141. Ride a Paddleboat down the Mighty Mississippi (And Other Things in New Orleans that Might be Overrated)

I love trip planning.  Researching the highlights of a destination, contacting tour offices for tips and tricks, and discovering hidden jewels gives me a thrill.  By the time I head out for my journey, I have a list of "things-to-see-and-do" about a mile long.  And, usually to the dismay of my husband, I try to hit everything on my list (because I'm so darned excited about each and every item).

Visiting Jackson Square in New Orleans.

That being said, it is realistic to assume that not every 'highlight' or 'hidden jewel' will live up to its hype.  I still value the experience of seeing or participating in every adventure, but really, some are better than others.  During my recent trip to New Orleans, I had a few items on the list leave me with a deflated feeling, rather than an elated one.  I want to share these stories with you now, and please, if you've visited one of these places and have a completely different memory, please compare yours with mine in the comments section!

1. Ride a Paddleboat down the Mighty Mississippi

When I visited New Orleans in 2008, one of the things that I didn't get to do was ride one of those cool riverboats down the Mississippi River.  Parked at the dock beside the Riverwalk Mall and Convention Center was a giant paddleboat named the Creole Queen.  My friends and I were dying to explore it and hopefully get to cruise down the muddy Mississippi for an afternoon, but it was not to be so.

New Orleans' Riverboat "The Creole Queen"

So when I visited New Orleans last month for a technology convention, and found out that our main social was to be held on that same boat for a dinner cruise, I felt like fate was smiling down upon me!  It was exactly what I had been dreaming of doing, and I was being given a wide-open door to walk right in! To make matters even more exciting, our dinner theme was a masquerade theme.  My travel companions and I spent days searching high and low for perfect masks (and found them in the French Market on Decateur Street).

My masquerade mask - it was a sweaty little thing!

On the night of the social, we lined up outside the Creole Queen, snapping photos of each other standing in front of our future mode of transportation.  When we boarded, we were sat at tables and waited anxiously for the boat to take off down the river.  Night fell while we dined on some delicious traditional Creole food. (Although, my one travel companion is glucose intolerant, and had specified that when we RSVP'd for the meal.  Yet nothing on the menu was glucose-free, and so she basically ate a little plate of salad.  Side rant: as a catering company, if you ask your clients to specify food allergies, you need to honor that when you make your menu.)

The view from the upper deck, but it was too cold to linger.

Finally, the boat began to move!  We rushed to the windows - and could see nothing.  The dark harbors gave away little for pleasant views, although the city lights twinkled nicely.  We went outside onto the cold, windy deck, which featured a nicer vista, but was so freezing you couldn't stay for long. Then we searched for a spot to watch the giant paddles revolving, but the room which had a clear view of the paddles was a private room (they let me in for about three minutes so I could glimpse the paddles turning and foaming up the river waters).  Once we had explored these areas, there wasn't much else to do on the boat.  It was still a neat experience, but overall, I had a "Meh" feeling about the night.

Excited to start our riverboat voyage!

2. Hike around Audubon Park

Audubon Park was on my list for a "peaceful and pleasant" experience in New Orleans.  No one else wanted to visit it with me, so I decided to go for a couple of hours the afternoon before our riverboat cruise, right after our last session was over at the convention.  I knew I was cutting it tight time-wise, but Audubon Park was highly rated on all of the "Tour New Orleans" websites and I felt I had to check it out. I jumped on the St. Charles Trolley and began to chug along towards Audubon Park.

Now perhaps I shouldn't blame the park itself for my harrowing experience (it wasn't really harrowing - I'm just being dramatic now for the post's benefit!)  The biggest issue was, at the time of my visit, the St. Charles Trolley line was being updated / renovated / restored, and a large section of it was torn up.  To get around the construction, the lovely city of New Orleans had some extra buses scheduled to take riders from point A to point B via bus.  You'd disembark the trolley, hop on the bus, ride down St. Charles to your destination, and at the canal had the option to get back on the trolley and continue on your merry little way.  Audubon Park was somewhere in the middle of all this.

A panoramic shot of Audubon Park.

I got to the park just fine.  It took much longer than expected because we had to wait for the bus to arrive, but I got to the park with about half an hour to explore. Audubon Park was pretty, full of squirrels and birds, and about half the city seemed to be out running, walking their dogs, or doing photo-shoots (yes, there were lots and lots of photo-shoots for some reason).  I enjoyed my momentary peace, but without a picnic or a companion to just sit and relax with, half an hour was more than enough time to wander about in a park.  I headed back to the bus stop.

Vibrant colors make Audubon Park a pretty place to picnic.

And waited.  And waited.  No bus stopped.  Worried about the time, I decided to walk down the street, back in the direction of Canal Street, until I found others waiting for the bus. I walked, and walked.  Other groups of tourists, looking slightly discombobulated, also shared in my concern - how the heck do we get back to the Quarter?  I was a bit grumpy now, and was in that stubborn mind-set of, "Fine, I'll just walk ALL THE WAY back to Canal." However, I tried to stay positive as I walked, and mentally pep-rallied myself with lines such as, "See, now you get to walk around the Garden District and check out all the nice mansions!" It helped a little.

Magical trees add to the beauty of Audubon Park.

Eventually, I had to walk all the way back to the point in the trolley line where the street car dropped off its passengers to catch the bus. Winded but grateful, I boarded the trolley, begged the driver to step on it as much as possible, and pulled out my iPod. I allowed myself some time to catch my breath, look out the window, listen to some tunes, and just enjoy the fact that I was no longer stranded and I'd only be a *little* late for the riverboat.  It helped that an adorable child who thought he was a dog tried to stick his head out the window the entire ride back, much to his mother's frustration and my amusement.  It's the small things that count!

So, I guess, all-in-all, I'd recommend Audubon Park for a picnic with a friend or loved one. It was really pretty.  Just make sure you have all the time in the world, and a solid way of getting home!

3. Cafe du Monde

If you want to eat a famous New Orleans breakfast doughnut, or 'beignet', all the sites, books, and locals recommend Cafe du Monde on Decateur Street.  I'm not sure why it has the 'best' beignets, but that's what people say.

Cafe du Monde is okay if you like line-ups... Photo via www.nola.com

Getting one, on the other hand, is a pain.

The line-up each day was out the restaurant and down the street.  We tried to stand in line one day, but it just wasn't moving.  Seeing that we just wanted to try a beignet, we didn't think standing in line for three hours, only to discover we maybe didn't like it, was worth it.  I'm not sure if Cafe du Monde is the best for those tasty pastries, but the line-up sure dissuaded us from trying.

Instead, we went four blocks over to Cafe Beignet, stood in line for much less time, and got our breakfast beignets to go.  They were good, but after eating one, I know I wouldn't stand in line for three hours for one.  The pastry was delicious, but I couldn't handle the mountains of powdered sugar.  Much too much!

Beignets are tasty treats, but very sugary! Photo via myshipleydonuts.com

So those were my 'low-lights' of New Orleans.  In the grand scheme of things, none of them were bad experiences or things I'd tell people to never try.  The riverboat cruise was unique, the park quite pretty, and the beignets tasty as promised.  For me, they were just experiences that were over-hyped, and perhaps I had been expecting too much.  Has anyone else out there had a supposed 'highlight' let you down?

Skip Cafe du Monde if its busy and hit up the cathedral instead!

Backyard Bucket List: Drumheller Hoodoos and the Suspension Bridge

A couple of months ago, I posted a comment on Twitter about some of the great natural wonders one can visit when traveling to Alberta.  Among the items listed, I mentioned seeing the hoodoos in the Drumheller Badlands.  A Twitter friend from Germany questioned me about the hoodoos - she thought I had made some sort of strange typo.  I do admit, the word 'hoodoo' is a weird term, but it is a fitting word considering the absurd nature of the formation it describes.  Since summer is almost here, and lots of people are planning road trips and vacations, I'd like to encourage visitors to try checking out the ever-interesting hoodoos of Drumheller!

Before I tell you about how to visit the hoodoos in Drumheller, Alberta, I should probably make sure you all know what a hoodoo is, how it is made, and how they tie into the area known as the Badlands. The Badlands are part of the Drumheller valley, cut deep into the flat prairie horizon by erosion from the Red Deer River, wind, and rain run-off.  This area is classified as dry, reminiscent of a alienesque-desert landscape, but with vibrant colors caused by layers upon layers of sedimentary rock and sand.  It is really a very beautiful region, and worth the visit just to hike around the hills and gulleys.  

The Drumheller Badlands really aren't so bad - they're beautiful!

The hoodoos of the Drumheller valley are tall rock formations made out of two types of stone (sand and clay) and rest upon a base of shale.  The pillar is made out of a softer sandstone, while the capstone is typically harder and less prone to erosion.  As the effects of wind, frost, rain, and water run-off whittle away the softer stone of the pillar, the capstone erodes far less quickly.  Eventually the pillar becomes quite small, while the capstone remains, balanced precariously on top like a flat tray or hat.  

Hoodoos are one of my favorite natural formations in Alberta.

The story goes that early Europeans arriving to the Drumheller Badlands associated these somewhat-creepy looking formations as signs of magic, witchcraft, or 'voodoo', which is how they became known as 'hoodoos'.  Early First Nations groups of the area believed that the rock pillars were petrified giants who came to life at night.  

I pose with a baby hoodoo - I wonder what it will look like in 1000 years?

You can find hoodoos all over the badlands area, but the best place to see them is in the protected area, which has the biggest and most identifiable landmarks.  If you want to visit, you have to drive about 15 minutes (16 kilometers) east outside of Drumheller down Highway 10 (nicknamed Hoodoo Trail).  There is a big parking lot and several gigantic hoodoos right by the road, so you can't miss it.  It is free to visit. However, the hoodoos are very sensitive, and erode quite quickly and easily, so the good people of Alberta beg you to walk only on the designated paths and avoid touching the hoodoos themselves. 

My husband and father liked this hoodoo the best!

If you get tired of hiking around the hoodoos, another fun thing to experience in this area is the Rosedale Suspension Bridge, which hangs just above the murky Red Deer River.  If you are driving from Drumheller, you will actually hit the community of Rosedale and the Suspension Bridge before the hoodoos (the hoodoos are 1 km further to the east).  The bridge was used by early miners in the days when Drumheller and area was a coal-producing community.  

The Rosedale Suspension Bridge - fun for the whole family!

Today the bridge is mainly a free tourist attraction, and it provides access to some great hiking trails throughout the Badlands on the other side.  It is also used by locals and travelers alike for fishing in the Red Deer River.  I like going across it so that I can jump up and down once I get to the middle and make everyone else on the bridge with me wet themselves in fright!  Good times!

My husband, Mom, and Dad high above the Red Deer River.

Louisiana Swamp Tour: Part Deux

I won't belabor this topic too much, since I have already written one post on this blog about touring the swamps and bayous of Louisiana during my 2008 trip, and wrote a guest post on the site "We Said Go Travel" about my 'gator-spottin' experiences.  But going on another trip to the swamps was a fun part of my most recent visit to New Orleans, and I'd like to share some highlights with you.

Originally, I wasn't going to go.  My two travel partners booked rather last minute for a late afternoon voyage out to swamp country in Louisiana, and I had plans to meet another travel blogger for dinner.  However, my plans fell through.  I was okay with exploring the city on my own while my friends explored the swamp, since I still wanted to trek around Audubon Park, find the home of Edgar Degas, and a few other items on my "see-and-do" list.  But, ultimately, my friends' excitement about the excursion, and their pleas for me to join them, won me over.  Five minutes before the tour bus was to arrive, we phoned the company and asked if we could tack on one more passenger. Of course, they said yes - it was an extra $70.00 in their pockets!

Cruising down an "alley way" in the swamp

Once again, we used the company 'Cajun Encounters'.  I really cannot say enough good stuff about this business - they pick you up at your hotel, their drivers are knowledgeable, funny, and friendly (ours had a giant bag of Fireball candies that he shared with the whole bus), and the tour is exciting and satisfying.  There are several swamp tour companies, but you pretty much can't go wrong with 'Cajun Encounters'.  I highly recommend them. (And no, they did not pay me to say that... but if they want to, they sure can feel free!)

The Cajun Encounters tour office - in the middle of nowhere

The weather in New Orleans the week we visited was unusually cold - I certainly did not pack warm enough for the climate we had that week.  If you want an idea of how cold it was, it was warmer in CANADA a few of the days we were there.  That's sick and wrong.  So, unsurprisingly, the 'gators were not in the mood to be out of the water, lounging in the cold wind and shade.  We only saw two alligators during our tour: one tiny little female, clinging to the side of a log to try and keep out of the wind, and one male.

The "Wishing Tree" which was used in Disney's "The Princess and the Frog"

The male, however, is what made the tour so satisfying.  He was HUGE!  Bigger than any of the five 'gators I saw during my last trip out to the swamp.  My friend wanted to get super close to him so she could nab some mind-blowing photographs, and cajoled our affable captain ever closer.  We got some fantastic shots of him, before he started moving his legs oh-so-slowly towards the water, preparing himself to warn us off if we got too close.

The big, big, BIG alligator!

Another 'new' part of the swamp tour was how they had incorporated the wild pigs into the mix.  The last time I was in New Orleans, the wild pigs weren't such a problem, and no one spoke of them.  Now, the wild pigs are over-populated and invasive, taking over whole areas and affecting natural species.  It is a real problem, except for the area surrounding the 'Cajun Encounters' swamp tours.  They feed their wild pigs, and not just with vegetable scraps from the kitchen.  They feed them marshmallows!

The wild pigs sure loved marshmallows. Photo taken by Penny Mueller

We got up close and personal with a mother pig and her two wee little babies (and her baby from the year prior, whom she kept trying to run off.  I guess even pigs want their kids to leave the nest eventually).  The captain flung about 20 marshmallows from out of the boat, and the pigs swam right up to us to grab them.  The babies were adorable!

I really enjoyed my time in the swamp once again

In the end, I was very happy that I had decided to attend the swamp tour.  It goes to show that things are never the same way twice.  Just because you think you've "been there, done that", it doesn't mean an activity, event, or location isn't worth visiting again.  Life always surprises you!

Explore the swamps with "Down the Wrabbit Hole"!

Buried Above Ground: Strange Tales of Death from New Orleans

If you are any type of fan of this blog, which might amount to a whopping total of five people (up five from last year), you'll know that I gravitate a bit towards the morbid side of history.  I love wandering through old cemeteries, learning about epidemics and diseases that swept through medieval cities and towns, and learning about customs surrounding funeral rites and burials. These topics might be gross to some, I realize, but I personally find it fascinating how humans deal with the everlasting mystery of 'death'.

The entrance to St. Louis Cemetery Number 1 in New Orleans - strange yet beautiful!

Hence my desire - nay, NEED - to visit a historical cemetery in New Orleans (where they bury their dead above-ground) and learn the stories about Louisiana's strange funereal laws.  This post is a decoupage of visits - combining my trip in 2008, when I actually got to stroll around the cemetery of St. Louis Number 1, with my most recent visit in 2013, where I learned some fascinating stories about death and burial in New Orleans from a most-knowledgeable tour guide.  The two journeys together create a concrete and insanely interesting weave - I hope you enjoy!

The most accessible cemetery, should you choose to visit one while exploring the city of New Orleans, is St. Louis Cemetery Number 1.  It is a quick walk from the French Quarter, at the end of St. Louis and Basin Streets.  The neighborhood surrounding the cemetery is a little sketchy (it is not as 'touristy' as the rest of the main French Quarter area) so it is recommended you go in groups and during the day.  There are tons of tours if you would rather go with a guide, but I went with just my two girlfriends in the late morning, and we were completely fine.

The girls out for a nice morning stroll in a creepy cemetery!

St. Louis No. 1 was established in 1789, and is in amazing condition considering its age.  It is literally a maze of tombstones, mausoleums, and personal and family vaults.  We got lost as we wandered the grounds, and it was difficult to orient yourself as the cemetery is walled and enclosed - you can't use outside buildings to navigate.  There are a lot of New Orleans historical figures and aristocrats buried in this formerly prestigious graveyard, but my favorite was the tomb of voodoo queen and figurehead, Marie Laveau.  I did not write my three X's on her tomb wall, or leave an offering, or make a wish, but I did take a photo!

The tomb of Marie Laveau, New Orlean's "Voodoo Queen"

My visit in 2008 was brief - we came, we saw, we photographed, and then we ran back to our hotel to catch our flight (which turned out to be totally and completely cancelled).  In 2013, during my visit, I got the background information I was so sorely lacking during my 2008 cemetery experience.  It turns out that the afterlife in a New Orleans cemetery is surprisingly temporary!

To begin with, you must understand why the citizens of New Orleans chose to bury their dead above ground.  Geographically, the city is basically built upon a big swamp.  The water table is extremely high in this area.  To bury a casket 'six-feet-under' is virtually impossible - the hole will fill with water long before you hit six feet.  In fact, even if you buried a casket just a few feet under water, the water table would eventually push the casket to the surface and unearth it.  And watch out if you were to experience a rainstorm - caskets would be popping up like daisies from the ground!

The city plaque clearly states the history of St. Louis Cemetery No. 1

People tried to keep those pesky caskets underground in some creative ways. They tried filling the caskets with stones.  This didn't suffice - just as a cargo ship can carry large loads using water buoyancy, so worked the caskets.  Up floated the bodies.  Another strategy was to pre-fill the caskets with water, or bore holes in the top of the casket, with the thought that the water inside the casket would supplant the water outside the casket.  No such luck.  This only helped to accelerate the decomposition process, and made the smell even worse.

In frustration, the citizens of New Orleans began to build mausoleums and family vaults to house the bodies of the dead.  This seemed to do the trick.  The rain might flood the vaults, but the caskets stayed where they were.  But from this solution stemmed another couple of problems - the first was the issue of the decomposition process. Vaults could get rather nasty during this time.  They were sealed as airtight as possible, and it then became law to keep the vault sealed for one year (now two) before it was allowed to be opened again.  This prevented the cemetery from smelling constantly of rot, and also helped to prevent the spread of disease.

Family vaults and mausoleums made storing bodies easier in water-logged NOLA.

The only problem with this was, had you been very ill to the point where you'd fallen into a coma, and then re-awakened to find yourself most distressingly inside a casket, you were very much trapped inside the airtight family vault, never to escape.  This was more common than you'd think, which is a frightening thought.  When another death occurred in that same family, they would open the vault to store the new coffin, only to find the body of a loved one they had previously thought dead - very much out of their casket and not as they'd left him or her.  Hence, New Orleans is riddled with historical stories of zombies and the undead.

No zombies for you! Zombie cage tomb courtesy xmorbidcuriosityx.tumblr.com

Another issue was that of space. The vaults could hold up to six caskets maximum.  What to do when the vault was full?  Land was expensive and limited, and most families couldn't afford to built multiple vaults.  The solution was to begin creatively storing the bones of the long-dead inhabitants of the cemeteries.  Burial bags were provided to family members (and only family members could enter the vault to do this particular job), so that they could remove the bones of the dead from the casket, transfer them to the burial bag, and shove the bag into an alcove at the back of the tomb called a vault hole.  The bones of the dead would join the bones of their ancestors in a giant jumble of bone baggies.  They do say time spent with family is precious!

Now, what to do if you have multiple deaths within that one (or two) year period?  It is forbidden to open the vault before the allotted date, but you can't bury the newest member of the afterlife in the ground.  The city came up with yet another solution: they built temporary holding vaults, almost like the sliding mortuary tables in a morgue, so that you could 'store' the body of your beloved until it was time to transfer them to the family vault.

A temporary vault built into a wall unit in St. Louis Cemetery No. 1.

This is why I say, "The afterlife of a body in New Orleans is extremely temporary!" Your body could hypothetically be moved, packed, and re-packed up to three times before coming to rest.  And that's IF your vault doesn't get flooded and your bones float around inside until it dries up!  Busy, busy, busy!

Nowadays, most residents have a cremation clause in their wills. It is simply easier and more economical to be cremated and stored in the city's cremation vaults, which look like post office boxes.  It is a much more permanent and logical solution.

A Taste of New Orleans: Creole & Cajun Cookin'

When visiting New Orleans, you can't help but be tempted by the many famous (and sometimes infamous) local delicacies and dishes.  Gumbo, jambalaya, crayfish (spelled crawfish in good ol' NOLA), and alligator are only the beginning - New Orleans, sandwiched between the edge of the Gulf of Mexico and the giant saltwater Lake Pontchartrain, features many seafood and swamp specialties to soothe your growling stomach.

Oceana Restaurant on Conti Street just off Bourbon Street

A couple of weeks ago I was in New Orleans, and truth be told, I might have been more excited to eat the food down there over doing any sort of sightseeing.  I literally had a list of things to sample during my week-long stay, and I drug my traveling companions along with me to all of my favorite restaurants, which I will share with you in this post.

Before I go ahead and make you hungry, though, you first need to understand the difference between "Creole" and "Cajun" food.  In this day and age, typically, the two words are interchangeable.  There are only some subtle culinary differences between the two styles - the biggest differences are cultural from days gone by in Southern Louisiana.

Louisiana offers a plethora of amazing hot sauces! Picture taken by Penny Mueller

The Creole culture was predominantly European-based; the upper echelons of Louisiana colony culture, if you will.  These families ordered their supplies from local markets, who in turn were often supplied with wares directly from Europe.  On the other hand, the Cajun community consisted mainly of non-colony locals and displaced French-Canadians, known as the Acadians. The Cajuns were a poorer and simpler folk.  They lived off the land, and produced their own food supplies from farms and gardens.  In this way, the Creole and Cajun styles of cooking varied due to different products. This also explains why today, in a world where restaurants get their raw materials from similar commercial suppliers, the terms 'Cajun cooking' and 'Creole cooking' are basically equivalents. The spices, cooking styles, and dishes are similar to begin with - for example, both groups enjoyed a good pot of gumbo now and then.  The Creoles made their gumbo with a tomato base and pureed it into a refined soup, while the Cajuns used a simpler roux base and kept their gumbo in a stew form.

All of the restaurants we visited boasted both styles of food - now you know why both varieties are so common in New Orleans!

Oceana
Our first full day in New Orleans was a busy one: convention keynote speaker and sessions all day, a plantation tour in the afternoon, and then we explored Bourbon Street in the evening.  As we strolled down Bourbon, I saw a familiar sign for a restaurant called "Oceana" hanging just off Bourbon on Conti Street (739 Conti Street to be exact).  I had eaten there last time I was in New Orleans, and memories of the most delicious crab cakes ever tasted by any human floated through my mind.

Delicious crab cakes from Oceana restaurant

The sign was the same, but the line-up was new, winding a few doors down from the restaurant. Rather than be discouraged, we figured a line-up was a good sign and so we joined the crowd.  While waiting, we bonded with a fellow Canadian who was just ahead of us - Charles from Vancouver, down to visit NOLA for the week just for fun. We convinced him (forced him?) to join us for dinner, and in we went.

Charles from Vancouver was our impromptu dinner companion

Once again, I ordered the crab cakes, which were just as good as I remembered.  They were thick, moist, and covered with a delicious shrimp sauce.  I also ordered the alligator sausage appetizer.  The sausages were definitely tasty, if not a little spicy, but also quite fatty.  Still, worth a try in my opinion!

Spicy alligator sausage - yum yum!

Red Fish Grill
Another flavor favorite for me are the BBQ oysters of New Orleans. What better place to have them than the "Red Fish Grill", located right on Bourbon Street a few steps down from Canal Street.  It is a nice restaurant with great service, and fantastic fare.

If you want to watch your oysters being freshly shucked, head to the bar and plunk down at the end closest to the kitchen.  There you can see the shells being wedged open, their tasty prizes just waiting for you to eat.  Sadly, I did not get any pearls from my oysters.

The oyster shucker at Red Fish Grill - live in action!

The Red Fish Grill has tons of different items to choose from, but the BBQ oysters are my favorite.  Of course, their house specialty is the grilled red fish (but of course!), which one of my travel partners tried and loved.  It was a bit pricey for its size, however, but I suppose that's what you can expect when you order the 'fanciest' thing on the menu.

BBQ oysters with blue cheese sauce at Red Fish Grill

I also tried their gumbo, which was cooked Creole-style and was more of a soup than a stew. I myself prefer my gumbo Cajun-style, with chunky morsels and a thicker base. It was still tasty!

Gumbo served Creole-style at Red Fish Grill

Blind Pelican
One evening, after puttering up and down the St. Charles Trolley to see the majestic Garden District with all of its Grecian-pillared verandahs, we decided to get out of the French Quarter for dinner.  Halfway back to Canal Street, we jumped off the trolley and meandered down St. Charles Avenue, photographing the trees dripping with so many left-over Mardi Gras beads they looked like bedazzaled Christmas decorations.

Mardi Gras beads hanging from St. Charles Avenue trees

To our right, at 1628 St. Charles Avenue to be precise, a restaurant that looked like it used to be an old house beckoned.  Three men stood just inside the front gate, two of them holding white styrofoam containers which they were eating from.  Curious, we headed over to investigate.  The men were very friendly and willing to share - not just information, but their actual food! The third man turned out to be the cook, and he was cooking a soup of boiled crawfish, shrimp, corn, and potatoes inside a giant vat right there on the restaurant's front porch!

A giant vat of Cajun-spiced shrimp and crawfish beckoned to us from the street

The two men with the styrofoam containers shared with us their shrimp and crawfish.  Being out-of-towners and from land-locked Alberta, Canada, we we unaware of the proper etiquette when it came to eating fresh crustaceans.  One of the men showed my friend and I how to pop the head off a shrimp and eat it by pinching the tail and pulling with your teeth.  The shrimp was delicious!

Too cute to eat? Nope - just squish his head and suck! Tastier than it sounds...

More curious was the process for eating a crawfish.  You rip the poor thing in half, pull the meat from the tail with your teeth and eat it, then pop the other half in your mouth, squish the head, and suck the juices out!  I was disgusted watching my friend do this, but once I tried it myself, it was really good!  The 'head juices' are spicy and rich - as long as you don't think about what you are eating!

Piles and piles of delicious crustaceans at the Blind Pelican

Convinced of the restaurant's worth, we headed inside and ordered our own plate of shrimp and crawfish right from the boiling vat.  We also dared to try some raw oysters, which were one of the restaurant's specialties.  I wasn't so taken with those!

Raw oysters... not my favorite thing ever.

Eat
If you want a nice place in the French Quarter to grab some lunch, try this little place we discovered while wandering the Quarter in search of the Voodoo Museum. The restaurant is called, simply, "Eat", and is located at 900 Dumaine Street.  It is cute, small, and pleasant.  You can even bring in your own wine to drink without a corkage fee (lots of places in New Orleans allow you to bring your own wine, but most charge a $15 corkage fee right off the bat).

Fried crawfish po'boy at Eat in New Orleans

I was originally going to order a nice, light salad, since I'd been eating heavy Creole and Cajun food all week, but couldn't pass up the chance to try a fried catfish po'boy and some fried green tomatoes. A po'boy is basically just a big sandwich served with some sort of fried meat.  In this case, it was the catfish, which was delicious.  I had to take the bun out of the whole equation - my po'boy was gigantic and I never would have been able to eat it all.  So basically I just ordered fried catfish.

I was really happy with the fried green tomatoes.  I'd never had them before, but they were tasty and super simple: something I could make at home.  I need to find a good recipe for them - if anyone has one, feel free to send it my way!

Huck Finn's 
The last restaurant I want to mention is actually one that we didn't get to visit, although we walked past it on the way to the French Market down at 135 Decateur Street. During our swamp trip, our captain overheard us talking about the alligator sausage at "Oceana", and basically berated us for being such tourists. Apparently, the alligator sausage and jerky samples that you can find all around town are mixed with beef or pork or other blends of meats, and aren't 'pure' alligator.

Huck Finn's restaurant, courtesy plus.google.com

He recommended that we try the Alligator Platter at "Huck Finn's", which offers blackened or seared alligator, the best kind to eat.  We never did get to this place, so now it is on the bucket list for my next venture down to the Big Easy! For those of you horrified at the thought of eating alligator, don't worry.  You won't be eating a hunk of endangered or poached alligator - there are actual alligator farms down in Southern Louisiana, and alligator meat is sold in supermarkets all over the place.  It is a guilt-free meal!

Other tasty treats we tried include the giant muffeletta in the French market (I ate only a small portion of my meal and was still ready to be rolled home afterwards), pralines at a little corner store (which were too sugary for me), and beignets from Cafe Beignet (not Cafe du Monde as it was too crazy and lined up on every single day we visited).  If I wrote about them all, this post would be much too lengthy and we'd all have drool slipping up our keyboards, so I'll refrain.

Slap Ya Mama spice - I put that stuff on everything!

One last word on New Orleans cuisine - if you are down visiting the city, pick up a bottle (or five) of a Cajun spice called "Slap Ya Mama".  I bought some in 2008, and have been waiting to go back to NOLA ever since just to get my hands on some again.  This time around, I bought four bottles, just to be safe.  This stuff is good on fries, potatoes, popcorn, and basically everything!  Yum yum!

 

Eating raw oysters at the Blind Pelican - my face says it all...

142. Walk through history at an old New Orleans Plantation

The last time I was in good ol' "NOLA" (the affectionate abbreviation for New Orleans, Louisiana) was in March of 2008 when I visited for a teacher's conference with my then-principal and two other colleagues.  I fell in love with the city during my stay, and admired many facets that make New Orleans so unique - the sweeping architecture, the Creole culture, the energy and exuberance of the French Quarter, and even the magical infusion of voodoo and history.

Come to New Orleans for a taste of the voodoo scene - highly commercialized, though!

And did I mention the food?  New Orleans cuisine is worth the visit alone.  Ghar-uhn-teeed (pronounced Cajun style)!

Last week I found myself wandering the streets of NOLA once more, thanks to another opportunity to visit the city and attend a technology-based teacher's conference (the SITE conference).  The event was great, and I now know how to make my own app - watch for my best-selling app to appear in the iTunes store one day soon! (I wish!)

After our first day of 'conferencing', my two travel companions and I had booked a tour to visit some of Louisiana's historical plantations.  I had booked us with the "Old River Road Plantation Adventure" tour company.  It offered three different tour packages at decent rates, showcasing the Laura Plantation, St. Joseph's Plantation, Evergreen Plantation, and Oak Alley Plantation.  At the time of booking, the website informed me that Laura Plantation was closed on Mondays (the day we wanted to tour), and that the Evergreen Plantation was closed due to a movie being filmed there.  With limited options, I chose the tour that featured St. Joseph's Plantation and Oak Alley Plantation.  The tour cost $70.00 per participant, and offered hotel pick-up.

Oak Alley Plantation - one of the big highlights of any plantation tour.

We hopped on the shuttle that was to take us first to St. Joseph's Plantation. Our guide was very knowledgeable and acquainted us with some great facts that I hadn't known before.  Since I am a history nerd (learning about the history of a place is one of my favorite things about traveling), I want to share with you at least one of my favorite tidbits:

• Louisiana was originally a French colony.  This fact I knew already.  What I hadn't known was how it got its name.  At the time that the colony was first being established, King Louis XIV (the Sun King) was 'ruler' of France.  However, Louis was only a small child when he ascended to the throne, and his mother, Ann of Austria, led the nation as his adviser.  Therefore, they were both technically rulers.  The founders of the colony of Louisiana wanted to name it after Louis, but that was too blunt and lacked a feeling of grandeur.  The Colony of LOUIS just sounded too plain.  So they blended the name of the joint rulers and called it "Louis et Ann", which is pronounced LOO-EE-AY-ANN.  When the Spanish came into Louisiana and took over, they kept the name but changed the pronounciation to fit the Spanish language, making the colony "Louis-y-Anna", pronounced LOO-ISS-EE-ANNA. Hence, the name we use today, Louisiana, was born.

There were many other fabulous stories told during our ride out to the plantations, but I highly encourage you to visit and hear them for yourselves!  If you want to know more and can't just fly out to New Orleans, feel free to comment below or email me.

Our bus drove for about an hour outside of the city of New Orleans, and pulled up in front of the Laura Plantation.  85% of the bus disembarked to tour the Creole plantation in all of its glory.  I was a bit indignant - according to the website, the Laura Plantation had been unavailable for Monday tours. If I had known that we could go, I would have booked it!  Oh well.  It wasn't a big deal.  We watched the large group stroll into the grounds of Laura, and then the bus driver took our tiny group of five to the St. Joseph's Plantation.

A cabin from the Laura Plantation - pretty flowers!

St. Joseph's is literally a six-minute drive down the road from the Laura Plantation, and Oak Alley is another two minutes down that same road.  All of the commercial plantation tours seem to be in the same area.  There are many plantations that are still operating today, but those are closed to the public and are more spread out.  All the plantations in the New Orleans area are in the sugar cane industry - cotton is not grown in this area at all, so don't expect to see any!

Sugar cane - looks just like clumps of grass!

As we drove into the St. Joseph's Plantation, our driver pointed out another grand looking mansion - the Felicite Plantation.  I got very excited as this plantation is where one of my favorite movies, "The Skeleton Key", was filmed.

The Felicite Plantation - a Hollywood favorite!

St. Joseph's Plantation is owned and operated by a family group, the Waguespack and Simon families, who have owned it for hundreds of years.  It was a family home until about 10 years ago, in fact. At that point, the family decided to get into the plantation tour business, so they renovated and opened up the building and grounds to the public.  Our tour guide was a descendent of the last true plantation owners, and grew up inside the house.

The St. Joseph's Plantation as seen from the backyard

It was a nice tour, but nothing that I would highly recommend.  It was obvious our tour guide loved the home, and every object and room was near and dear to her heart. However, the tour was lengthy, over-personalized, and dry.  The only really spicy stories came to us in the 'Mourning Room', where Jean, our guide, told us of her grandmother's death (she burned to death in the backyard after setting herself aflame by mistake on a windy day), and the death of her great-uncle.  He and some neighbors had fled to a local church during a tornado, and when the roof of the church collapsed, Jean's great-uncle covered the bodies of his children with his own.  They all survived the tornado and the roof collapse, but Jean's great-uncle was axed in the head by his rescuing fire-fighters, and was killed instantly.  The children survived.

Items from St. Joseph's: a mourning gown, a mustache cup (kept the mustache dry when drinking tea), one of the several antique clocks, children's beds

After the tour, we ducked out into the grounds of the plantation and explored the old slave houses that dotted the fields. Compared to the wide-open, large, and lavish plantation home, these houses were tiny little duplexes that were designed to squish in eight to ten people within the living quarters.  It was truly eye-opening.

The slave cabins at St. Joseph's Plantation

Interior of a slave cabin at St. Joseph's Plantation

Our next stop was the majestic Oak Alley, built in 1839 as a 'honeymoon palace'.  Where St. Joseph's was simple and quaint, run by a family and operated with love, Oak Alley was a tourist attraction at its finest.  Oak Alley had a gift shop, restaurant, places to stay overnight, and a massive parking lot.  The plantation mansion and grounds were impeccably kept.  It was all impressive and grand - but very tourist-oriented.  (And I don't say that negatively, because I freely admit I am the biggest tourist of all sometimes.)  It was just so very different from St. Joseph's.

There were no morbid stories, such as the ones offered by Jean about her family tragedies, but the tour guide was engaging and funny.  He told us about the "courting candle" and the "ladies tea" in the parlor, which elicited several laughs, and interacted with the audience quite a bit.  

Top Left: While men drank sugar cane spirits, women had to drink 'fruit tea' - fruit soaked a jar of spirits. Much more lady-like! Bottom Left: The master suite, with the only original piece of furniture - the cradle.  Right: The courting candle. The candle was set to high or low, depending on how much the family liked you. When the candle burned to the first coil, the date was over!

My favorite part of Oak Alley was its name-sake: the beautiful and imposing oak lined alley leading up to the plantation mansion's front doors.  It was picturesque and postcard perfect.

The Oak Alley walkway

My least favorite part of Oak Alley was the Mint Julep drink.  Considered a Louisiana classic, it is made of three parts bourbon, one part mint syrup, and one sprig of mint.  It is disgusting.  I hated it, as you can tell by my face.

Oak Alley's Mint Julep drink - a famous and traditional Louisiana beverage

I hated that stupid Mint Julep!

I highly recommend a trip out to see Louisiana's plantation country.  Pick and choose according to your tastes - St. Joseph's Plantation if you want to see a family-run plantation, probably looking much as it did 100 years ago, or the Laura Plantation for a Creole plantation experience, or the Oak Alley Plantation for a movie-quality experience.  Or just go see them all!

 

Explore the plantations with me!