Day 39 - Thursday 9/5/13 New Orleans, LA (0 Miles)

Morning "entertainment" and Lunch

Determined to "regroup" today, we hit Antoine's for breakfast and headed around the corner for a morning at the New Orleans School of Cooking.  Towering over us was Chef Michael who demonstrated how to prepare, serve and eat Shrimp Creole, Carb & Corn Chowder, pralines and Bananas Foster, which we thoroughly enjoyed for lunch at the end of the demonstration.  So far, so good.

The National World War II Museum's
aircraft display in their Boeing Center

Recognizing that this may have been a rich way to start the day, we opted for a walk to the National World War II Museum at the edge of the Garden District instead of riding the street car.  Touring the galleries was fascinating because the curators have done such a superb job not only with the artifacts, but with many interactive displays, movies, taped interviews with veterans, a 4-D movie experience and USS Tang submarine simulator called the "Final Mission".

Model depicting the concentration of the
sea & air armadas on D-Day.

 Participants man each of the stations within the submarine and experience the recreation of its last war patrol before being sunk.  It was the most decorated submarine in WWII.  The museum's Boeing Center showcases six WWII era aircraft including a B-17, P-51 and B-25. This is another of our highly recommended stops if you're ever in New Orleans, but unlike us, you should plan on spending an entire day here.

Operation Overlord, aka D-Day

Squeaking the last minutes out of our museum experience, we were finally asked to leave at 5:00pm, which as you've noticed is daiquiri hour anyway.  So , we headed back to Bourbon Street for our last sips and some live street music.  Rounding out the day with a po' boy sandwich and blackened catfish plate at Antoine's Bistro, we had a bite to eat then headed back to the room to watch the game and pack up for the drive to Birmingham tomorrow.

Juno Beach landing during Operation Overlord (D-Day)
Notice the bike's they're hauling to land to facilitate
quicker penetration of the German's line.

Rationing played a significant role in WWII

Dixieland Band in the French Quarter

Our last daiquiris!

Jazz Musicians play for free in a
French Quarter courtyard park.

Day 38 - Wednesday 9/4/13 New Orleans, LA (0 Miles)

St. Charles Street Car
The seat backs slide forward so the passengers
can face the opposite direction on the return trip.

Despite our luscious Antoine's Annex pastries and French roast coffee again today, this sticky 90 degree day was one we which we could have hit the reset button on.  Let's rewind to this morning when we're planning our daily agenda.  First off, haircuts at the Omni Hotel's barber shop.  I had stopped in yesterday to inquire about the salon's location so I could get my hair cut and was "persuaded" by the Vidal Sassoon-trained barber "stylist" to let him do it.  So, Rick and I suffered through listening to this guy while I got a boy's cut and Rick got a man's cut.  I'm really trying to remind myself that hair grows out!  By the way, I found the lady's salon on my way back to the room from my haircut.   Arggggg!  Strike One.

View from the street car

Next item on the agenda; Ride the St. Charles Street Car out to the Garden District to eat at a highly acclaimed bakery, La Boulangarie.  Ok, so it's in the 90's and very sticky and the street cars of course are open and not air conditioned.  That's ok until the rail line is torn up and you have to transfer to the bus line, which delays us by 30 minutes.  Strike Two, but that's OK because we know how good this is going to be, right?

Typical Garden District architecture

I really must be more careful with my French because I typed "Boucherie" instead of "Boulangerie" into the mapping system and voila, we ended up a couple of miles off course at the butcher's looking for our pastry.  Oops.  Strike Three.

Fire Brigade Crypt

Now nearing starvation (tho' neither of us will wither away any century soon), we hoof it over to La B-o-u-l-a-n-g-e-r-i-e only to be told that while it IS 1:12pm and the sign SAYS that they make to-order sandwiches until 2:00pm, we must choose from the old porc sandwiches already made because they're slow and don't want to make to-order sandwiches any more today.   We don't eat porc, aghhhhh!!!  Strike Four...and a less-than-glowing Trip Advisor review for them.

How may strikes do we have left?

Crypt for the:
Society for the Relief of Destitute Orphan Boys

None?   Well, then we must console our appetite with a daiquiri from a walk-up bar on Bourbon Street and a steak dinner at the bar at Dickie Brennan's restaurant.  Dickie Brennan's rallied tonight by mistakenly giving us the $45 steaks instead of the bar steaks that we ordered.  Yummy and enough for another meal tomorrow.  

HOME RUN.

P.S.  We did explore a Garden District cemetery while trying to find La B-o-u-l-a-n-g-e-r-i-e.  Interestingly, the area's fire brigades and some civic groups actually had crypts & mausoleums for their members.

Day 37 - Tuesday 9/3/13 New Orleans, LA (0 Miles)

Pharmacy Museum Facade

Lingered this morning over pastries from Antoine's bakery Annex near the hotel.  Nothin' better than French roast coffee with pastries to start the day.  After recovering from our sugar shock, we walked across Chartres Street from the hotel to the New Orleans Pharmacy Museum, c.1823.  The pharmacist who operated this pharmacy lived on site, as did the pharmacist who operated our pharmacy in Bridgton, though the NOLA pharmacist even had a botanical garden that supplied medicinal herbs for the practice.  If you're ever in this city, this should be a must stop place.

Pharmacy interior

On display were leech jars stocked with live leeches, voodoo powders, blood-letting kits, a rare 1855 marble soda fountain (used to improve the taste of oral medicines/phosphates), the original furnished apartment, antique gurney, wheelchairs, examination table, apothecary jars, mixing room, and loads of interesting artifacts & ephemera.  Ladies, you'll be interested to know that Pond's Tampons were available in the 1800's, but were laced with opium and other drugs.......interesting concept.  Also available to the fairer gender were lead nipple shields meant to soothe a mother's breasts.  Another artifact, this from the prohibition era, was an early prescription for whiskey!  Needless to say, it was a very interesting morning.

Rare pharmacy soda fountain

Having worked up an appetite at the museum, we set off on foot for Mother's, another venerable New Orleans eatery, though quite modest.  Here, you line up for a cafeteria style meal.  Ours consisted of crawfish etoufee and a fried fish po' boy, plus bread pudding for dessert.  Fortified from that, we wandered back to the hotel to "rest our eyes and palettes" because we had a dinner reservation at Mr. B's Bistro, one of the Brennan family's well known restaurants.

Prescriptions were stacked-up, strung up and
saved on "spools" for record-keeping purposes.

Mother's for lunch

Yes, you've no doubt noticed that we're essentially traveling from one great meal to the next on this trip.  Whatever!  So, on to Mr. B's club style dining room for a memorable dinner of Fried Oysters with a horseradish sauce, Duck Confit Spring Roll in ginger sauce, followed by BBQ Shrimp (whole shrimp swimming in a butter & hot sauce "BBQ" - this is like no other BBQ you've ever had), and Braised Rabbit over garlic mashed potatoes with roasted shallots and mushrooms. OMG!!!!!!!  I don't know how to spell the sound your lips make when you smack 'em, but that word goes here _____!!!  Ok, so we had to try the bread pudding here too, and maybe one of those delicious Irish Whiskeys for dessert.  Wine to wash it down and French bread to slop it up and we had a top 10 meal!

Mr. B's Fried Oysters

We tried to make the walk home from dinner as long as possible to work off, oh maybe the first bite.  We negotiated all of the titty bars aka "cabarets" on Bourbon Street, but were still bombarded by hustlers and gawking tourists.  All in all, another great day!

Wine & a bag of French bread...  :-)

Typical French Quarter architecture

Bourbon Street

Day 36 - Monday 9/2/13 San Antonio, TX - New Orleans, LA (544 Miles)

View from our room at the
Omni Royal Orleans

San Antonio Departure: 5:45 a.m.
New Orleans Arrival: 3:00 p.m.
Distance: 543 Miles
Breakfast: egg mcmuffins :(-
Lunch: Wendy's :-|
Happy Hour: Carry-out daiquiris enjoyed while wandering the French Quarter :-)
Dinner: Oyster Rockefeller Soup & Fried Catfish Po' Boy @ Acme Oyster House, a NOLA institution! :-0

You can't beat this city for great food.  Every meal, be it from little dives or elegant restaurants, is great.  We got another great deal through Hotels.com on our hotel. So, we are staying smack dab in the heart of the French Quarter on St. Louis  Chartres Streets in the Omni Royal Orleans.  Up here on the 6th floor we have a wonderful view of the French Quarter, the river and bridge, and the Supreme Court building and their lovely courtyard...there are even mardi gras bead hanging in those trees!  The service here is extraordinary and the rooms, bed and amenities are really nice too!

Day 35 - Sunday 9/1/13 San Antonio, TX (0 Miles)

San Antonio's Riverwalk

The Menger Hotel original lobby

After breakfast at the inn (haven't met an inn breakfast as good as ours yet), we set off early for a riverboat cruise along the San Antonio River, along what is called Riverwalk.  The part that winds through downtown is a big oxbow and sits about 20' below street level.  Both sides are lined with restaurants and hotels primarily, but one of the farthest points reaches the site of the 1968 World Hemisfair that was held here.  Not much remains of interest to tourists except a sky needle, some really lovely fountains and the convention center.

Guacamole Recipe:
Juice from 1/4 orange
Juice from 1/2 lime
1 Avacado, diced, not smashed
2 T. Kosher salt
3/4 C. Diced, roasted tomatos
1/2 C. Chopped red onion
1/4. Chopped cilantro
Fold together and feast

The current convention goers were very interesting because they were attending the LoneStarCon 3 Convention (that's the World Science Fiction Convention to us mere mortals).  Interested in their line-up for the weekend?  Well, here's the program guide: LoneStarCon 3  Let's just say, there were a lot of soft bodies, dressed in very interesting attire here this weekend.

After our introduction to Riverwalk, we snooped around the lobby of a great historic hotel, The Menger Hotel (c. 1849), then toured the Alamo where 200 colonists fought for Texas' independence from Mexico.  Well, now we're getting thirsty because after all it is about 100 degrees AND we are in margarita country.  So, we joined the other 10,000 river walkers to dine along the shore of the 3' deep river.  Guacamole prepared table side, black & white soup (half black bean/half white cheddar chile) and a peppered caesar salad were fabulous as was my margarita, the best I've ever had!  Thirst quenched, now it's nap time (again)...because we can.

The Alamo

Black & White Soup.    MMmmmmmm

This evening, we walked the river again where we had a bite to eat for dinner before calling it an early night.  Tomorrow, we depart early (5:30am) because we're driving 543 miles to New Orleans and want to get there early enough in the day to enjoy it a little.

Riverwalk Vista Inn's wall art - Hand hooked rugs & quilts

Day 34 - Saturday 8/31/13 Ft. Stockton, TX - San Antonio, TX (314 Miles)

Riverwalk Vista Inn - Room 309
Exposed brick walls, 15' high ceilings
all original wood flooring, casings & windows.
Views of the heart of San Antonio.

Well, we hit the 7,000 mile mark on our road trip today!!!! It was a hot one too, with the temp here in San Antonio reaching a HOT 102 degrees.  Another day of driving through desert-like scrub land until we were about an hour west of San Antonio where the scenery improved...and we actually began seeing signs of life.  We were blown about in sudden shocks by gusts of wind a couple of times so it was a good thing that we had both hands on the wheel.

We were able to find one of the last downtown rooms in the Riverwalk Vista Inn right next to the, that's right you guessed it, Riverwalk and better yet, the Alamo.  We'll explore both tomorrow, but today we're a bit drained from driving and it IS a college football Saturday, and we do have TV in the room....  So, we just hung out in our great sunny room the rest of the day after grabbing a bite (big bite) at Schilo's Delicatessen across the street.

Day 33 - Friday 8/30/13 Tucson, AZ - Ft. Stockton, TX (556 Miles)

Tucson AFB

Where is Fort Stockton you ask.  The hell if we know, but it was the only place that actually had buildings, some of which rented rooms, at the end of our drive today from Tuscon on our way to San Antonio.  Actually, it seems to sit in the middle of oil fields and wind farms on the flattest, straightest piece of road I've ever driven.  At times today, you could look in any direction and not see anything breaking the plane of the horizon.

Does anybody know what kind of grasshopper this is?
It has a blue head, red spotted wings,
a very long body and is about 2" long.
It's the larges grasshopper I've ever seen.

But, to rewind the day, we began in Tucson with an interesting drive through the middle of an air force base there.  What made it so interesting were the hundreds of mothballed planes being stored there, including warthogs and C-130 cargo planes, we think.

Dad, you'll also be interested in knowing that your idea of using solar panel arrays to create shade, as well as power, for parking areas is being utilized here.

A sad sight on our way through Texas was the presence of feed lots for beef cattle :-(  We were also sniffed for drugs by the K-9 unit at border patrol near El Paso, TX...it's a good thing that chocolate is our drug of choice!  We did see some suspicious cars and SUVs pulled over out in the dessert, looking like they were waiting to pick up someone coming out of the desert...  Hmmmm.

Day 32 - Thursday 8/29/13 Las Vegas, NV - Tucson, AZ (428 Miles)

New Rt. 93 Bridge
overlooking Hoover Dam

Hoover Dam from the Rt. 93 bridge

Today was long.  We had planned to stay in Vegas for 3 nights, but were just so disappointed with it here, we decided to take off for New Orleans.  Of course this requires 1,750 miles of driving!  So, we fired up our little car (poor thing), which we've decided looks like a skunk and have hence been calling Pepe, and headed east.

Rt. 93 Bridge Pedestrian Way

Hoover Dam's art deco motif

Hoover Dam was our only major excursion today, but was well worth the time spent.  In recent years, Nevada completed a new bridge for Rt. 93 that diverts non-dam-going traffic in order to relieve traffic congestion on the dam. They included a pedestrian way so that visitors can walk out onto the bridge and look DOWN on Hoover Dam, ugh. Swallow hard, hold your breath and don't look down!  The dam itself is actually quite beautiful, built with an art deco motif.  It is very impressive and shouldn't be missed if you're ever in this neck of the world.

Colorado River canyon

After leaving the dam, we followed the Colorado River downstream along the tapering canyon it formed.  While not officially part of what is referred to as the Grand Canyon, you can still appreciate the river's power and grand effects on the landscape here.

Along the way, we hit a stretch of Rt. 66 where we stopped for lunch.  That may be a future trip all on it's own, but for today, Phoenix was the next major dot on the map.  We've never driven on a road that is still being built.  Rt. 303 is actually more of an interstate, being a 6-lane divided, limited access highway.  They routed us (i.e. traffic) along it for while and then they'd route you down the exit ramp, across the cross road, and back up the entrance ramp...because there was no bridge built over the cross road yet.   At times, there was no oncoming traffic because their side hadn't yet been built.  It was a very interesting 15 mile stretch.

We passed a dust storm coming into Tucson on I-10, our route of choice for this leg of the trip.  We were able to secure another cheap room ($50
Radisson Suites Hotel) since camping would have meant snakes, sand, dust storms and hot heat (vs. the less hot kind).  We decided it was about time to get some more real Mexican food and did just that at a comfy place called La Parrilla Suiza just near the hotel.  Dad, we did look up your favorite place here, La Fuente, but unfortunately it was sold to some people who aren't living up to the reputation it's original owners built.

Good night!

Dust storm

La Parrilla Suiza

Day 31 - Wednesday 8/28/13 Las Vegas, NV (0 Miles)

Today began with the most decadent morning;  we lounged in bed until mid day!  I think that all of those years of keeping innkeepers hours caught up with us this morning.

The casino floor

After a rough morning ;-) we wandered over to the MGM Grand Hotel & Casino for our free buffet.  Did I mention anything about our good food karma checking it's coat at the door yesterday?  Well, it dropped off the rest of it's laundry today.  This town is really set up to take all of your money and still make it possible to stay and eat...so you can scratch up more money to loose to them.  If you're not staying in the cheap seats (i.e. rooms like ours), lodging is very expensive, but the food is really worse.  You can eat cheap with complimentary buffets, fast food and cheap street eats, but this stuff is gross at best and probably dangerous at worst.  If you want nice food, expect to pay triple what you would at home, simply because some celebrity chef has their name over the door, but don't expect it to be 3 times as good as what you'd find at home.  The ambiance at these restaurants was upscale, but sterile with no character or atmosphere.  We just felt it would be good to set our dining sights on New Orleans where we know we can get incredible food, service and ambiance at fair prices.

Our free entertainment consisted of partaking in a live Neilson Ratings focus group for a fall sitcom staring Robin Williams, called The Crazy Ones.  What a waste of time - yes, both the focus group and the TV show.

With our freebies out of the way, it was time to spend some money.  So, we went to the movies and saw a matinee of The Butler, which was a very good movie.  Then, we came back to the room, ate all of our accumulated tidbits of food from the last couple of days, drank a beer and called it a night.

Day 30 - Tuesday 8/27/13 Anaheim, CA - Las Vegas, NV (264 Miles)

We set off today for a hot drive to Las Vegas after a leisurely start (we're pooped out after all of that kid stuff at the park).  Our drive past the Mojave desert proved to be even hotter with highs in the upper 90's.  Arrived in Las Vegas in the middle of the afternoon by which time the temp was 100 degrees...Viva Las Vegas!

We checked into our cheap-o hotel, New York New York Hotel Casino ($50/night baby + 2 free buffets) around 3:00 and took a long walk up "the strip".  My God!..what a mass of humanity...and filth...and sleaze...and decadence...and over indulgence...and sound pollution...and light pollution.

Mom, this one's for you;
Ou est les toilettes?

If this hotel is a representation of what one would experience in NYC, I dona wanna go-ah.  We had a slice of cold pizza that came with a plastic cup of warm beer from one of their restaurants.  YUK.  I guess our good food karma checked it's coat at the door.  I will say though, that the bed on our room was marvelous and we both slept like logs :-)

21st C. Vegas Wedding Chapel
complete with fake mannequin guests.