RV adventure travel

Adventures in New Orleans and the French Quarter:

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.

Follow us to Texas or read more about our return to NOLA below:

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. We even stopped back in the Hustler club. So it was a nice top off to our road trip.

A Slideshow of New Orleans