this.
I read on a blog some wisdom in case I do run into a croc. They said to zig zag instead of running straight away because crocodiles can’t zig zag very easily. I don’t really think crocodiles are hanging around waiting to prey on people, but when I get to a campsite at night, I don’t take any chances!
We were up early, especially after changing time zones gave us an extra hour. We continued on to Mississippi. We drove along the coast and saw a lot of ruins. There are huge casinos everywhere, but these brand-new buildings stick up here and there. There is a lot of land with nothing on it and it’s easy to spot a lot of foundations that must be from buildings ruined in the hurricane. There is also a ton of land for sale. I guess not everybody wants to rebuild.
On the way, we stopped to eat at a restaurant in St. Petersburg. We were excited because it was organic, but it turned out to be a raw food restaurant. The food was excellent – the cucumber and pineapple soup especially, but Morgane was in for a nasty surprise! When I ordered her a plain bowl of pasta, they brought a bowl of zucchini sliced to look like pasta! She was not fooled.
It actually tasted really good and not strong (since it was raw), so we told her she had to eat it. She refused. She finally gave in at dinner time and finished it by about 7pm.
Morgane and I visited Homosassa Springs State Park. We saw manatees, but they were mostly busy eating, so we didn’t see them very well. We just know they are really big and Morgane commented that they look like “gigantic beavers swimming in the water” because of their tails.
There were lots of other animals to see including a very smelly hippo. We finally got to see pink flamingos although I think they look more orange than pink.
After the park we drove to a special place that we describe like how Key West must have been thirty years ago. I am not even allowed to say the name of the place – I promised the lady who told us about it! Sorry, you’ll just have to come look around yourself.
In the morning, we did our laundry, hung out at the library, had a bite of grouper (fish) and then toured around looking for citrus trees.
I loved the Christmas lights on the van! Now I want some, too. It’s hard not to gather clutter, but the van is much more pleasant when it’s not messy. Today I sent back a box with some of Morgane’s extra toys and shells and things.
Ghis loved meeting the other van enthusiasts! They were interested in all the technical stuff he likes. He was a bit insecure that we wouldn’t be accepted since we have a Eurovan, not an actual Westfalia, but it was no problem at all.
Morgane liked some of the older vans. And Ghis even says he’d like to have one someday.
Here are some more pictures from our night at Fort Desoto near St. Petersburg. We spent about an hour on the beach before the sun went down. Then we chatted with our new VW van friends until quite late!
We got a late start the next morning and headed off to see manatees at Homosassa State Park.
We stopped at a state park near Englewood Beach where we heard we might find shark’s teeth. There were lots of big herons hanging around the people fishing from the beach. We met a nice lady with a special scooper for taking shells and other stuff out of the water and she helped us find our first teeth.
The black shark’s teeth are prehistoric. The white ones are more recent. Sharks lose a lot of teeth – that’s why there are so many around. By early afternoon, Morgane was an experienced tooth finder. We have a nice bag of them to bring home.
I went for a walk on my own to the point and on the way was surprised to find a tortoise on the path. At the point, there were some people who had come by boat and they were watching three wild dolphins.
We left the park around two and headed to St. Petersburg where there was a gathering of VW van owners. We spent a great evening with them playing glow-in-the-dark frisbee and even glow-in-the-dark petanque (bocce). They let us stay for the potluck dinner even though we came with empty hands and they found a spot for us to park as well. The vans were beautiful – one was from 1964! There were also a couple of little girls for Morgane to play with.
We left this morning, glad to have met our first live (not on-line) VW group.
Today we left the Miami area and drove through the Everglades and Big Cypress Park. Unfortunately we didn’t take a boat tour or even a muck-about tour (wading through the swamp), but we did see alligators and lots of wonderful birds.
At the first visitor centre, we walked along a boardwalk and admired the alligators below. They hunt at nights, so in the day, all they want to do is stay warm and digest their food.
I bought Morgane a little book on alligators and she read it all by herself. We learned that crocodiles live all around the world, but alligators are only in the southeastern states and in China. They are cold-blooded and mothers can have 40 babies at a time.
The road runs beside a sort of canal and I spotted a lot of alligators in it. Free-range alligators, I call them. You can buy alligator jerky to eat, but none of us would have eaten any.
Now we are on the western coast of Florida in Port Charlotte. We are exhausted and will go to bed early. It’s already much colder than it was in Miami and the Everglades
The beach next to Hollywood is Fort Lauderdale. Funny how we hear so much more about it than Hollywood. We’re spending a last day getting everything together (big cleanup) before we hit the road tomorrow.
We’re going to drive Alligator Alley through the Everglades. If I see any alligators, I am not getting out of the van even though I’ve been reassured that they don’t generally pursue people.
We’ll miss staying with Dave and Leo. There house has been an oasis from the heat of the last week (especially for Carmanah). We’ll also miss the avocados and the starfruit tree. Morgane will miss playing with and training the three dogs.
Last night we all went to a couchsurfing get-together. There were many hosts and also some couchsurfers from Germany and Israel. If you haven’t heard, couchsurfing is an internet organization that allows travellers to hook up with hosts willing to offer a free couch or bed for the night.