Road Trip To New Orleans... Part 2

So, what can you say about New Orleans?  We finally made it there and we were able to spend several days exploring the city.

The city is full of sites, food, museums, people, etc., etc.

We parked our car at our hotel immediately and we did not see it again until leaving on our last day in town.

I must give a HUGE endorsement to City Sight Seeing of New Orleans.  We REALLY loved these guys for several reasons.  Go to their site-

http://www.citysightseeingneworleans.com/

I did some research before our trip, and I found that you can do a "hop on hop off" tour bus through them for $29 a day, or $39 for an entire week!  PLUS, if you do the $39 dollar deal, you get a couple of extra guided walking tours too!  If you check out prices on tours in town, you will find out quickly that THIS IS A GREAT VALUE!

I did not buy our tickets in advance though, so when we got to town, I did talk to a tour sales person on the street.  They were obviously working for another tour company and they advised us of other tours (including a single 3 hour tour at $49).  I asked if they had anything comparable to the City Sight Seeing Tour bus and they did not...

We left and found a bus stop for City Sight Seeing and bought our $39 tickets.

We used our bus passes a lot each day, AND we were able to take advantage of 2 of the walking tours offered!

One of our tour guides was the informative and funny Kat (I'm pretty sure thats what she said her name was).  We were actually on her bus a few times and we loved her.  I noticed that when we went by some spots a second time, she always mentioned the very historical spots each time, but she changed things up a bit too. 

We did a tour through the Garden District with Dave and we felt like we were hanging out with an old buddy.  The guy is gold and answered every question and knew a ton.  Getting to see the homes and hear stories about Trent Reznor, Sandra Bullock, John Goodman, Archie Manning and others was a true highlight of this entire trip.  Oh, and we saw the home where Jefferson Davis died!

We were very pleased with the value of this pass, I can't stress this enough.  AND I am glad that I did a little research before getting to town and I KNEW which tour company to go with.  Oh, and those double decker busses are the best. You can get some great photos riding on top!

Back to New Orleans in general.  There was a part of me that wanted to visit all of the museums, the minor league baseball park, and the aquarium, but we agreed that this was an area to explore for what it was.

I think most people know about New Orleans and what it is about, so I won't go in to the areas history or reputation.  I will try to be honest about my own personal observations.

AND let me start off with a bit of personal disclosure.  I am the opposite of what this town is about.  I like to get up early and get to bed at a respectable hour.  I like to sip coffee slowly and read at coffee shops.  I will take Mayberry over Vegas any day of the week.

So, I was a bit out of place here.  This is not my kind of town, but it was absolutely a town on my "to visit at some point" list.

And we enjoyed this town a lot.

About the food.  We loved it all.  I can't say anything bad about it, and everything we had was big and delicious.  Some of the more notable things we had were a catfish po boy at the River's Edge and we enjoyed a a couple of nice meals at Hyatt French Quarter restaurant called "Powdered Sugar."

I know, bragging about a meal from the hotel restaurant might sound unimpressive, but we really liked this place.

Its funny, we were talking to someone we met right after coming home.  He had also went to New Orleans AND stayed at the Hyatt.  He also felt a bit overwhelmed by the city, but he enjoyed his stay at the Hyatt, and he also spent a lot of time at Powdered Sugar.  I forget his exact words, but he said he felt normal again once he returned to this hotel for the evening.

We were at Powdered Sugar each night- they had great coffee and a great staff.  Cynthia (It may have just been Cindy) was there each evening and she was a lot of fun.  We chatted with her each night about the city and her experiences there.  She remembered our orders from the previous nights, and she was just a lot of fun.

They might want to think about starting up some more Powdered Sugar restaurants.  A pro staff, and having room for people to come in and have a nice meal or just a cup of coffee creates a nice environment.

We did stop by the US Mint in town and we had a great chat with National Park Ranger Lee McDowell.  It was kind of funny, Lee was a ranger out at Devil's Tower around the time that we were there!  I am sure our path's crossed before!

A lot of the National Park Rangers we meet are simply gold, and Lee was no exception.  We talked about everything from my dad trapping skunks to the jazz sites in New Orleans.

We really didn't encounter any problems while out and about, and we felt safe.  A couple of times when we asked locals for directions though, they made it very clear that we should not walk to where we were thinking about going.  At one point we asked a local about walking 5-6 blocks to the cemetery.  The person asked us how we were getting there.  When we said we were planning to walk, the local told us we couldn't.  In fact, he made us promise not to walk there.

We ended up just going there on the tour bus.  Still, even with the sites and excitement, there is a real concern about safety in some areas.  And we did get that feeling of concern from talking to several people.

Still, we had fun.

We passed on several tours, notably the ghost tours.  I usually like to do this sort of thing, especially in an area like New Orleans, but we weren't feeling it.  AND, at $25 a person (that seemed to be the going rate) we weren't motivated.

We did take our own tour that we sort of put together ourselves.

The thing that really stuck out to us about the trip to New Orleans was the people.  We had some very sweet and somewhat personal conversations with the people we came across- and this is the thing I really loved about the town- there is a certain REALNESS to the locals.  After spending time with some of the very sweet people around, we almost felt like we were old friends.  Kat, Dave, Cynthia, Lee, Norm (at the Hard Rock Cafe) love what they do, and they clearly love interacting with the travelers they come in to contact with.  There was a real sadness we felt when we left each of these individuals.