Bill and Cathy McArthur on the Road 2004: 19

Tuesday, April 13 was overcast, windy, and chilly. We decided to tackle our mildew problem and tried some more ideas, none of which worked very well. We talked to Katie and decided to try a weak bleach solution next. After lunch, Bill had to participate in a conference call with DCW and ATT Wireless. Bill thought that the call was going to be about eBI, but it was about the new ICAT system which might be replacing the functionality of eBI and AOF. We took time out during a sunny period in the afternoon to walk along the bike path on top of the Mississippi River levee across the street from the campground. We walked for an hour and three quarters. Bill worked for a while during the late afternoon on a change for the RPWtest website. We ate dinner in the same restaurant as the night before and had to suffer through a piece of Yellowfin Tuna cooked dry. The rest of the meal was good, however.

Wednesday was a gorgeous day. It was still unseasonably chilly, but the sky was a clear blue all day. We took the 9:00 AM shuttle from the campground to the French Quarter and took a Gray Line bus tour for two hours. We got a good overview of New Orleans during the tour. We ate lunch on the upstairs porch of a microbrewery, Crescent City Brewhouse, on Decatur street overlooking the Mississippi. River. Afterward, we walked around the French Quarter for a while until we had to board our river cruise at 2:30 PM aboard the Natchez steamboat. The cruise was a perfect complement to the bus tour as we got to see about 12 miles of the river. After the cruise, we explored the River Walk area of the waterfront. We took the 5:45 PM shuttle back to our campground. Later, we ate dinner at Harbor Seafood again. We were brave and ordered 4 pounds of crawfish and became very proficient at getting the tails out of the shells.

On Thursday morning we experimented with varying concentrations of Clorox as we tried to solve the mildew problem in out camper. We finally settled on a cup of Clorox per gallon of water as an effective solution. After scrubbing one bed area, we decided to try public transportation and took a bus for 45 minutes followed by a trolley car for 45 minutes to get to downtown New Orleans. We walked around the French Quarter and ate lunch at Pierre Masperos Restaurant. After lunch we walked to St. Louis Cemetery #1, the oldest cemetery in New Orleans. It took us 2 hours to get back to the campground on the trolley and bus. We went shopping and then ate at Harbor Seafood once more.

Friday was a road trip day. We decided to drive down to Grand Isle, on the southern tip of the Mississippi delta. We crossed the Mississippi on the Huey Long Bridge, which was under construction. We were stopped for a while at the top of this tall, rusty, shaking bridge. Cathy likened it to being stuck at the top of a Ferris wheel. Most of the drive was along the Lafourche Bayou which was lined with commercial fishing boats, mostly shrimpers. We were impressed with the looks of the freshly painted boats. As we neared Grand Isle, the presence of oil rigs was more and more evident. The rigs lined the horizon out on the Gulf of Mexico and the oil facilities occupied a large proportion of the meager land available at the tip of the delta. Aside from the oil companies, Grand Isle is a collection of houses on pilings, reminiscent of Oak Isle, North Carolina. Although the natural area is beautiful with water views everywhere, it has been made ugly by the works of man. The exception is the Grand Isle State Park, occupying several acres on the Gulf. We were looking for Cajun cooking, but found a nice seafood restaurant called Gulfstream instead. We met a gregarious cracker named Marlon Vines who has written a novel called “Glasdale’s Hell Gate”. On the drive back to New Orleans, we passed through Houma, which impressed us mainly as a large city. After we got back to the campground we took a 3 mile walk on the levee. The weather remained beautiful all day and the temperature reached 80 degrees. For dinner we went to an upscale restaurant, Parvenue, located nearby. The food was great.

Saturday was warm and mostly sunny. Bill waterproofed the canvas on one end of the camper and then tackled the other end to get rid of the mildew. We discovered that our cell phone wasn’t taking a charge when we called son Bill during late morning. We spent a couple of hours chasing around the western New Orleans suburbs trying to get a swap for the phone. A service technician lent us a high capacity battery until we could return on Monday to see where to get a phone. We talked with son Bill and then Alex. Bill decided to use Tile-ex Mold and Mildew Remover after two tries with our Clorox solution failed to do a satisfactory job. We took the shuttle into the city to take the Crescent City Nights tour of the French Quarter. We met our guide Lynn and 6 others in our group at Tujaques Restaurant on Decatur Street. We had satisfactory meals and good conversation. After dinner we walked a bit through the crowds who filled the streets for the French Quarter Festival. We stopped for a drink and some good Dixieland Jazz at the Maison Bourbon. Later we walked to the Café du Monde for café au lait and beignets (a New Orleans doughnut with lots of powdered sugar). After the coffee and sweets we watched fireworks above the river and finally took a cab home. Since a cab to our KOA normally costs from 25 to 40 dollars, we got a good deal on the tour.

On Sunday we took public transportation back into the “Big Easy”, leaving at 8:40 AM. It was another beautiful, warm day. We walked around and took the free ferry over to Algiiers Point for some more walking. After crossing the river again, we ate a great lunch at K-Paul’s Louisiana Kitchen. Bill ate there last about 25 years ago. We saw Chef Prudhomme in his wheelchair near the bar looking over things. The restaurant had started serving lunch again on this weekend. After lunch we walked around the French Quarter and listened to a lot of good music. We took a short ride on one of the new Canal Street trolleys and then took public transportation back to our campground. We felt as though we had a thorough experience in New Orleans and can certainly recommend this time of year for a visit.

Bill and Cathy