New Orleans

I suppose that the New Orleans experience is going to be different depending on your age (and the age).

My first experience with New Orleans was in 1957 while traveling from Norman, Oklahoma to Pensacola, Florida for Photographer's Mate School. I had been traveling on the train with a group of miscellaneous military transferees and had to wait a few hours at the New Orleans train station to catch the "local" to Pensacola.

The first order of the day was breakfast at the train station. A group of us sat down at the counter only to be told that one of us was not welcome there. A female marine, who happened to be black. My introduction to racial discrimination in the south.

After breakfast we still had a few hours to kill so a group of us sailors decided to take a walk about the area. Now somewhere in the previous two or three months I had picked up a pair of cowboy boots and had decided in all my 18 years of worldly experience that I would wear them with my navy uniform. Oh, and with my dixie cup hat perched un-military-like on the back of my head.

It wasn't long before our group was stopped by the Shore Patrol. Shore Patrol? In New Orleans? Well, yeah. We soon discovered that New Orleans was Headquarters of the Eighth Naval District. And as the Shore Patrol chatted with us, I tried to maintain a low profile with my pointy-toed boots by facing away from them.

That was my first visit to New Orleans.

On this trip, almost 60 years later, it was purely as a tourist, and dependent on the AAA Tour Book for all of the high points. One of the first things that I wanted to do was have coffee and beignets at Cafe Du Monde. This notable place was mentioned in two different sections of the book. And Joyce's son, Tony, had mentioned the same place, so this was definitely a must for me.

We finally found the place and it was packed, both inside and outside. We found an empty table and got our order placed.

My coffee was served black and was made with chicory. I loved it, and the beignets were good and loaded with powdered sugar. Joyce brought me back down to earth when she noted that they were not much different than the sopapillas that we had in Albuquerque, but with powdered sugar instead of honey (or fry bread from the fair). After looking at the posted menu again and seeing that besides coffee and other drinks, the only food item was the beignets, she couldn't understand how this place could draw the crowd that was there. Maybe it was like Lindsay Lohan, just famous for being famous. At any rate the coffee was good enough that I went out of my way to buy a can of it.

Souvenir shopping and a drive down Bourbon Street completed our in town experience.

Driving down Bourbon Street

While looking at a map of the area, I had noticed a road that crossed Lake Pontchartrain, so I headed us in that direction for no other reason than to say that we had driven across a 25 mile bridge. Twenty-five miles later we had to find a way back without driving back across the lake (and paying the requisite toll, which we had escaped by driving across northward). We eventually managed to find our way back to the motorhome.

About halfway across the bridge over Lake Pontchartrain