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New Orleans,
Louisiana
4-20-03
We got to New
Orleans the next morning and cruised around downtown and
found a parking lot next to the bike trail that runs along
the top of the levee that keeps the Mississippi River from
flooding the whole city. Before they had that levee,
they found out that a lot of the city is about 3 f eet
below the river level, and if somebuddy even throws a cup of
ice into the river, it would flood, so the Army Corps of
Engineers found a lot of dirt and built that levee, and now
the folks don't have to worry about floating out of bed in
the middle of the night. The pitcher shows what the
levee looks like. It is jest a big pile of dirt with
grass growing on it, and it keeps the river in when the
water level rises.
The bridge is
the Huey P. Long Bridge, and it carries trains on the higher
level and cars on the lower level. If trains was as
powerful as cars and trucks they could all use the same kind
of bridge, but the trains had to go about another mile to
get down to the ground again, cuz they don't do steep hills
very good. The other pitcher is of the underside of
the Huey P. Long Bridge, and I'm glad we went over it before
we saw the underside, cuz it looked pretty bad. If you
drive over it, don't make any sudden moves and you'll
probably be okay, jest like we were.
Anyway, the
old folks went fer a long bike ride, so me and Sniffy
got out of the van to check out a train thing that was
sitting there alongside of the bike trail. I figgered
the days of that train thing ever running again were pretty
much over, but Sniffy said he wants to go back the next time
we're near there and fix it up. It looked like it was
a homemade crane or shovel that went along the rails that
must have been there at one time, and it was powered by a
gasoline engine, but there were so many parts rusted out or
missing, I doubt that we could ever get it running again.
After the
bike ride, we went and checked into another La
Piρata Motel. The old folks went to dinner and us
guys stayed in the motel cuz there was a reel good program
on TV that showed some cats that were outside and got rained
on.
The next day after breakfast,  the
old folks decided to take a riverboat ride on one of those riverboats
like the "Natchez" shown in the pitcher at right, but
their boat had a different name, like "The Good Ship
Lollipop," or "Jolene," or something like that.
Sniffy and Ty got to go along, and they said it was reel cool.
There was some trubble, they told
me. There was a tug boat pushing two barges full of something,
and the guy was zipping along at a pretty good speed, and Ty got up
on the top of his chair and started waving at the boat driver, and
the guy started waving back, and even blew his whis tle
(the boat whistle, not his own whistle), and pretty soon there was a
crunching and grinding, and the
front barge ran up onto the side of the river and got stuck
there. Now, that time I wasn't even along and something bad
happened, so it wasn't my fault, and fer sure it wasn't Ty's fault!
At the end of the ride, or at least
where the riverboat turned aro und,
was the Chalmette Civil War Battlefield, and the boat parked there
and let everybuddy out to check out an old mansion and some sort of
memorial. At the place next to the levee where the boat parked
there was a special gate that was open, but in case of a flood they
ken jest close that gate and the water can then get about 2 feet
higher before it runs over and floods everything. You ken
click on the link here to find out more about this famous
battlefield and park:
Chalmette
Battlefield & Park
Dry Dock--Also on that boat
ride, Ty and Sniffy took a pitcher of what is called a "Dry
Dock," which is sort of like a boat without the ends in
it. They let some water into the space underneath it, and it
then sinks into the water. 
Then another boat driver drives his broken boat into it and parks
there. After they tie it up with a whole bunch of ropes, they
pump the water out of the dry dock and it raises back up out of the
water. After putting sume blocks of wood and logs under parts
of the broken boat, they can then work on it, like if the perpeller
gets bent or they run into another boat and ding up the fenders or
something like that.
The next day, we headed out to
meet up with Gloria's friend that she went to college school
with. Her name is Mary G., and she lives in the low part of
town where you might float out of bed in the middle of the night if
the river ever overflows, so she is reel glad that they put in that
levee.
We started out with breakfast at some
world famous restaurant that serves French Fries with
everything you eat there. Frinstance, Jim had sausage and eggs
and toast and French Fries fer breakfast. We was
waiting out in the van, and we could see through the window, and
even the guy that ordered a bowl of cereal got an order of French
Fries with it! While we was waiting, a feller was there in
one of those big trucks that delivers things to stores and
restaurants, and that poor guy kept taking boxes and boxes of frozen
french fries on a two-wheeler into the side door of that
restaurant. They sure sell a lot of French Fries!!!
"Streetcar" or
"Trolley Car" Ride
After
breakfast, and everybuddy was French Fried out, Jim drove the
van to a parking space on St. Charles Avenue and parked so we could
ride the streetcar. There was some argument about whether it
was a "Streetcar," or a "Trolley Car."
Jim figgered out that original
"Streetcars" had wagon wheels and jest drove down the
street pulled by a horse. Then came the same kind o f
a car pulled by a horse, but it ran on train tracks that they put
into the street. Then they had some steam powered streetcars
that also went on the tracks. Then somebuddy hooked the tracks
up to lecktrik, but some kids messing around almost got fried by the
lecktrik, so then another lecktrikal scientist figgered out how to
put up a wire over the tracks and hook the streetcar up to it by
means of a pole with a wire on the top that touched the lecktrik
wire. To keep the wire on the top from wearing out, they put
on a small roller, and started calling it a
"trolley." That's when people started calling them
"Trolley Cars." In later years they also had a
"Trolley Bus," that was jest a regular looking bus that
had an lecktrik motor in it instead of a gasoline or diesel engine.
You ken find out more by clicking here:
New
Orleans Streetcars
Either way, it was a reel cool ride,
cuz Me and Ty got to go alo ng, and we rode in a special bag
that Jim can carry us with. This pitcher is of Gloria and Mary
G and me in front of the Statue of The Lone Ranger in Jackson Square
in the French Quarter of New Orleans.
This next pitcher is what the actual
Statue of The Lone Ranger lo oks
like. Somebuddy there in the garden was telling his friend
that the guy in the statue was named Andrew Jackson, so I guess if
that was my name, I would change it to The Lone Ranger, too!
While we was downtown in the French
Quarter, we stopped to loo k
in some of the reel cool stores, and let me tell you, I wish I would
have brought along some of my money, cuz I could have spent it all
on some of those reel cool beads and pink sunglasses and all sorts
of other neato things. (Don't forget to click on that pitcher
to make a bigger one so you ken see all of the reel cool
stuff. I forgot the name of the place, or I could give you a
website link).
That was about it for New
Orleans. We rode back to the van, and went back to the motel
and got ready to blast off in the morning.
We headed north out of town, and across the Lake Pontchartrain
Bridge, which somebuddy said was 32 miles long It was actually
23.8 miles long according to the speedometer thingy in the
van. Farther to the west of the car bridges, there is a train
bridge that is still used today. That's why they call it Lake
Pontchartrain, because of the train bridge. You ken find out
more about the train bridge by clicking below.
Lake
Pontchartrain Train Bridge
On the other side of the car bridge,
we turned east, and went to the Fontainbleau State Park. The
feller at the guard station was a reel friendly guy and asked us
what we planned to do. Jim told him we was jest looking fer a
cheap place to park so we could ride the Tammany Trace Bike
Trail. The feller told us to jest save our money, and he gave
us a free  ticket
to go and park in the parking lot, which turned out to be right next
to Lake Pontchartrain. If you click on the pitcher at right to
make it bigger, you ken jest see a little bit of the lake, and the
bridge is right at the place between the lake and the sky. The
builders put it there on purpose cuz they decided that that was the
best place fer it to be built.
The parking lot in that Park was reel
cool. I mean, there was a lo t
of what they call "Live Oak" trees, with Spanish Moss
hanging off of them, so that kept the sun off of the van and it
stayed reel cool while the old folks went fer their bike ride.
I'm glad them Oak Trees was the
alive kind cuz otherwise there wouldn't have been no leaves and it
would have
gotten pretty hot in the van. We heard somewhere that a lot
of chigger bugs live in that Spanish Moss, so we din't decide to get
any of it to use fer a pillow
like some of the early settlers here did.
Sniffy and our new brother Lil Benny
got to go on the bike ride with the old folks. You ken jest
see them in the pitcher showing Jim & Gloria on the trail.
They're each
riding in the bike bags on the handlebars.
That bike trail used to be a
railroad, and the Rails-to-Trails folks took out the train tracks
and put some tar down, and now it is a 31 mile bike trail through
swamps, forests, little
towns, etc. The old folks didn't make the 31 miles, but they
did get to about 9 miles, then back, so that's 18 miles altogether.
One time when they stopped to rest,
Lil Benny got off the bike and ran and hid in a flower bush that was
next to a big tree. He said that's how wild alligators hide so
they can catch something for lunch. Sniffy said he did look
pretty scary.
For more information on that great
bike trail, you ken jest click below:
Tammany
Trace Park
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