It was a stop off in NOLA on a road trip to Texas:
We can drive for miles and miles, we can drive for miles and miles, we can drive for miles and miles and miles and miles and miles. la la la.
Well that is what ya get when you decide to drive to Texas from Georgia. I left the RV at home and went with my friend Fred to a buddy’s wedding in San Antonio, Texas.
We rented a little Kia SUV, it did ok, and got way better gas mileage than towing an RV, plus Fred had time constraints, work-a-day cubicle jobs, houses and such to get back , so it could not have been an Oyster can style road trip anyway.
We buzzed there and back as zoom zoom in the Kia as we could get away with.
Now it is possible to travel across country these days on these interstate highways and not see much of the country at all. As a rule I’m not an Interstate kinda fella, I’m more the cool back way kind. Plus when towing my Oyster can , driving on the Interstates becomes a miserable experience, as Trucks blow you all over the road and cars buzz by you at twice your top speed, and plus back ways are often empty while the “everyone else” routes become parking lots. This time however with the time constraints it was mostly interstate all the way to Texas.
But there was that real sweet Stop over in New Orleans, LA
Saint Vincents Guest House and Hostel
Fred and I checked into Saint Vincent’s Guest House, a cheap hotel / hostel not too far from the French Quarter. (about 60 a night for 2 beds and a cheap cab ride to the French Quarter)
It was an experience with flavors of the beautiful, the vintage, and the historic (not without the historic feel of being on a medieval rack where the beds in room 20 were concerned.).
Yes, St. Vincent’s was an Asylum for Infants back in the day, and around every corner you could feel its history.
It needed a good cleanup, and some touch ups. It would be cool if they would just make their handyman sleep one or two evenings in every room while fixing things that he found out of order.
But it was cheap, and that’s what we needed as our road trip had a tight budget this time.
Plus, the cool staff had no problem just getting us a taxi for our late night Bourbon Street adventures. (We clamed room 14 of the same place on our way back through on Monday and it was much better).
They gave us a key to the front door and a key to our rooms, so we could have a proper New Orleans experience.
So a quick hop on a Taxi got us to Bourbon Street (about 8 bucks from the Hostel).
Now being Thanksgiving evening, we expected NOLA to be a bit more sedate than usual, but alas there were still plenty of fun folks to make Bourbon Street happening.
Now Fred, who had been to New Orleans before, had his suggestions and in his cool guy ways wanted this Dale/New Orleans NewBee to get a decent NOLA experience in spite of the tiny amount of time we had to play there, but we stopped off at Jean Lafitte’s Absinthe House and had a few good starter drinks, but , geez, I said , this place is a rip-off (what did you expect right on Bourbon Street? ). I guess it was famous err something, but the cool part was that soon it was time to ramble.
Fred and I enjoying the New Orleans Night Life
So I switched on my rambling mode, which is often handy for discovering cool things (I’m not to bad at NOT thinking like everyone else and neither is Fred, so naturally, we got just a tiny bit off the main drag (more or less around a corner or two) and found the happening Tavern called the Boondock Saint. Ya see it appealed to me as there were not tons of people swarming out of it (but a smaller crowd of cool folk), and with its obvious Guinness tap, and some nice looking gals, it drew me in. Fred and I both found that we loved the mood and the friendliness of the pub, not to mention the reasonably priced drinks, and we ended up making it sort of a base of operations for our rambles around NOLA on Thanksgiving evening stopping in regularly for more drinks, chats, and low key hanging-out after our walkabouts in the French Quarter.
It was on one of these French Quarter walkabouts with flavors of people watching on Bourbon Street than we followed our ears to the Krazy Korner only to find a FANDAMTASTIC Zydeco band that would proceed to do wonderments with music that inspired awe and an unparalleled factor of super concentrated coolness.
It was Dwayne Dopsie & the Zydeco Hell Raisers, and Dwayne would spin his miracles out of an accordion, as the other hell raisers would add to the fun with their jammingness.
One fella even had a washboard shirt on that had a day of the dead skeleton look to it. It made a compliment to the accordion coolness that turned out to be quite fun.
But alas Dwayne and his Hell Raisers wrapped up their set, and we were hungry after all the jumping around to the fun.
We wondered back to the Boondock Saint where the lovely and sweet Jennifer B, shared with us an amazing Thanksgiving dinner.
Yummy Turkey, fantastic ham and other goodies that were indicative of all the tastiness that Thanksgiving in the south can be.
Thanks to Jenny B and the Boondock Saint for the awesome experience in cool friends, southern hospitality and being a wonderful example of what the words “Welcome to New Orleans” really mean , wow! just wow!.
Now, after experiencing the flavors of sweetness, juxtaposed along side great beers and mixed drinks at the Boondock Saint, it once again was walkabout NOLA time.
This time we happened right into The Tittie Bar Hustle? If that’s not a dance it bloody should be! Yep, it was right on Bourbon Street, an establishment called Love Acts . This lovely lady turned huckster was heralding -up the no-cover-charge of the club and boisterously baiting male passers-by into coming in for a visit. So , Fred and I , in the mood for a change of pace after walking off the T-giving dinner obliged. Now there was a one drink minimum with even the crappy American brews costing 9 bucks a pop, So I go for a Corona and have a seat. Within seconds there is a girl in my lap hustling me for a lap-dance or a visit to the VIP room. So I chat a bit, find that she knows my hometown, and work on convincing her that this is one of those “on a budget” journeys, and that I had no funds for any VIP wildness. Eventually after much hustling, the gals that Fred and I had in our laps went on to other fellas who may not have been the brick walls we were when it comes to the Tittie Bar Hustle.
So after finding that the Tittie Bar Hustle wasn’t a dance for us, we meandered onward, frustrated and unsatisfied for about 3 whole minutes.We went into one of the Hustler Clubs (there were several of them).
Yep, it had a cover, about 5 bucks, and the drinks were like 8 bucks a pop for a Coors or the like, but (its name aside) it did lack the desperation-sytle hustle quality of the other club, and hey, it had a number of stages that you could actually see, and woooo they had hotties on em dancing weee!.
So it was a much better club experience. Sure we got the “do you wanna a table dance standard hustle“, but it lacked the used-car-salesman brand of hustle, and had put way more class into our quest for NOLA flavored naughtiness allowing us to simply enjoy and give a decent tip when we were moved to do so by the simple quality of the craft (wink wink nudge nudge) .
So after having coolified our experience with New Orleans titty bars with the Hustler Club, we dropped by the Boondock Saint one more time for byes and such. and caught a taxi ride back to the Saint Vincent. I was lucky as I took in my sleeping bag which made up for the springy beds in room 20, but poor Fred didn’t get much sleep.
We woke in the morn, caught a cab to Mother’s Restaurant for some recovery food.
Now we both had the look, the leer, the rag-tagness of a morning after Bourbon Street adventures in New Orleans. But were well on our way to correcting that with some OOHHHHH Goooooood food at Mother’s restaurant.
We felt much better after coffee and yummies.
The food had got us ready for some more rambles around the French Quarter by day.
We got a peek at the river, and into windows , parks and such.
We then hit the road to Texas heading onward to a San Antonio, TX wedding for a friend of ours.
Whew, Texas was big, but alas after our Stay at Galveston Beach, we buzzed into New Orleans again. Ya see we had timed it right. The tips from various strippers, cabbies, and the like we knew not to return on Sunday. Ya see, they had this Bayou Classic football thing going, and all of the NOLA workers said it would be a good idea to be out of town for it. They told us that the town was more or less taken over by thugs, and there was really no money in keeping service businesses open, and that thugs would just go up and down causing chaos. And from the sounds of the news on our Monday return. It was a really good idea to just NOT be there. A cabbie said that thugs would just go up and down smashing things, and none of them ever tipped, and many people felt the thing was just not worth it. The thing even worried time-hardened and jaded locals, and for good reason, as apparently there were 7 shootings on Bourbon Street during the thing. Thanks for the tips to avoid that. I would much rather had my windy tent on Galveston Beach.
But alas, we came in on Monday after calling the St. Vincent to confirm that the bloody Bayou Classic thing was over with. Yep, they are gone they said. So we came in got a better room at the Saint Vincent’s Hostel (room 14) and once again attacked New Orleans. Now it was a New Orleans Saints vs New England game that day (a home game) and the town of New Orleans loves their local team, so everywhere you looked there were Saints fans, Saints jerseys, and some kind of celebration regarding the football fun. Now what we found during this event was just alot of friendly people having fun. It didn’t have that dangerous vibe as the Bayou classic obviously does (after discussing it with some NOLA locals). We situated ourselves at our favorite tavern The Boondock Saint, for some drinking , some game watching (joining the locals in the go Saints fun), and some good company. We then continued to ramble around NOLA.
Adventures included a visit to the Cafe du Monde on the River.
Seeing beautiful furniture while window shopping around the French Quarter,
Seeing a cool gun shop with all kinds of vintage weapons.
and a stop in various other taverns that had some sort of “for ole-time sake” appeal to Fred.
After our brief visit to San Antonio Texas for a friends wedding, we buzzed out of there on I-10 making our way to Galveston Beach for our evening stop over.
After about 2 hours out of Houston I-10 came to a crawl. After finding that it was not going to open up anytime soon we got off the expressway into the Texas nowhere lands.
Now I’m an RVer I tend to prefer the non-interstate routes, but then again I’m usually not in a hurry like I was on this trip, and Fred seems to be the Interstate type these days (at least somewhat). But the frustration even got to him and we began navigating through wee state and county roads to get an alternate way to Galveston Beach. My little handheld GPS unit (a Garmin etrex legend) is a cheap one and nothing to write home about when it comes to finding roads and routes, but it does have the basic state roads on it, and tells ya where ya are, and how far to whatever waypoint, and which way (its a very “kiss-rule” kind of unit). This wee gadget was coming in handy and we managed to navigate around the traffic mess, and around Houston to Galveston Beach. The Beatles No Where Man played on the radio for a bit to really set an appropriate mood.
But alas about an hour before Dark (as we were loosing sun this time) we pulled into Galveston Beach State Park and set up our tents.
Now the State Park along with everything else that is Galveston Beach had been torn up with the hurricanes a few years back so it had taken some research to find out that it was even open.
We arrive and find a pay station and campsites with these little concrete bunkers for the picnic tables. The campsites had water and power and there was a dump station for your RV on the way out. But alas, unfortunately I didn’t have my Oyster Can (RV) this trip and it was this night while tent camping at the State Park that I would really miss it.
But heck, we had just rode through lots of nowhere so we go cruising up the beach for food.
We came across Nates Seafood Bar, and order-up beers and seafood. I had this seafood combo thing with Oysters, Shrimp and the like, while Fred had a dish with assorted kinds of shrimp. We both enjoyed the heck out of our meals..
So we stop and get a 12 pack
on the way out and enjoy some of the night time beach. We chatted and wandered a bit, messed about on my portable laptop and just relaxed. Ya see there wasn’t much to do that evening at the park or in Galveston Beach. Eventually we zonked out in our tents.
Now being that this campground was on the beach, we had staked everything down well and battened down the hatches. It was a good thing too, as about 3 in the morning I was awaken by the sound of whooosssshhhhh whoossshhhhh whooosssshhhh. It was a storm a blowing in. The wind beat the tar out of the tents, and it rained. My tent held up fine and I just wrapped my head in a sheet to shut out the sounds of sleeping in a wind tunnel. But alas Fred didn’t get any sleep and said that his night was like trying to sleep in a kite (not to mention his air mattresses had died on him). I thought of my Oyster can RV and how nice it would have been to have had it that night, but alas no.
We were up early in the rainy am about sun-up with Freddy grumbling “Galveston owes me a doughnut”. So we got the closest thing to a doughnut we could find and some coffee and headed out to catch the Fiery at the end of the island.We pulled the little Kia rental onto the free fiery and crossed over to the Bolivar Peninsula. A lot of salt spray later we exited the fairy and began our drive down the peninsula.
We found that much of it was just not there anymore. We could see the shells and remains of alot of houses, stores, and more. There were lots of make-shift RV areas/parks that seemed to have just sprung up like rouge weeds taking over a garden. You could tell that there was little attempt to make or re-make these RV areas into decent RV parks.
Along with the RVs you would see brand new, freshly tacky houses being re-built. and we laughed at the sign for Sand castle Construction (we found it a fitting name).
Now there was at one time a road down the entire peninsula apparently, on the Texas State map is has the road in dots, with the words “temporally closed” on it. We had thought, hey , with all the repairs I wonder if its opened up yet? What the map should read is completely gone, and the rough remains of the Peninsula road led to bits of the Peninsula that were once there but now were beach and ocean. That little place really took a beating in the hurricanes and it still shows it. But hey, it has oil, and lots of it. We saw a little oil well and pump on almost every other acre of the place.
We zoomed onward off the Bolivar Penninsualla toward New Orleans (and after a phone call for news to the Guest house, we decided that we would repeat our fun in New Orleans approach with a visit on the way back.
We joked, if we ran into the Knights who say Ni and they demand a shrubbery we could give em Texas as there are so many leagues of them there.
Yes, its a big and boring drive to San Antonio. We were racing the sun as we buzzed through Houston after miles and miles of Louisiana swamp and Texas shrubs, we finally saw the horizons of Houston. It was a scenic route through there all right, as the entire Houston Horizon is covered in refineries reaching to the dead heavens bellowing blackness. But the site was actually a welcome one after all of that nothing on Interstate 10.
We buzzed onward though in our race to beat the Sun to San Antonio, we did not. We pulled into my friend Richard’s place an hour or so after sun-set. You see, were were set to attend his wedding the next day. So we chatted, caught up and such that eve, and crashed in the living room.
Neither Fred or I slept too well that evening, so we were both a bit flustered this time. So we got up to head to the Walmart (found thanks to google earth and my wee garmin gps unit). There we got goodies that we had left at home, some nice stuff to wear to a wedding, and other knickknacks.
But we kept our eye out for a place to get Breakfast tacos and there it was: Fajita Taco Place Mexican restaurant. And we proceeded to order up. And I must say that this little Taco place was one of the coolest things in my brief visit to San Antonio. As the Tacos were quite a tasty treat. and the place was really affordable. You got a choice between Corn or Flour wraps, and all kinds of yummy salsas to help flavor and spice things up even more. These wonderful large Taco’s were a 1.39 a piece. Yay for cheap and yummy!
We return from Wal-mart and face stuffing refreshed and ready to take on the task of seeing our friend’s wedding. and wishing them Bon Voyage. (it was a small ceremony with just friends and family and such. ) A cake and drinks afterward and some all night fun and chatting wrapped up the evening.
Then in the morning, it was off to the Beach with us, Galveston Beach that is as we had a line of some tent camping there.
but first it was a stop off downtown San Antonio for a peek at the Alamo and the famed river walk.
I really enjoyed the historical walk around the Alamo. People had made it out to be small, but it was not tiny at all by my standards. and I toured the grounds and took the pictures I could get away with taking. Various signs and documents gave us a run down of the historical value and were educational by filling in cool details, while we also enjoyed the artifacts symbolic of the history. Its a quick visit, and our idea to buzz in and get on our way was going to work out fine.
But alas , we had to go see that San Antonio River walk thing too. So we asked around at the Alamo and found that it was just through that big hotel over there. So we walk under the Hilton and there it is:
the famed,
the pinnacle of WhoptieDOness,
the most Hoidee of the Toidies,
the oh so hyped (by a number of people),
the San Antonio river walk.
Yes, a number of people had told us how great this was, and how it was a San Antonio must-see given the quickness of our stop over.
But I don’t think any of those people took into account our personalities.
Ya see, The San Antonio River walk is rubbish.
Its like a crappy-ass hotel shopping mall with some fake looking Six-Flags like river stuck in the middle of it.
It had tacky over priced shops and bars,
and a little tour-boat ride down the wee-bit of river.
After the hype, well, Fred and I felt jipped. So perhaps I’ll be one of the few to say, don’t bother with the River Walk.. Take a walk around town and see some of the cities’ cool older architecture if you have time to blow, that is a much better use of your time than hanging around the gimmicky theme-park-wannabe rubbish that is the San Antonio River Walk..
