New Orleans ~ Part Deux

We’ve been busy trying to get it all in! My youngest went down for the count. She started running a fever on Saturday and was miserable most of the day and night. She came out with a scratchy throat and a cough that seemed to hang on. I guess a 24 hour thing. My kids are rarely sick, in fact, this is the first illness the entire trip.

She woke up bright and chipper on Sunday morning. So we went to check out the final day of the French Quarter Festival. It was VERY crowded. Much more crowded than when we went on Friday. But we still had a good time, even if we had wait in an extra long line for more yummy snowballs!

The next day, kid number two goes down for the count. She didn’t initially start with a fever, just pretty lethargic. So, it was another day of down time for the crew. Myself and the youngest crew member headed to Wal-Mart to stock up on a few necessary items. One of which included good old chicken noodle soup. Goodness gracious, I think, please don’t  let me go down for the count too!

The following day she claimed she was up for a hop-on, hop-off bus tour of the city. I dosed her with some decongestants and we waited until after lunch so she could rest up a little more. We started our tour around 2:00 and managed to get in a good amount of the city to include a walking tour of the Garden District.

How dreamy are your weenies?

I liked the hop-on, hop-off bus tour. I’d seen them before in other cities but wasn’t sure I’d care for the concept. Essentially, there are a set amount of stops, say 16. You are free to depart at any stop at any time. There are several buses that run along this circular area of stops so you can always board another bus. Ours showed up typically within 30 minutes of each other.

Even the Garden District tolerates those beads

When you get back on the bus, you continue the tour from wherever you board. The key things I liked about this experience:

• Our tickets were good for 3-days from the date of purchase. You could board any bus at any stop for 3 days.
• Our tickets included two guided walking tours and one self-guided walking tour. The self-guided walking tour could be completed via the provided pamphlet.
• The ticket offered discounts at some of the businesses along the stops.
• If you wanted to start the tour where the buses departed, you could park for 10-hours for a whopping $5!

There really wasn’t much negative to the hop-on, hop-off experience except that if you’re using it to get around town, it can be pretty slow. It can also bore you pretty quickly hearing the same information over and over again. Also, the last buses tended to pick up around 4ish. So if you’re not an early birder like me, you tend to miss out on some good tour time.

We were able to learn about the Garden District, French Quarter, Business District, Arts District, cemeteries and more. We did the Garden District and cemetery walking tours. I really wish the cemetery tour wasn’t self-guided as it was hard to follow their pamphlet. We did get to see some really nice mansions to include Sandra Bullock’s and the mansion in the series American Horror Story.

We did the cemetery walking tour on a day of on and off rain. It certainly did set the tone for hanging out in a cemetery, creepy. The story of burial in New Orleans is a very interesting one. Since the city is below sea level, bodies will only float if you attempt to bury them, a.k.a., there is no burial. But people keep dying so one might wonder why the city isn’t just one big cemetery.

A lot of information can be found at this website reference burial at Lafayette Cemetery, the one we visited. But the quick version goes like this. A body is placed in the vault. After one year and one day (no sooner) or when the vault is needed by another owner or family member, the remains are swept to the back of the tomb and the new remains placed inside.

And it seems that this process can go on indefinitely as the body transforms into dust. So one vault could be used by generations of family members. So what’s a family to do if a husband dies and then within a few months, the wife dies too? You can’t remove the husband’s body until the one year and one day rule is up.

To the left are the wall vaults

The vaults that often line the inside exterior wall of the cemetery are often used as ‘rental’ vaults. That is, they can be rented if a family/society vault space is needed but the timing isn’t working out. The body (or remains) would be moved to the family/society vault after the proper time had passed. I’m sure most of this information probably grosses the majority out. I just found it fascinating.

I wonder where the bodies of the orphaned girls went?

After our first day of touring, we ate dinner at Gumbo House and I promptly received a $30 parking ticket, ugh! That was after asking the waiter if he thought where I parked would be a problem. “No, you’ll be fine”, NOT! Anyway, the food was pretty good.

The next day, my older daughter wanted to go back on the bus to find the house where they filmed American Horror Story. I guess a singer she’s fond of also recorded a song there. So we headed back out.

American Horror Story house

On my agenda was to stop by Central Grocery for a muffuletta and some of the olive spread that’s the key ingredient to its success. We got off at the stop and when I went to open the door, there was resistance on the other end. The clerk was in there holding the ‘in’ door closed while allowing a customer to exit out the ‘out’ door.

At first I was confused and then I read the sign, 10-5! NOOOOOOO! I looked at my cell phone, 4:57. Technically I could have argued with the guy but I didn’t. Instead, I dropped down on my knees and begged, I begged him to please let me in!! Okay, I didn’t do that.

As an elderly lady and her husband walked out of the store, she remarks, “I guess we were the last one’s”. Laser beams shot from my eyes and burned a hole through her skull. She stared at me with a scared look on her face as I proceeded to……okay, okay, I didn’t do any of that either.

I would have to accept defeat. I would have to leave New Orleans without another sampling of one of the most amazing sandwiches ever invented. And none of that awesome spread to make some later. So what’s a girl to do in all her despair? Why, have dessert before dinner. That’s right folks, the kids and I headed on over to Cafe Du Monde and had beignets and cafe au lait and cocoa.

And that my friends is how we spent our final days in New Orleans. We didn’t make it on the river boat, swamp tours or do much else while we were there. I guess it just wasn’t meant to be. The big question that must be asked though is……….did mommy manage to make it through the plaque that was thriving among the crew or did she escape unscathed? Hmmm.

{HUGS} from the Crew!

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