Day 222

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Obfuscator writes: The morning was a pleasant one, fairly bright, not raining, and cool. Our kind host at the New Orleans Guest House gave us a light breakfast of fruit and croissant, juice, and tea. It was tasty and hit the spot. We packed up our gear and checked out.

Our plan was to tour New Orleans for a while, and then move on. As it turned out, we would spend pretty much the whole day there, which was all right, since we didn't really have anywhere else we needed to be. We started off by finding a parking lot in the French Quarter, where we could leave our car for the day. Since we didn't really have anywhere in particular to go, we wandered around for a while, and eventually ended up on Canal Street, where we found a film crew working on a bus painted up to look like a street car on the top. I didn't recognize any actors or anything, so I have no idea what they were making, but it was kind of cool.

After watching the film crew for a while, we walked around a bit more, stopping in a Jesuit Church, which was enormous and gorgeous. Each of the stained glass windows depicted an important Jesuit figure, and there were some stunning mosaics. After we walked around it for some time, we wandered back to Canal Street, and got onto a streetcar. The streetcars are a pretty cool deal. For about $1.25 per person, you can ride all the way from the French Quarter, through the Uptown area, past Loyola and Tulane, all along St. Charles Street.

St. Charles Street is lined with huge, beautiful homes, apartments, churches, and other institutions. Where the street car lets you off, at the end of the street, runs right along the Mississippi. You can walk right up on the levy, and see just how stupidly high the water is. We walked around a bit here to see what we could see, and stopped in a shop for some ice cream (since it was hot). We got back onto a street car (which incidentally doesn't turn around, but just flips its seats over) and went back to the French Quarter.

We wandered over to the riverwalk to see the River where it goes by the French Quarter, but it mostly seemed like a boring shopping mall, so we kept going. We wandered back into the more interesting sectors, and found ourselves near the Jean LaFitte National Park Visitor's Center. Inside, we found some pretty interesting info about New Orleans, the Creole, the local architecture, and Jean LaFitte. One of the rangers gave a short talk about LaFitte, though he didn't really shed too much light on the mysterious figure. Another ranger led us and other visitors on a walk through the French Quarter, and told us about various architectures that you can find.

Our tour ended near Jackson Square, where you can see a big statue of the man himself, Andrew Jackson. Across a pedestrian mall is a huge cathedral, which was quite lovely, though undergoing some fairly major restoration work while we visited. We wandered around New Orleans for a while, until we decided to stop for some Gumbo. A particular Gumbo Shop was recommended to us, so that's where we went. The Gumbo was good, if rather overpriced, so we were moderately satisfied. Afterward, we left New Orleans, and drove on to Mississippi.

We stopped briefly near the Stennis Spaceport, which is apparently America's largest rocket test site, but it was already closed for the day. Nearby, we drove through Kiln, Mississippi, to see if we could find Brett Favre's home. We passed something that may have been it, but we weren't sure, and we didn't stop. A bit past Biloxi, we found a campsite at the Gulf Islands National Seashore, where we spent a miserable night in a bog. It was hot, and wet, despite the lack of rain, and swarms of biting insects plagued us all night. Needless to say, neither of us got much sleep, and Mississippi didn't make a favorable impression.

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