It is Monday, June 20th, 2016 and I can't stand having this beard another minute! I walk the three blocks to the CVS and buy shaving stuff. Hey, look, they have a liquor section in the CVS! I come from Pennsylvania where all of the liquor stores are state owned. You can't just buy alcohol anywhere in good ol' Pennsylvania. Back at the Whitney I hack away at that untamed jungle until my baby-faced self emerges again. Ah! Got to remember to put sunscreen on my face now.
This is the first time in 9 days that I don't have to catch a train, be on a train, or get off of a train. I head home tomorrow, bright and early, at 7:00 am on The Crescent. But for now, I have the city to explore and I decide to do it on foot, not on a bus or a trolley or any other conveyance.
Thanks to that unbelievably comfortable hotel bed I slept until after 11 am so it was too late for breakfast. I decided to walk to the Casino and see if there were any good burger places in there. I haven't had a burger since before I left home and I'm sure there have to be some restaurants in there. I have a somewhat decent burger at Fuddrucker's and decide to walk it off by heading down to the River Walk.
From Harrah's casino to the Mississippi River is about 700 feet. In between you come to the place where the Canal Street trolley turns around. Well, not really. They don't turn the car around physically. Each car has a control at either end and a pantograph at either end. The car pulls onto the correct track using a turnout junction. They get out and pull the pantograph down and secure it then go and raise the one on the other end. They return to the now-front control station and the car is ready to go back in the other direction. It's such a novel way to get around the city
I watch the process a couple of times before continuing on to the River. This is one honking huge river, boy-howdy and dontchaknow? I can understand why so much literature was written about it. This is the second time I've seen it in this trip. The first time was hundreds of miles north of here if travelling by the river, when I crossed in Iowa way back on Day 2. Maybe even thousands of miles. Who knows with how this river twists and turns. It is muddy. Every time I've ever seen it, it's been muddy. And moving pretty swiftly too. There must have been storms recently. Two large ships go past me in the 1/2 hour or so that I stood there watching. One, a huge tanker and the other a ridiculously long barge set. According to a sign the main channel at this point of the river is more than 200 feet deep. I can't envision this. If you dropped the Statue of Liberty in the Mississippi River at New Orleans, it would still have over 50 feet of water above it.
Walking north... south?... it's hard to tell what direction in this town... walking downstream, which strangely enough happens to be due north at this location, you pass the S. S. Natchez. It's a paddle-wheel boat that offers "cruises" up and down the river. I took one last time so I skipped it this trip. I had dinner on my cruise in 2014 and there was a live band. Surprise surprise... a live band in New Orleans. You can't swing a cat in this town and not hit some kind of musical act. And them Saints sure do go marchin' in a lot down here.
The French Market has some intriguing shops and I buy a few trinkets no one really needs and then head off to explore Jackson Square. This is apparently the place where Louisiana was declared a territory of the U.S.A. in 1803 following the Louisiana Purchase. There's a big-ass statue of Andrew Jackson on a horse that you see all time on TV. Standing at the gate and looking at the building kind of reminds me of Cinderella's Castle at Disney World. And there are horses. Lots of horses. And there is lots of what horses produce. I don't linger long at Jackson Square.
It's about 95 degrees and really humid. A freak rain shower happens when a lone cloud drifts overhead. It's really strange because the sun is out and the sky is otherwise clear, yet it is raining and enough that people begin to seek shelter. I think it feels great. Bring it on! But it doesn't last and it only serves to increase the humidity so I hightail it back to my room, by way of the casino where I decide to sacrifice $20 of my hard earned dollars in the off chance I might strike it rich. I get down to only $5 left and hit for $20 which I leave in the tray and play the last $5 of my own money. I lose it, of course. I put the $20 I won back into the machine getting nothing to show for my time and I decide to head back outside.
I wander up and down streets with names I can't pronounce and enjoy the architecture that they just don't do anymore. Every street, no matter how small, has shops on it. Tiny hole-in-the-wall restaurants or bars with gaudy neon signs and some clever name. The sounds of jazz permeates the air everywhere you go, drifting from one to another as you pass the various establishments, sometimes overlapping in peculiar ways. The old balconies look pretty unstable to me. I can't imagine loading them up with people at Mardi Gras. Speaking of Mardi Gras, there are beads stuck in most of the trees. Sometimes on the telephone wires. They just never made it to where they were going and now they are a constant reminder of this city's Let the Good Times Roll attitude.
I choose a small restaurant whose name I can't even remember and have a big plateful of Jambalaya. Even the mild recipe makes the sweat pour from my head but it's sooooo goood. There are whole shrimp in it with their heads still on. I've never seen that before. The waiter hands me a printed sheet with instructions on how to "suck the head" but I am repulsed by the thought and choose not to add that to my New Orleans experience. If I wasted something special I choose to remain unaware of it. I wash down the Jambalaya with a locally brewed wheat beer that I actually like. I'm a hard person to please where beer is concerned but this one I like. A band comes onto the stage as I am finishing up dinner so I have some coffee and beignets and listen to a few songs, idly chatting with some of the other patrons. Curious, I pick up a box of pralenes on the way out the door. I've never tried them before.
OMG. These are sweeter than the Amtrak Chocolate Mousse of which I've spoken! I better not eat anymore of these or I won't get to sleep, and I have to be up at 5 am. Good luck with that unbelievably comfortable hotel bed.
Back to the Whitney and do a little blogging... check in at home and then off to bed early. I need to be at the station by 6:15 am.
Continued on Day 10
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