As told by our resident trip reporter Gene Young
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New Awlins Memories (that's New Orleans for you Yankees)...
The trip theme song: "get on the bus Gus...don't make a fuss Gus...we throw you under the bus Gus if you make a big fuss"...
With that in mind, 32 hardy souls boarded the bus for New Orleans for five days...with instructions from the Trip Leader John Schwartz about the coming trip, details that remind the travelers of what they already had in the printed itinerary he had previously made available... you know, like when potty stops would be made, etc. Some happy organizer had also passed out "Pod Lists". Everyone was sorted into a "Pod"...like peas, no more than 5 "peas in the pod", so that when we made stops, no one got lost or left behind because they hadn’t been accounted for in the return to the bus. Oh, and a rubber clucking chicken was presented. When squeezed, it made this honking sound with this "O" shaped mouth that someone kept sticking things into. Ms. Patty Van took possession of "clucking" chicken, treating it like it was some ‘Nawlins Honkey Tonk visitor award.
So, OK..."let’s play Bingo" says Bus Games Director Karen Schwartz....fun game...losers whining about not winning the prizes of long or short koozies...(you know, those foam liners you put around drink cans...) all of them with New Orleans designs...beautiful actually.
So, we then turned the loser cards over and made a list of one to ten...then tried to guess answers to movie questions, all kinds of stuff we have absolutely no clue about judging by the number of winners with more than 3 right. Good thing I had won 3 of the first 5 Bingo games (being threatened to be thrown off the bus), because I didn't have a clue about some the reverse games questions.
After a routine break at a Love Truck stop, we continued on to the Motel in Alabama, the overnight stop on the way. More Bingo games...more hooting and hollering and laughter... Hear those bus tires humming in G flat major New Orleans style Jazz...
Aahhh, the skyline of ‘Nawlins rolls into view...Laissez le bon temps rouler......The Big Easy?....nope, you be wrong about that. I was too. It means "let the good times roll"...the New Orleans slogan. It was one of the questions on the back of the Bingo card. Games Director then announced that we would have a gift exchange on the way home. If you wished to play, you could buy a $5.00 or less gift and we'd exchange them on the way home. We discovered it's a challenge to find a gift for $5.00. She also announced a Dollar game. Write your name on a dollar bill...the winner to be drawn out of somebody's hat.
No sooner off the bus in the French Quarter and "let the buying begin" sign is out. Hats, shirts, you name it, we bought it. Then on to a restaurant by the name of Landry's, a nice upscale place. Second floor deck a nice place to have a pre-dinner drink, served this margarita with a flower name. Can’t remember it now, but oh my, should have had 3 or 4....call me in the morning ...uummm good...
Post-dinner, 18 of us went on to the Preservation Hall...7256 St Peter St....home of New Orleans Jazz musicians for over 50 years. It has four rows of bench seats...standing room only...maybe 50/60 at most. I was thinking maybe it was a concert hall, but it’s just a Jazz hole-in-the-wall place. A fun night with great New Orleans Jazz and a female vocal number that is stunning.
Wed...bus tour of New Orleans. Tour guide is a funny woman, fourth generation New Orleans family member who speaks fluent French. As you would guess, she has a deep history of New Orleans...first the French, then Spanish acquisition, then French again....going back to the middle to late 17th Century....finally sold to President Andrew Jackson by Napoleon. By then the territory reached from New Orleans all the way to Canada. It sold for about the sum of four or five McDonalds' franchises or maybe a New York liquor license. We also stopped at one of the many cemeteries in New Orleans. All burials are done in above-ground vaults. One in particular struck me, a $650,000 vault built for a millionaire/billionaire oil widow. She didn't like when it was done. Didn’t look like a Texas oil derrick maybe. By the way, don't call a French Creole a Cajun. They take offense.
Afternoon brought a visit to the WW II Museum...a HUGE four building complex. We had two hours to tour what would take two days to see it all. As a Veteran walking around, I was reminded of the horror of war and the memories therein. Memorial Day was coming, and it seemed timely to be there. The 58,476 or so names on a piece of Black Granite in Washington, D.C. would likely stand up and salute those men and women featured in this museum if they could to honor their sacrifices for this Great Country called America.
Dinner at a place called Picadilly. How'd that happen in a French /Spanish city?
Thurs...the Mardi Gras Museum...a highlight of the trip in my opinion...all those Mardi Gras Parade figurines on the floats over the past 165 years...started in 1857....an amazing collection. Be sure to see the pictures on our website from this trip...especially that Museum. They even have a robot creating new figurines for corporate floats for next year, robot figurines too expensive for ordinary clubs. And they do have clubs formed just for the express purpose of building Mardi Gras floats... They have it all... naked women, ugly /scary characters, Hollywood folk, cartoon characters, a football helmet costing $25,000 for the Super Bowl when some obscure, weak-armed, too short Purdue Quarterback won the Super Bowl for this city. They also had figurines where you could stick your face into the blank space in the head for your picture...Yeah, I did it as did many others.
On then in the afternoon to the Creole Queen paddle wheel Mississippi River cruise...up river to the sight of the war of 1812 battle ground memorial.....on the way back to the docks, a telling of the Hurricane Catrina disaster of August of 2005...how the government , both local and Federal got in the way of rescue efforts until some Military General came in and started yelling at people and opened the city to rescue and recovery....a sad, sad story of Government malfeasance and political arrogance.
Off then to the Holiday Inn for dinner and dancing....and my, did we dance. We danced and we danced some more. Taught another Diamond Tour group sharing the same dining room how to sing "Sweet Caroline...touching me, touching you". Oh, what a night....so much love and laughter and happy feet. Given the chance, me thinks our group could teach America how to be kind again ...maybe. Well, you know… we do know how to love and care for one another.
Friday....the journey home… We stopped at one of the oldest and largest Louisiana plantations owned by a family by the name of Destrehan. A tour of the grounds included a room holding the picture of President Andrew Jackson, with the framed original deed for the Louisiana Purchase document next to his picture....and as usual, the story of a female black slave who was purchased from another Louisiana plantation owner with her two children and died on the property, bearing four more children while enslaved there.
Bus ride home another experience of more Bingo games with more whining and complaining of losers, and shouts of yippee from winners with short and long koozies for prizes. Then on the back, another list of ten questions about movies...wherein I won a beautiful wine glass wrangled by Games Director Karen Schwartz from the manager of the Olive Garden restaurant where we dined on Friday night along with a Gift Card for same as one of the game prizes. Then riders on one side of the bus competed against the opposite side riders in games involving paper clips and something else inconsequential along with accusations of cheating by losers. I mean, we're competing for backpack stickers...who wouldn't cheat for some of those?
The gift exchange then comes...decks of New Orleans cards, voodoo dolls, ink prints, colored art prints, shot glasses, you name it, we bought it, including a box of the famous Beignets from Cafe DuMond where we stopped and sampled same in one of our first stops in the French Quarter upon arrival on Tuesday afternoon. Lots of laughter, give and take-it-back swaps and happy faces in the event. Then another dollar bill game won by old geezer Gene. You guess right and you win another pair of stickers.
Great week with four days of beautiful weather with great friends...and as always, another masterful job of planning and management of glitches/adjustments-on-the-fly by our masterful King of Travel, one John Schwartz, accompanied by side kick and Games Director Extraordinaire Karen Schwartz. You are the Best!! And our gratitude is always beyond measure!