Mississippi River Day 17: New Orleans to home

This article is part of a series about our recent vacation traveling down the Mississippi River. To see the introductory article in the series, click here.

We had a late flight home, so we tossed around ideas for things to do in New Orleans for the early part of the day. By popular demand (all of us), we made a return visit to Café du Monde for another breakfast of beignets. I loved the café au lait the other day, so I ordered a large one this time. Unfortunately this means that it comes in a Styrofoam cup rather than a modest china cup, and it isn’t nearly as satisfying that way. I recommend the small.

Mississippi tourboat

We returned to the hotel to finish packing, and the skies opened up again with more torrential rain, lightning, and thunder. We enjoyed our (dry) view of the storm for quite a while, then the rain let up a bit and we checked out of the hotel, walked over to the Riverfront Marketplace to pick up some last-minute souvenirs, and then returned to our hotel, which was about the only place that wasn’t crowded, for lunch.

It started to rain again at the airport just as we arrived, and after reaching our gate there was yet another torrential rain and thunderstorm. The airport reported about 2.3 inches of rain that hour. Our flight was delayed a bit by the fact that the ground crew can’t work outside when there is lightning, but fortunately Frontier held our connecting flight in Denver long enough for us, and our luggage, to just make it.

The weather in the Bay Area felt especially cool and dry on our return.

Mississippi River crossings today: 0
July 20, 2012

Mississippi River Day 16: New Orleans and vicinity

This article is part of a series about our recent vacation traveling down the Mississippi River. To see the introductory article in the series, click here.

Since we still have the rental car, we thought it might be fun to travel outside New Orleans a bit. Specifically, we wanted to see some of the delta swamps (and perhaps an alligator). We were also interested in seeing a bit of the Gulf coast, by heading east into Mississippi once more.

Barataria Preserve

After a quick breakfast, we drove over the Mississippi River bridge to Westside, and then down to the Barataria Preserve of the Jean Lafitte National Historical Park and Preserve. As with most National Park Service facilities, there was an excellent interpretive center. Unfortunately, some of the trails, including some of the best alligator sighting opportunities, were closed for maintenance. After liberally applying insect repellant, we went out on the boardwalk trail. In addition to the lush plant life, we saw many insects, a few salamanders, and heard (but did not see) many birds. We thought we heard an alligator, but other visitors were talking so we could not tell.

It started raining again, so we got back in the car to go to our second destination. Just east of Lake Pontchartrain, the weather got very dark and rainy again, prompting us to turn around because we wouldn’t see anything anyway.

Preservation Hall

Back at our hotel, the pool area was too windy for use. The rain had slowed enough to allow us to put on our raincoats and take a late afternoon walk in the French Quarter, where we stopped at a corner café for dinner. After that, we went over to the famous Preservation Hall for their 8:15 jazz concert. Preservation Hall is VERY small and intimate, holding only about 100 people, with about two-thirds of us standing. But the 45 minute concert was terrific; in many ways you want to be standing for music like that.

Mississippi River crossings today: 2
July 19, 2012

Mississippi River Day 15: New Orleans

This article is part of a series about our recent vacation traveling down the Mississippi River. To see the introductory article in the series, click here.

Beignets and café au lait

The most consistent advice I got from friends about New Orleans was to get beignets from Café du Monde. So that’s what we did for breakfast. Despite a long line for take-out, we were seated quickly and enjoyed what has to be one of the least healthy foods in existence: deep-fried dough piled high with confectioner’s sugar. And they were indeed yummy.

Along the way, we noticed large numbers of youth in various matching tee shirts all around the city. It turns out that the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America is having its triennial youth summit, bringing about 33,000 clean-cut and polite kids and their leaders to New Orleans. Nevertheless, we had to watch out for these groups because their sheer numbers meant that they tended to clog sidewalks and restaurants.

My work was falling behind, so I took much of the day off from sightseeing and let Kenna and Celeste do some touring without me. I rejoined them at Central Grocery for lunch, where we shared a muffuletta, an enormous and delicious sandwich (one served all of us more than adequately).

They walked around the French Quarter, did some shopping, and visited one of the National Park Visitors Centers where they heard about some concerts taking place in the Old Mint. The building has been refurbished by the National Park Service and the State of Louisiana and now houses a small theater and museum. They sat in on a concert and lecture about the history of New Orleans jazz, hosted by an excellent jazz piano player.

Bananas Foster

Late in the afternoon, the family returned and we went for a swim, I took a conference call by the pool (and thereby made myself the envy of those on the call). We went to Arnaud’s Jazz Bistro in the French Quarter for dinner (accompanied by enjoyable music), followed by another recommended local treat for dessert: Bananas Foster. Bananas Foster consists of bananas, sugar, banana liqueur (because bananas alone aren’t banana-ey enough, apparently), and various spirits that are flambéed and served over ice cream. The result was delicious, but even after most of the alcohol cooked and burned off, still a bit strong for Celeste.

As we ate our dinner, it started to rain, and then more, and when it was time to leave we were getting torrential rain, a full-blown thunderstorm. While hailing a cab from under the awning, we had a lightning strike very nearby, which was memorable. We quickly found an available cab, and returned to the hotel without further incident. From our room on the 15th floor, we had front row seats for the rest of the thunderstorm. We could also see many of the Lutherans returning on foot from a gathering they had at the Superdome, undoubtedly and unfortunately drenched.

Mississippi River crossings today: 0
July 18, 2012

Mississippi River Day 14: Vicksburg to New Orleans

This article is part of a series about our recent vacation traveling down the Mississippi River. To see the introductory article in the series, click here.

Mount Locust Inn, along Natchez Trace Parkway

Today’s drive began with a short scenic driving tour of Vicksburg, followed by a drive south to Natchez, Mississippi. The latter part of this segment was via the Natchez Trace Scenic Parkway, one of only three such parkways in the country. The road was very quiet (no commercial vehicles allowed, and very few others) and beautiful. At one point we stopped at a visitor center for one of the Mount Locust Inn along the Natchez Trace Trail, which had been restored to its condition as a plantation.

We stopped for lunch in Natchez at the Pig Out Inn, a funky barbecue restaurant, then drove southward into Louisiana. As we drove into Baton Rouge, we took one of the most ironically-named streets I have ever seen. Scenic Highway runs alongside several oil refineries and storage facilities.

Louisiana Capitol

After paying our traditional visit to the State Capitol (the only one I can remember without a dome), we stopped for ice cream and continued to New Orleans. After all the driving we had done, we decided to splurge a bit and stay in a very nice hotel, the Windsor Court, in the business district close to downtown. The Windsor Court lived up to its online reviews saying it has the friendliest staff in the City, a great climax to a long ride.

Mississippi River crossings today: 2
July 17, 2012

Mississippi River Day 13: Little Rock to Vicksburg

This article is part of a series about our recent vacation traveling down the Mississippi River. To see the introductory article in the series, click here.

Today was a longer drive again. We crossed into Mississippi a couple of miles after crossing the river, owing to changes in the course of the river since the state boundaries were established. Our first stop was at a visitor center where the host’s main focus seemed to be on making sure we signed in so that their visitor counts were good. After that, we were pretty much on our own. One thing we did learn there was that a few miles down the road was Leland, Mississippi, Muppets creator Jim Henson’s boyhood home and the “birthplace” of Kermit the Frog.

We had a pleasant picnic lunch on the shore of Deer Creek (no frogs seen, though) and spent a few minutes inside the very pleasant Jim Henson Museum. Then it was off to Vicksburg.

Union Line at Vicksburg

Vicksburg, Mississippi was where General U.S. Grant obtained control over a significant amount of the Mississippi following a 47-day siege of Confederate fortifications. A driving tour of the battlefield took us first down the Union line and then the Confederate line. It was striking how close the trenches were to each other, and we read that many of the trees present there today grew since the Civil War, so they would have seemed even closer. An exhibit also showed the salvaged remains of the USS Cairo, the first ship to have been sunk by an electrically-detonated mine.

After checking in at our hotel, we had dinner at Walnut Hills, a local restaurant situated in an elegant historic house. We had excellent Southern food in perfect surroundings, followed by a few minutes in the rocking chairs on the front porch.

Mississippi River crossings today: 1
July 16, 2012

Mississippi River Day 12: Memphis to Little Rock

This article is part of a series about our recent vacation traveling down the Mississippi River. To see the introductory article in the series, click here.

Today’s drive is one of the shorter legs: only about two hours. We plan on spending only one night in Little Rock, so we got a good start in order to see as much as possible this afternoon.

Little Rock Central High School

Our first stop was at Little Rock Central High School, the school where in 1957, the “Little Rock Nine”, a group of African-American high school students, challenged the “separate but equal” principle by enrolling in a previously all-white school over the objections of the Governor and many Little Rock residents. Central High is still a functioning (and very beautiful, incidentally) high school, but now there is a National Park Service visitor center across the street. The exhibits explained the events well in the context of African-American civil rights protests as well as other civil rights issues like woman suffrage and rights of those with disabilities.

Oval Office replica

We then proceeded to the Clinton Presidential Center (the “Clinton Library”). This is the first presidential library for any of us, but it was well worth the visit, especially for Kenna and me, who remember the Clinton era well. There were many reminders of the accomplishments of President Clinton, and even a bit of humor. A full-size replica of the Cabinet Room and Oval Office were part of the exhibit, and were striking in their realism (except for the monitors added to the Cabinet Room table).

Mississippi River crossings today: 1
July 15, 2012

Mississippi River Day 11: Memphis

This article is part of a series about our recent vacation traveling down the Mississippi River. To see the introductory article in the series, click here.

Graceland

Apparently No trip to Memphis is complete without a visit to Graceland. So we started the day by doing that. It had the expected visitor center with a bus to the mansion itself. But what was unexpected was it was neither as big nor as gaudy as we had been led to expect (other than that it was decorated in the ’70s).

We returned to downtown Memphis for lunch and then visited the Cotton Exchange museum, which highlights the role of cotton on the local economy and beyond. Many of the exhibits were located on the actual trading floor that had been used in years past.

Mud Island river model

We then took a tram to Mud Island River Park and the Mississippi River Museum. The museum itself covered many aspects of local history, including the Civil War and development of Memphis as a jazz music capital. But we were particularly taken with the exhibit outside: a huge topographic scale model of the lower Mississippi, including bridges and cities. It gave us even more of a feel for the river. We wished we had more time to read the interpretive signs talking about floods, changes in the river’s path, and events like the great 1811 New Madrid earthquake. But we had to catch the last tram back to our hotel.

Beale Street Party

Dinner was at Rendezvous, which is apparently the definitive place for Memphis barbecue, downtown at least. After dinner we walked down to Beale Street, the music district, to find a huge “block party”: the streets were closed to cars, pedestrians walked everywhere, and several bands were playing. We were cautioned (about 8:30 pm) by the police monitoring the street that Celeste would need to leave by 11 pm (no problem!). It was a fun and lively party while we’re there, and probably got a good deal more crowded and lively later.

We finished the evening with a ride on one of Memphis’s historic trolleys. It was enjoyable, but we couldn’t see much because it was dark by then. Still it was quite a bargain for $1 each.

Mississippi River crossings today: 0 (except the channel to Mud Island)
July 14, 2012