Travels with Snowbirds February 10 and 11 2015, Pass Christian LA to New Orleans LA for MARDI GRAS!

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February 10 and 11 2015, Pass Christian LA to New Orleans LA for MARDI GRAS!!

The one about Fantasy Tours

It was an interesting night that night at Pass Christian. Dogs that bark in the daytime generally do not shut up overnight, or so I have learned. Yes, an interesting night, and of course I really didn’t fall asleep until 30 minutes before it was time to wake up.

I took Winston for a walk in the road, and 2 dogs from the campground followed me. Poor Winston, he squatted to do his business and that little shit kicker Chihuahua was right up his butt. He got kicked away. As I walked, I had the opportunity to peer into the woods across the street. Something I bet you haven’t thought about any more than I did - The woods were littered with mattresses, lawn furniture, roofing shingles, timber, garbage cans, toys. Yes, the storm debris was picked up from the houses and roads, but no one paid any attention to the woods. Sad.

The office manager/secretary was on my doorstop at 8:30 and collected $15 for my overnight stay. You get what you pay for.

Over the river and thru the woods and we were off to New Orleans. I lead, Mama Bear in her Class A and her 3 cubs in their Class Bs. It was just about an hour drive, and we crossed the I10 bridge over Lake Pontchartrain, not the 26 mile State Route/toll bridge. Lake Pontchartrain is brackish, getting salt water from the ocean and fresh water from the swamps that drain into it. It is only about 16 feet at its deepest, and is used for all recreation sports. It’s muddy, and never looks ‘clean’ even on the brightest of days.

We arrived at our home for the next week at University of New Orleans. There are about 100 RV sites here on a grass and gravel parking lot near the Lakefront Arena, baseball fields, tennis courts, and aquatic center. We were parked in our site next to each other and greeted by the Fantasy Tours staff.

Fantasy Tours is just like any other Tour Company you might be familiar with - Apple, Globus, Tauck, except instead of staying in hotels you drive and/or stay in your RV. We are at a rally: all meet at the same location and stay put for the length of the Rally. A caravan is where you drive to a different destination every day. Our site has water and electric. We were promised sewer hookups as well. I could see that there USED to be sewer hookups, but they have been freshly filled in with red dirt. This would be a problem, but we were quickly told that a honey wagon would come and collect our waste on a daily basis and we didn’t need to be home when it happened. Better them than me.

My 3 friends in their 19 foot RoadTreks have the smallest rig here. I have the next smallest at 27 feet. The rest are huge 36 to 43 foot buses and diesel pushers. Big mothers. I hate being in their shadow, but I am between my 3 cubs and all is well.

I was given a rally bag which included reading material, new Fantasy Tours hat, pin, and tote bag. At the 4:00 orientation we went over our itinerary for the week and assured that the honey wagon would empty our waste water and all would be well. I have to believe them.

I took out my bike and went for a short ride. I have an unobstructed view right in front of me of the levee that is supposed to hold Lake P in, which didn’t hold during Katrina. I found a way to walk my bike up it and there is a bike path on the other side.

Welcome dinner in the Arena at 6:30. Roast pork, seafood pasta, snap peas, salad, bread, praline cheesecake and king cake. Open bar with top shelf selections! Many wore costumes. I dressed as St Patrick’s Day – green sequined baseball hat, green shirt, black pants, green socks. Some had really great costumes. A couple was dressed as the king and queen of hearts. I asked her if she was a teacher, yes, retired kindergarten. How did I know. Hmmmmmm. There were some clever mardi gras outfits, gauchos, cowboys, zombies, and lot of folks just with masks and beads. A general all purpose band played the oldies as well as Cajun and zydeco music. It was a beautiful event and fun. I was tired and was in my jammies by 9 and probably asleep by 10:30.

The bus picked us up at 8:30 on Wednesday for our city tour which included many sections that had been destroyed and rebuilt, and others that have had nothing done to them yet. It is very comforting to see new buildings everywhere, but equally discouraging to see them covered with graffiti. Our tour included a stop at St Louis Cemetary #3 (great name for a cemetery, my son in law, Louis, owns cemeteries.) We learned about burying in these above ground structures, basically bodies are piled on top of each other, and sink down into the elements. These family mausoleums can be sold, and the bodies of the old owners stay put, as they have probably already been assimilated, and the new family just piles on top. There was one brand new family crypt with the name Skelly on it. My great grandfather on the McGrath side was a Skelly. It seems the new owner of this paid $100k for the site, then put $500K into renovations to hold only her and her dog. Not her brother. If you are an individual with no family, or just a small family, you can join a ‘society’ and be buried in their crypt when your time comes. There are no names engraved on these structures, you have to go into the cemetery office to see who is in there. There is a tomb for priests and one for nuns. There was a Skelly on the engraved names on the outside of the priest tomb.

We stopped for a brief bio break stop at City Park, another area hard hit by Katrina. Some philanthropist donated his massive metal sculptures which have new viewing gardens around them.

It seems to me the town is trying so hard, but there are still so many poor people here who just don’t have the funds or the brain power to fix up their former homes. The roads are awful!!! Pothole everywhere!!! The curbs have crumbled into gravel. Our tour guide told us about ‘soil subside’. The bedrock in this area is 70 feet down. The houses have been built on compressed mud or compressed clay. The dirt contains a lot of water. Over the years as the town has been built up and more and more pumps installed to drain flooded areas, the ground has dried out. Now, when it rains, the rain eats away at the hardened mud under the houses, causing it to erode away. You will see houses with large portions of its slab hanging in the air 6 inches off the ground. It seems to be a big business to raise these houses off their slab, build a new slab according to what technology now says works, and lowered back down. She also told us that the biggest pump station did not work during Katrina - it was powered by electricity, which was out for month. The newly built pumps are diesel driven generators (somewhere there is a picture) and living quarters have been built there to withstand the strongest storms so the workers can stay and operate the pumps. Methinks that is another reason Lake P is so brown - flood water from the town is pumped into the Lake.

On to The Court of Two Sisters for Jazz Brunch. OMG. This is one of the finer restaurants in NO. We were escorted to seats in the courtyard, comfortably warm for the cool day we were having. I ordered a carafe of wonderful mimosas. Food selections included (but certainly not all) salad with all the trimmings, boiled shrimp, shrimp etouffe, shrimp gumbo, roast turkey, roast ribeye, roast duck, salmon soufflé, eggs anyway you want (I got Benedict), grits, turtle soup, and on and on and on. Deserts included pecan pie, bread pudding, ice cream, lemon cake, king cake, chocolate cake with whipped cream between the layers, apple pie and on and on and on. I rolled out of there.

We had an hour before our bus picked us up, so we strolled down Royal Street then thru Jackson Square, passed by Café du Monde and into the French Market where I bought a pin and earrings made right in front of me by Oscar, a Bourbon Street sticker for Moya, and a Mardi Gras scarf. I wanted a T shirt, cost $15, only had $9, showed it to vendor, she told me it wasn’t enough. OK, I guess they want to bargain, but not that much.

A short ride on a school bus and back to the campground by 2:30. All the dogs were outside playing in the field in front of my RV. I decided to let Winston off his leash and let him play and he ran around and around and around. He only strayed off once, just to walk around an RV that I know has a lot of dogs inside it. He was a good boy and I was proud of him. The grass here has those nasty burrs in it, though, but he has learned to give me that look and put his paw up and I will pull it out for him. You can teach an old dog new tricks.

Next up all about the Parades.



Kat out.

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