New Orleans: Quatre

Sunday was predictably, a slow start. Nights of heavy drinking do not early mornings make. We checked out of the hotel, and grabbed a bite at Gott's on magazine street before heading out of town. I really like New Orleans. I haven't seen all of it, but I got a good feel for many of the neighborhoods off of the tourist track the last time I was here, and I am a sucker for good food culture. I wish that it was a better city for architecture, that the city was growing, that people were investing there. As such, I kind of have a sinking feeling that NOLA will slowly become a theme park, a Venice inhabited only by tourists.

We took the river road for a ways, which was pretty and industrial at the same time. Our goal was the Oak Alley plantation on the Mississippi river. Oak Alley named for an allee of live oaks French planters planted over 200 years ago. The live oaks are massive, ancient, covered with mosses and other plants. They are the real attraction of the place. The plantation house is pretty, but there has been so much restoration, its more an example of "this is kind of what life was like" and "these are the typical characteristics of a home at this time." Our very young tour guide wore a hoop dress and a digital watch. She was really nervous and nearly forgot to tell us what the rooms were which we were in. 

Apparently, even for a wealthy planter, life really sucked 150 years ago. Mosquitos were the least of their problems. Three of their children died in childhood, people took ill and died from TB and yellow fever, roads were bad. The planter's wife was a free-spending socialite who did not take to the country life and moved back to New Orleans, and he died sick and alone at the ripe old age of almost 40. 

We pressed on, stopping for lunch in St. Charles close to the Texan border at Luna Cafe, a decent cafe in an historic downtown revitalization. Didn't see any pedestrians. We rolled into Houston with the Doors blaring from the speakers around 9pm. 

A good trip- a culinary highlights tour of New Orleans.