On our last night in Alabama, we stopped by “The Wharf” entertainment district not far from our campground to see their laser light show. They made good use of their very tall palm trees for the show!

Thursday’s drive was only a few hours, heading West through Mississippi and into Louisiana, to our campground just a few miles North of New Orleans. It’ll be nice to have a short drive into the city – we usually have at least 45 minutes or more to drive to many of our daily destinations, but not here!

Our first stop on Friday morning was New Orleans City Park. It’s one of the largest urban parks in the country, and about 50% larger than Central Park in NYC. There are hundreds of live oak trees – some over 800 years old! During the Great Depression, the Works Progress Administration built a great deal of the park. 70+ years later, Hurricane Katrina left 95% of the park underwater; public funding helped repair and improve the park. It’s an absolutely gorgeous place, with the live oaks and palm trees, lots of water, and beautiful stone bridges. We walked through the beautiful and scenic historic oak grove for about an hour. We had packed a lunch and enjoyed it at one of the picnic tables…and finished with some fresh, warm, delicious beignets from Café DuMonde which has a location in the park.

The park is home to lots of wildlife, too…

Driving from City Park, we saw this construction project – they lifted the entire house up to protect it from future flooding.

From there, we headed into the city to start a “Hop-on Hop-off” sightseeing tour. We decided it would be the best way to see a lot of the city, and then decide where we want to spent more time. We stayed on the top level of the double-decker bus for the entire 90-minute tour and saw the central business district, garden district, and French quarter. Our tour guide was really good – always a plus on these types of tours!

After the tour, we walked to Louis Armstrong Park which is also the site of the New Orleans Jazz National Historic Park (part of the National Parks System). Louis Armstrong holds a special place for Mark and I – 28 years ago, our wedding song was his “What a Wonderful World”.

From there, we started wandering the nearby streets of the French Quarter and found ourselves on the famous Bourbon Street. The architecture all around the French Quarter is wonderful, especially the wrought iron accents!

Next stop was the Cathedral-Basilica of St. Louis, King of France. It’s been the center of the Catholic faith since the city was founded and is likely one of the most recognizable sites of New Orleans. It sits in Jackson Square, named for Andrew Jackson.

We saw more of the French Quarter as we headed back to our truck.

The cemeteries in New Orleans are fascinating since the city is at or below sea level; above-ground tombs are much more common. The older cemeteries in the city are closed to the public (some offer private tours), but Metairie Cemetery about 15 minutes away, is open and dates back to the late 1800s. We drove there and walked around to see some of the many marble tombs…including some really unique ones!

We enjoyed a yummy dinner at a local place not far from the cemetery, and headed back to the campground. We don’t eat dinner out a lot when we’re camping, but I sure do love it when we do – it means no dishes to wash! Yay! The trailer really has everything we need…except a dishwasher (okay, that’s a want, not a need…but still…). It’s a small price to pay to have this time to travel and see the country, for sure!

Saturday morning, I went back to City Park to check out the sculpture garden; Mark opted for some downtime at the campground instead. On my way to the sculpture garden, I happened upon a tulip garden where the tulips were just blooming and it was so gorgeous, along “Big Lake” where there’s a fountain and swan boats you can rent.

The sculpture garden was wonderful! It’s part of the New Orleans Museum of Art and free to enter. The sculptures were impressive, but what made it really special was the gorgeous setting – among live oaks, palm trees, water…really beautiful. It’s a huge place; I wandered around and probably saw about half of it.

Back to the campground for a quick lunch, and then we headed to the Garden District for a walking tour (part of our hop-on hop-off tour package). Our guide, Colin, was entertaining and knowledgeable, telling us about the architecture and history of the area, and sharing some fun stories. Oh, and the weather was perfect… “trees of green…skies of blue”, as Louis Armstrong would say.

For something totally different, we drove out to the Chalmette Battlefield which is part of the Jean Lafitte National Historical Park and Preserve (part of the National Parks system). It was here that Andrew Jackson led the troops to victory over the British in the Battle of New Orleans, the last major battle in the War of 1812, securing the Louisiana Purchase territory. When we arrived, there were huge crowds of people everywhere but only about six cars in the parking lot. We were wondering if they were all clown cars, or if perhaps a bus tour had dropped them all off (no bus in sight, however)…and then we saw that there was a riverboat parked at the nearby dock on the Mississippi River…they had all arrived by water. Mystery solved! When the boat left, it was so quiet and empty!

Sunday was another day in the French Quarter. We walked by the Mississippi River, went to the French Market, watched the VERY long line of people at Café DuMonde waiting to enjoy beignets (so glad I got mine at City Park), and checked out the wide variety of art on display along the fences of Jackson Square (artists enter a lottery each year to ‘win’ a space along the fence where they can show and sell their artwork).  Then it was time for an official ‘walking tour’ of the French Quarter, also part of our hop-on hop-off package. Unfortunately, our tour guide wasn’t all that good, but we learned a few tidbits about the history of the area.

We had a little more time to kill afterwards, so we walked through The Presbytere, one of the Louisiana State Museums flanking the Cathedral of St. Louis. The first floor exhibit was dedicated to Hurricane Katrina’s devastating impact on New Orleans, and the second floor was all about Mardi Gras.

From there, we headed to the highlight of our time in New Orleans…an afternoon jazz performance at Preservation Hall – truly a New Orleans tradition since 1961. Our tickets were general admission, so we got there early and were 2^nd in line. The place is fascinating – literally just wood benches, and you can purchase front row seats, regular seats, or standing room only tickets. They were completely sold out for all five performances on Sunday, and I’m guessing there were about 75 people in the room. Six musicians, led by trumpeter Leroy Jones, played a variety of jazz standards, including “What a Wonderful World”. We were thrilled, and loved the entire performance. So very glad I thought to check for tickets and was able to get them – feels like a bucket list item to have heard true New Orleans Jazz at Preservation Hall!

On our last day in New Orleans, we went to the National WWII Museum. This is not just any museum – it’s a massive campus of about six buildings. You might be wondering why this museum is in New Orleans…turns out that the Higgins boat, which brought US soldiers to shore in every amphibious assault during WWII, including D-Day, was designed, built, and tested in New Orleans. Eisenhower once said that Higgins was “the man who won the war for us.” It is an incredible museum. Each gallery is uniquely designed to suit the subject matter and there are wonderful artifacts throughout the museum.

There’s a gallery focused on America’s road to war and how it was fought on the home front. There’s a building dedicated to the Road to Berlin and the Road to Tokyo. There’s a section that explores the cost of war, including the Holocaust, Anne Frank, and the Monuments Men. We spent about five hours there and didn’t see everything…it’s probably a two- or three-day trip if you really want to explore all of it, watch all the videos, etc. Highly recommend this museum if you are in New Orleans – top notch history lesson!

And with that, we said goodbye to NOLA, The Big Easy, The Crescent City…a fun-filled four days, for sure!

Tuesday was a travel day…time to start heading north again, with our next stop in Edwards, Mississippi (not too far from Jackson).