Day 15 & Day 16 - New Orleans, LA

We had two days in NOLA and tried to pack in as much as we could!

Day 1
First off, we needed a good breakfast to set us up for the rest of the day. We found a place called Cafe Fleur-de-lis and both decided to go for a traditional New Orleans breakfasts. Lee had shrimp with cheesy grits and a Bloody Mary with bacon. I had the Bourbon Street breakfast - Banana and Pecan pancakes with bacon and a large shot of Bourbon! One thing we have learnt in America is to box up left over food and take it with you. My pancakes lasted so we can could have them again for breakfast a couple of days later!

Then we headed off to find Mardi Gras World which offers a behind the scenes look at New Orleans Mardi Gras traditions. We ended up getting a little lost on the way and had to stop off in the New Orleans Harrah's. Whilst in there, we couldn't resist putting a couple of bucks in the Dolly Parton machine just in case we managed to win big! Sadly we didn't win but we did get a couple of 'free' drinks (you still have to pay the tip so they were $1 drinks really)!

Mardi Grad World was great fun. It lasted about 2 hours and included a video about the history of Mardi Gras and what happens in New Orleans, dressing up in the costumes, a walk around the factory where the make the items for the floats and then seeing the floats themselves. Here is our video of the tour:

After the tour, we walked over to Couch Butchers as we heard the do an awesome stuffed sausage called a Hot Boudin. It was so tasty. This is another New Orleans must-have food, there were quite a few and we did a lot of eating! It is a combination of cooked rice, pork, onions, green peppers and seasoning, all mixed together and put through a meat grinder before being stuffed into a sausage casing and then steamed. The taste was amazing! So full of flavour, we shared one but we should have taken home a dozen!

We needed to walk off some of the food we'd eaten today so took a walk along the Mississippi river front and enjoyed the view of the paddle boats going up and down. On our way, we also went past the monument for Hurricane Katrina. Whilst you wouldn't know from looking at the city that it was devastated by Katrina in 2005, there are little reminders everywhere you go of the continued impact it has.

NB: for those who noticed, Lee and I were the 'pink' twins today purely by accident. We both chose pink tops and then didn't realise until we'd already headed out for breakfast. Either we both like pink (which we do) or we now have some sort of weird clothing connection now we're married!


Day 2 
If you though we packed a lot into Day 1, we packed even more into Day 2!

We started the day off with a walk around the park near our hotel, it was called Armstrong Park, named after the famous trumpeter, composer, singer Louis Armstrong who was born and raised in New Orleans. The park was very pretty with lots of bridges over a little man-made river and little homages to the music and musicians of New Orleans.

We then jumped on a cable car to New Orleans City Park. We picked up a map of the park and could not believe how big it is, 1300 acres, that 50% bigger than central park in New York! There was no way we were going to walk 1300 acre's so we chose to walk around the sculpture garden and then do a little tour around the Botanical Gardens and Carousel Gardens Amusement Park. We didn't go into either of these attractions for two reasons - you needed to pay an extra fee and we didn't really have time to make use of the tickets and they were both full of kids on field trips from schools and summer camps!

A tip I was given by a New Orleans local whilst we were camping in St Joseph’s Peninsula was to skip the crowds going to Cafe Du Monde for coffee and beignets and instead head to Morning Call in the park. They were right, Morning Call was very quiet in comparison and mainly filled with locals rather than tourists. The coffee as really good, I think it was made with condensed milk, and the beignets tasted like freshly cooked doughnuts which we then covered in lots and lots of icing sugar.

We then headed back on the tram to St Louis Cemetery 1, the most famous cemetery in New Orleans. When we arrived, we found out that the only way into this cemetery was with a tour guide due to the poor state of the cemetery and the need to try to preserve and repair what is left. We hadn't arranged a tour so could only look over the wall.

We then got back on the tram, having now made really good use of the $3 ticket, and headed to the Garden District. This area was a real surprise to us. To start with, it looked very residential and whilst the houses were pretty and many had historical importance, it was a sleepy neighborhood. Then we found the bars, shops and restaurants as well as Lafayette Cemetery No 1, which was open to the general public. We had a great time in Garden District and really enjoyed the laid back and less hectic afternoon compared to Bourbon Street. For dinner, we managed to have another New Orleans classic, a Crawfish Boil with Oysters. Once we had discovered the knack of getting the meat out of the crawfish, it was lovely, even the oysters were tasty as they had been cooked in garlic, cheese and butter. It is making my mouth water remembering how good this meal was! Here is a short video we have made of our time in this area:

We finished our final night in New Orleans in a bar on our way back to the hotel as Lee was desperate for a tinkle and couldn't make it all the way home. The bar was pirate themed and we had a great time sitting at the bar talking to different people about the trip. The bar tender was lovely and even let us stay and chat to her whilst she locked up at midnight, so much for an early night! Sadly, I forgot to take photos but we do have 2 absinthe spoons that we were given to take home with us (not that we had any absinthe or would drink it normally, but the spoon are fun and a great reminder of a great day!).

Guest Blogger: Reflections on Camping

Today you have a guest blog entry from Lee. Sam does a fine job being video and blogmeister while I am busy doing important stuff like driving, making fire, pooing or having a snooze.

I just wanted to share my personal thoughts on camping after the first 20 days of our road trip.

On the whole, I look forward to the camping parts of our trip more than the hotel stays. After a couple of nights in a town motel, we can't wait to get back in Fin and head to a campsite.

There are, however, two main things that irk me somewhat.

The first is the rain. It feels like we have had more than our fair share of wet weather during our first 8 nights of camping. I have to be thankful that we haven't had to pitch or depitch in the rain thus far, but packing away a wet tent is not the most fun of tasks, and neither is it good for the tent.

There is nothing we can do about the weather of course, so it's nothing to spend any time thinking about really. I bet when we're in Texas or Nevada in blazing sunshine, we'll be praying for some cooler air and a heavy shower.

The second thing is people. Given that one of the goals of this trip was to expand horizons, open minds and meet new people, I am obviously disappointed with myself here.

Some of the campgrounds have been great. Attracting an older or more coupley crowd meant that we had some great chats with our neighbors and a peaceful night's sleep.

For the other campgrounds, it has been two ends of the spectrum. In a couple we have been literally the only ones in the campground. This may sound idyllic but in reality it makes you feel a bit isolated.

At the other end of the spectrum is the family-oriented madhouse, which the last two campgrounds have been. I'm not saying that kids don't deserve to make a noise and have fun, but when the quiet hours (typically from about 10pm to about 7am) are both merely notional and unenforced, you get screaming and shouting - not only from the kids I hasten to add - from well into the night until the crack of dawn.

It boils down to a simple lack of respect, and this annoys me so much. It is certainly not an American disease either - this crosses nationalities and is really an indictment of society as a whole. It is Memorial Day weekend here in the States, so maybe we have stumbled across an artificially higher-than-usual density of this kind of behaviour? Let's hope so.

I want this blog to give a true impression of the ups and downs that our road trip is bound to throw our way. The ups have far outweighed the downs many times over, and I don't want to give the impression any other way. But at the same time, I'll not be afraid to shed some light on the less positive sides to the trip.

Maybe you can think of Lee as bad cop to good cop Sam's awesome and positive review of MERTA :)

Day 15 & Day 16 - NOLA - Bourbon Street, LA

We spent 2 days in New Orleans and managed to cover a lot!

The first thing to talk about it Bourbon Street. It is noisy, smelly (there is a huge fat burg under the street they are trying to remove) and full of people who want to party. In fact, the party never stops, it continues all day and all night. A great party town!

We spent 2 of the 3 nights in Bourbon Street and tried as many different bars we could, each playing different music. We had a fantastic time but I think any more than 2 nights, would have been tough on our livers and left us short of money for the rest of the trip!

The music in New Orleans is phenomenal. So many amazing artists playing all sorts of music, many of them taking requests and learning songs on the spot! Music is clearly in the heart of this city, you can see why so many very famous artists have played here.

Here is our video 'taster' of Bourbon street, I wish I'd taken more videos but I was enjoying listening too much:

There are a couple of photos which didn't make it into the video as I wanted it to be about the music:

 View Down Bourbon Street

 The Cathedral

The LGBT District

Karin was an awesome singer and piano player

The police where really chilled out 

The pavement (sidewalk) sign

What happens when you party too hard

Day 14 - Driving Through 4 States

Today was a proper road trip day, we had 5.5 hours of driving planned through 4 states to get us from the Florida Panhandle to New Orleans.

We started the day in Pensacola Beach just down the road from our campsite. It has a lovely broadwalk full of bars, restaurants and shops. I manged to find some replacement wet shoes just in time for moving away from the beach but I know we are going to need them again when we hit the west coast in a couple of months time.

We then headed for the Alabama border. You would have expected that moving from one state to another would be marked by something more than a simple sign, its almost a bit of a let down going over a border, if you weren't waiting for it, you probably would never know.

Our drive took us through Mobile (correctly said "Mobill"). As we were driving along, we saw a huge battleship so stopped to take a look. The ship was the USS Alabama. It only cost $4 to get into the park with the ship and lots of other planes, tanks, guns and other stuff. You had to pay a further $15pp to go onto the Alabama but we didn't really have time to do this. Lee really enjoyed himself and was like a kid in a candy store so he's made a special section just for the video, including a section dedicated to his Dad.

Next it was to the Mississippi border and a Payless Shoe Source where we found replacement flipflops and sandals. Let's hope these ones last a little longer!

For most of the drive, we were on the interstate except where there was a state border so that we could stop on the state line and take a picture. To get to the Louisiana border, we went onto the smaller state route at Biloxi. There was a pretty lighthouse here in the road and some interesting themed restaurants including one called 'Slap Ya Momma's'!

We continued onto Gulfport where we hit the state line. This was a much prettier drive than the interstate, the beach was on our left and we went through little towns with holiday homes and even President Jefferson Davis's former home.

We finally went over the bridge into New Orleans, seeing the skyline we knew we were nearly there and a cold beer was waiting for us in one of many bars!

Our hotel Maison Dupuy was right in the middle of the French Quarter and whilst it was a 5 minute walk to the action on Bourbon street, it was far enough way to be quiet and easy to get to by car. We also had a tram stop a 5 minute walk away to getting further a field.

That night, we hit Bourbon Street like everyone does in New Orleans. I am going to do a separate post on New Orleans but it is an experience, I have never had so much noise hit me in one go and I have never seen a town which is so busy on every night of the week, there are no quiet days!

For dinner, we went to a place called Mothers which I read on another blog as a recommendation. It is a very different from any other restaurant we have been in, you queue up canteen style to order and then your food is brought to your table when its ready. All over the walls are pictures from the history of the restaurant. They do very good Po'Boys which we didn't have as they looked like french stick sandwiches, we can get these back home! Instead, we had samplers of New Orleans traditions Gumbo, Crawfish Etoufee and Jambalaya as well as a portion of their famous ham. It was amazing! Neither of us could chose a favourite, they all tasted amazing and for once, the portion size was perfect, we were not needing a stomach pump or taking home bags full of food.

Here is the video:

Day 13 - Panhandle Continued and Fort Pickins, FL

We packed up the campsite and continued our journey along the Panhandle. First stop was Panama City Beach.

What we hadn't realised until we reached Panama City Beach was that we crossed a timezone, going from Eastern to Central. We gained an hour but we lost some respect when we tried to get a drink from a bar that hadn't opened yet as it was too early.... oops!

Whilst we waited for the bar to open, we walked down the beach which was amazing. Lovely soft sand, clear water that was tinted green and not too busy although maybe that's because we were early.

When the bar finally opened, we had a lovely cooling drink in Sharky's. Mine was a frozen mudslide, which was like a pudding rather than a drink and Lee had a beer (of course!).

We drove down the road that runs alongside the beach which was full of bars, restaurants, amusements, hotels and shops.

It seemed that the 'cool' thing to do in Panama City Beach was to drive down this road in a jeep with no windows or doors, one arm and one leg handing out, all your 'mates' cramped in the back and generally look like you're the coolest 'kid' in the city. Poor Fin tried to look cool but he was just too sensible.

Next stop along the Panhandle was Destin which was very similar to Panama City Beach only it seemed that on the main strip, a lot of hotels owned parts of the beaches so the public areas were full of people. We had a little walk down the beach again and then sat on the beach outside a bar called Back Porch and enjoyed the sunshine.

Heading out of Destin, we crossed a bridge over a lagoon. There were hundreds of boats on the lagoon and some crazy parties going on. Some of the boats were bars or activities (such as slides and trampolines). It looked like you needed to either pull up your boat next to these boats or swim over to them. Shame we didn't have a boat handy as we would have loved to join in.

The drive over to Fort Pickens was very picturesque with sand dunes, beaches and the sea either side of the road. Fort Pickens is part of the National Parks system but luckily we had our National Parks pass at the ready and got in for free. Usually it would have cost $20 on top of the camping fee!

Lee did a lot of research on pitches and for this one, he had done a fine job. We had B4 which was by far the biggest, most private and nicest pitch in the entire park. I think there were a few jealous people around who were stuck in small pitches on top of their neighbours with no privacy.

With the tent pitched, we were so hot we walked to the beach to have a swim in the sea. It was lovely right up until I spotted a jelly fish. That was the end of going in the sea for me, I was out of the water quicker than Mo Farah on the home straight! Lee didn't mind the jelly fish, mainly because he had smelly armpits and they needed something drastic to kick the smell. He's just lucky one didn't sting him under the armpits as I bet that is very painful!

After the beach, we went to see Fort Pickens itself which was a short 10 minute drive away, along to the end of the peninsula. There is not just 1 fort but 3, all build in different eras for different uses from the Civil War to WW2. When we arrived, the tourist information was closed but you could walk around the forts until sun down. It was interesting to see how the peninsula had changed over the years and where the fort used to sit on the sea line, its now in the middle of the island. Good thing the gun there could shoot 17 miles out of sea!

We were sitting around the campfire after having a lovely dinner (steak, corn on the cob and pepper cooked on the fire with a tomato salad) when Lee heard a noise behind him. It was an armadillo having a nose in the rubbish bag. He was sooooo cute but by the time I had reached for the camera, he had run off. Hopefully we'll see another Arnie soon and this time I can get a snap, unfortunately, we have seen a number of his cousins at the roadside who haven't made it.

The fly was off the tent again, and it was lovely going to sleep seeing the stars in the sky and waking up seeing blue sky and the sun. It feels like you're sleeping outside but without any bugs harassing you.

We lost 3 soles today - 1 flipfop, 1 sandal and 1 water shoe. Lee's sandals were over-used, the flip flop couldn't cope with camp life and the water shoe melted when I tried to dry it on the fire. We should have bought more shoes, now we're going to have to buy some more!