It's time to check out of the Maison St. Charles, and here Ben waits with his bags while the valet brings our car around. Photo by Glenn.
There aren't many places where you can get an unobstructed view of the New Orleans skyline. The closest we came was at a park in an industrial area just south of the city. You can see that this was not the clearest of days. Photo by Roni.
The park may not have been large, but it was big enough to attract a large flock of pigeons which Ben wasted no time feeding. Photo by Glenn.
Ben can find as much enjoyment in something as simple as feeding the birds as we get out of exploring entire cities. Photo by Glenn.
Down by the Mississippi shoreline there are rocks and bushes and wild sugar cane, and it looks invitingly familiar like our Delta back home. Ben is ready to go exploring after feeding the pigeons, but it is time to move on. Photo by Glenn.
Here's something we won't find at home, or at least we haven't found anything quite like it yet -- some colorful trumpet-shaped flowers. Photo by Glenn.
We've arrived at Mardi Gras World just in time for the tour. Ben stands among some of the giant foam and plaster heads that have been created over the years and are now stored in what is essentially a huge warehouse. Better keep an eye on Medusa's hair! Photo by Roni.
Another look at the entrance to Mardi Gras World. If I were a kid this place would give me the creeps. Photo by Roni.
The front end of one of the large floats stored at Mardi Gras World. Many of these are built and maintained by the company and brought out each year by the crewes that commission their construction. Costs to build one of these can run over a million dollars, although this one was probably considerably cheaper. Photo by Roni.
Now it's time to have some fun with the costume collection Mardi Gras World makes available for visitors to try on. Roni appears ready for her big screen debut as Marilyn Monroe. Photo by Glenn.
What the heck is this supposed to be? This is an excellent example of what happens when you stand too close to someone who just tried on a costume and wants desperately to pawn it off on someone. Glenn was the guy standing too close, so he gets to be the Zulu warrior king. Or whatever. Photo by Roni.
Ben as a Viking prince, complete with feather-studded staff. Photo by Roni.
At Mardi Gras World, anyone can be a queen for a day... Photo by Glenn.
...Or a king. Photo by Roni.
Enough playing around in New Orleans. It's time to depart our Louisiana playground for the comparatively dull surroundings of Mississippi. At least the southern end of the state on I-55 was rather dull, but the border crossing sign has some Old South charm. Photo by Roni.
This is the view from our fourth floor hotel room in Jackson, Miss. Let's see... I-55, the parking lot, power lines and lots of trees. Some view, huh? Photo by Glenn.
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Mardi Gras mambo
Wednesday, September 22 (Day 6) — Our last day spent in Louisiana found us trying to make the most of it as we sought one last Cajun meal and some sightseeing before we headed north. We weren't exactly up and at 'em this morning, managing to hand around the hotel until around 10 a.m. Housekeeping was already knocking at our door before I was up and dressed. I trimmed up around my beard for the first time since the Big Shave five days ago. The whiskers are filling in quickly, and it won't be too many more days before you'd never know I had shaved the whole thing off. I told Roni that at this rate I could shave it off again and it would be grown back before I have to return to work. She didn't seem impressed. Guess she's known her man with facial hair for too long to want me to change now.
We took our bags out to the valet area and I waited with Ben for the man to bring the Dodge around while Roni went and settled up our account with the front desk. I gave him a $5 tip, feeling somewhat guilty that we hadn't tipped the valet at any other time during our stay. Roni and I had reserved a $20 tip to give to General which she placed in an envelope for him and left with the front office. Hopefully he'll get it. He went out of his way to be a help to us out-of-towners. After closing out our business at the Maison St. Charles we drove the couple of blocks back to the St. Charles Tavern for breakfast, deciding it best to eat first and avoid a repeat of yesterday. Besides, the Tavern was some of the best food we'd had in New Orleans, so it seemed a fitting way to go out. Roni and I both ordered omelettes with crawdad etoufee. I also tried grits, just to say that I'd had them while visiting the south. I probably won't order them again unless they come in some form other than boiled, mashed and piled on the plate. They essentially are a bland paste of corn and rice that are barely improved by adding syrup, sugar or hot sauce, all of which I tried.
Because we had saved money yesterday by not taking the airboat tour, Roni thought we could afford to check out Mardi Gras World where most of the large Mardi Gras floats are designed. I was lukewarm to paying for the tour, but didn't protest because the whole idea of this vacation was to try and see attractions we can't see at home. And what is more uniquely New Orleans than Mardi Gras? So after breakfast that is what we set out to locate. The map made it look like an easy jog across the business loop 90 bridge to reach the opposite side of the Mississippi River where the attraction is located. But as with all things on this vacation, we made it more difficult than it had to be. We missed the exit off Highway 90 and went a few miles out of town into Gretna. Instead of simply retracing our route on Highway 90, I made the mistake of thinking I could find the place by running the surface streets. All that did was take us into the industrial area where we were surrounded by refinery traffic, courthouses and bail bond businesses. The bright spot was that we stumbled across a small roadside park with benches that overlooked the river. We parked there for a few minutes to get a photo of the New Orleans skyline while Ben fed saltine crackers to a flock of pigeons that was milling about. Ah, to be a kid! Here we are on this great adventure across the southern United States, visiting big cities, chasing alligators and flying on jet airplanes, and I have seen no larger a smile on Ben's face than when he was feeding those silly birds. I think we could have spent the whole day at that park and he would have been happy. But we were on a mission and had to press on.
At last, after almost an hour of meandering through the seedy side of New Orleans, we found Mardi Gras World located in some warehouses close to the river. It is hard to miss once you're on top of it, being that from the outside it resembles a circus. With our AAA discount it came to $32.50 for the three of us to take the tour. We arrived just as the tour guide was taking his small group through the first warehouse, so frankly we missed the introductory movie and some of the history about Mardi Gras crewes and how they came to start making the big floats for the parade. The thrust of the tour is that you get to see artists at work on new floats while walking among a collection of some older works. Ben got a kick out of identifying his favorite cartoon characters that had been rendered in larger-than-life figures of wood, Styrofoam and paper mache. The tour guide said some of the floats cost up to $1.2 million to create, and I'd believe it. They've designed floats not only for Mardi Gras, but for such clients as Disney World. At the end of the 20-minute tour we went into the movie theater where they had costumes and masks sitting about that visitors can dress up in. Naturally we had to take pictures of ourselves in goofy costumes. Roni looked especially comical in her Marilyn Monroe head, but I was a sight as well in a giant Zulu headdress. I haven't looked at the pictures yet as I write this, but I'm sure they'll be a hoot. The gift shop got a fair amount of our money afterward as we used it as an opportunity for last-chance souvenir hunting. Ben bought another string of Mardi Gras beads, which I think puts him at four or five strands by now.
Our visit to Mardi Gras World complete, it was time to start thinking about heading away from New Orleans. After a quick stop at Chevron for $1.80 gas we drove over the Highway 90 bridge one last time and took in our last views of the New Orleans skyline. I will not get over how sparse traffic was in this city, even during rush hour when we left heading west. We picked up Interstate 10, then connected with the causeway over Lake Ponchartrain, a 24-mile bridge that deposited up on the lake's north shore. From there we found Interstate 12, which eventually connected with Interstate 55 heading north. Now there was nothing to do but drive and try to make it to Jackson, Miss., before nightfall.
We reached Mississippi sometime around 4 o'clock. It was almost a non-event really. We stopped just long enough to grab dinner at a Sonic drive-in, then pressed north on the tree-lined interstate until we reached Jackson just about 6 p.m. I'd write more about my initial impressions of Mississippi except that I have few to share. The drive on I-55 at least is just as boring as all the tour guides have promised, and that's a pretty amazing feat for a road that takes you through such lush forest land. It's not that I have anything against trees, but that's ALL you get to see on I-55. Oh yeah, there were some cows too. And every now and then a barn, or a turnoff with some fast food places and gas stations. It isn't the Mississippi I was expecting, the one you read about with shanty towns and cotton fields and miles of flat, boring landscape. I'm sure there is some of that to be found, but not where we were. As for Jackson, it looks like other capital cities I have encountered. There is a downtown financial district with some high rises surrounded by a network of freeways which quickly gives way to suburbs. We passed the exit for the state capitol, about six miles to the south of where we are staying tonight.
We checked into Room 418 of the Comfort Inn just off the freeway. It was still early enough that we could have gone out exploring, but we saw little we wanted to explore and didn't feel like going out again once we had settled ourselves. I spent the next hour or so watching CNN while Ben played his Gameboy and Roni tried to figure out if we had booked our room for tomorrow in Memphis (we hadn't) and where we should plan on doing the laundry. (Our clothes supply will be exhausted after another couple of days.) We ordered dinner from a place called Steak-Out that delivers. Once again I had no appetite, so dinner for me was a baked potato. After all that great food in New Orleans it is going to be hard to stomach greasy burgers and fries again. Hopefully we'll have some other dining options between here and Houston.
I'm very exhausted tonight, but thankful that we decided to get a head start on Memphis by staying in Jackson tonight. It will save us at least a couple of hours off our drive. Perhaps tomorrow we'll be able to see something else besides trees.
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