Tuesday - 8.29.00
Kurt and I were able to wake up and get ready to check out of the hotel
by noon. (The room was beautiful, furnished with antiques and complete
with a view of the courtyard below.)
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We decided to walk around the
Quarter a bit more to view it during the day.We saw many fiberglass
fishes scattered throughout the city - an exhibit built on the same
idea as the Cows on Parade in Chicago last year. We happened upon
Arnaud's
Remoulade for lunch.
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We had their famous Shrimp Arnaud's, a muffaletta, soft shell crab, red beans and rice and an excellent seafood gumbo. Kurt is now completely inspired to experiment more with Cajun cooking. I personally can't wait!
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After lunch we decided to take a photo journey around the Quarter to attempt to capture some of the unique qualities of the area in black and white. It didn't take long to get a little over heated in the midday sun and humidity. |
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Consequently, we walked down to the river front and decided to visit the Aquarium of the Americas. Overall this was a pretty good exhibit - we were happy because we they had a lot of sharks.
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We also viewed the IMAX movie
Dolphins.
It was rather interesting seeing how smart and emotional dolphins
can be. After the movie we checked out the Natchez
Riverboat but decided it wasn’t worth the money. Instead, we
headed back to the Jeep to get on the road again.
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We found a Walgreens on Canal Street to buy more film and then decided to try to find a cemetery; we wanted to capture a few pictures of the mausoleums prevalent in that region of the country. First we located New Orleans Cemetery since it appeared to be the closest to the French Quarter. Also the "Queen of Voodoo" supposedly haunted it. We discovered the cemetery was in an extremely bad part of town and it closed at 3:00pm so we decided to check out Lafayette Cemetery. We assumed it would be on Lafayette Street, so we tried to locate that street. After circling the area the map showed as Lafayette Street, we determined the road no longer runs though - thanks Rand McNally. It was getting a little late so we headed out of town. On the way, we spotted a huge cemetery just off the freeway - jackpot! We got out and took about 20 pictures
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I had the black and white film
and Kurt was shooting color. We both could have spent all day taking
pictures in this cemetery. Morbid I know, but the truth. Every time
we turned a corner, there were more impressive structures just begging
to have their picture taken.
By the time we had taken 20 or so pictures, it was getting dark so we jumped back in the Jeep and headed for the Lake Ponchatrain Causeway. The Causeway is a 24-mile long bridge that crosses the lake. Once the half way point is reached, land can barely be seen in any direction. |
We cruised along the north side of the lake and stopped
in Lacomb, LA, for ice and water at another Wal-mart. We also had a bad
Taco Bell dinner, especially after fabulous Cajun food for the last day
or so.
Mississippi
Kurt and I continued on into Mississippi (goodbye Louisiana, goodbye Old
Muddy). Rand McNally showed another State Park and campground not far
into Mississippi and also not far from the Gulf of Mexico and we chose
to make that our goal for the night. We turned off I-10 at the signs for
Buccaneer State Park and went into the town of Waveland, MS. From there
we turned the Jeep south and saw the Gulf of Mexico for the first time
on the trip. We had to follow a complicated detour to the campground but
we finally found a perfect spot to setup camp, only about 1/4 mile from
the Gulf of Mexico. This campground wasn't near as deserted as the first
Mississippi campground. While setting up camp we were visited by a lone
raccoon which I quickly befriended.
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The little guy wouldn't leave us alone. He didn't "look" rabid and he was very timid. I ended up feeding him some bread crumbs while Kurt took pictures. Unfortunately, Kurt had a little problem since he was lying on the ground on top of a red ant pile. |
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He ended up with about 30 bites around his knees. We finally got to sleep even though it must have been close to 90 degrees with about 99% humidity. (Day 5)
