19 - The 'spirit' of New Orleans
What is the spirit of New Orleans, a city founded in 1718 by French explorers?
Courage? Resilience? Luck? Actually, it is probably bourbon. Certainly there
is enough of that particular spirit to flood the street that bears its name.
We arrived in Louisiana's party capital a matter of weeks before the
Mardi Gras celebrations. Once we realized that this was how the timing of our
visit had worked out we were fairly disappointed - especially as several other
parts of our schedule had placed us in parts of the country just before, or just
after, special events (Yosemite with no waterfalls, San Antonio with no rivers,
and the giant sequoias with no access...other than for snow mobiles).
However, in retrospect I doubt that our wallet, or our livers, could have
survived the party. As it happened we were visiting during the Mardi Gras
season, and the associated activities of two days in town were tiring/liver-
pickling enough.
The RV Park where we were staying was near the main ring road in a fairly
rundown, industrial area. We had to brave public transport again - or risk the
cost and hassle of parking in the city centre - and we expected a long journey
with the obligatory 100 stops we had learned to know and hate on the San
Franciscan buses. In anticipation of this we fortified ourselves with muffins,
juice and coffee - all included for free at the campsite, a rare but welcome
bonus.
The bus journey did take about 30 minutes, however the proximity of
the ring road meant it only stopped a few times before arriving downtown. Not