I'm on my way. I don't know where I'm going.

[cyrano]

Day 4:
Traffic through Houston was less than fun. Apparently they have their own version of the Big Dig there, and at 10am they are still in morning rush hour. But by noon we were on our way. The countryside is becoming lovely, so long as I am inside the air conditioned car. Outside it’s still pretty atrocious. Lots of greenery, and once we entered into Louisiana (Highway 101 has nothing on some of the parishes here) there was a lot of water. Rivers, swamps, bays, channels, lakes, bayous, sometimes one within the other.
We didn’t make it to New Orleans by my highly optimistic three o’clock prediction, but by about five. And driving here reminds me far too much of driving in San Francisco. Followed the driving directions, missed the hotel, ended up in the tiny narrow streets of French Quarter (we’re that close to it), circled around, pinpointed where it should be and then discovered that the reason we couldn’t spot it before was that pretty much the only identifier was about fifty feet in the air over the narrow crowded street. Dove into the narrow driveway and corralled a bellboy (I have never had a bellboy before) to collect our luggage so they could drive our car to an undisclosed location and hold it until we paid the bill.
I gave WR the Mardi Gras beads I’d bought before I left, to commemorate our arrival. I didn’t get flashed. Note: next time buy more beads. Then I investigated LJ comments and tried to locate the things we were suggested to visit (No luck finding Stan the Ghost Tour Guy) before my internet connection choked turned black in the face fell over and died. Well, what the hell, it’s free.
Luckily WindRose has AOL and thus still can actually access the web. I collected pamphlets and a cheesy tourist map from the lobby, and asked the concierge where he liked to go eat. We decided we didn’t like any of the places he suggested and instead ended up in a swanky dark wood steakhouse about four blocks from the hotel because one of us demanded blood and flesh and iron. After a lovely meal, we wandered back to the hotel, and I did laundry.
While I was doing laundry, WR was wise and went to bed. And the ice machine refused to vend ice so I could not get cold water. So once the laundry was done, I went and bought a Diet Coke at the machine, although I knew the caffeine was unlikely to make me any sleepier. Then I went out to the deck(Highly illegally! It closed at ten! I am a rebel!) and was cloaked in the warm soupy air. It was not made less soupy by the bubbling jaccuzzi which steamed away merrily. I read my book and drank my Coke until I became restive. I hoisted myself up on top of the eight foot retaining wall (Also probably highly illegal, although no sign said otherwise.) and watched the street.
The French Quarter, and the area around it, strikes me as a very conflicted neighborhood; the decrepit juxtaposed with the upscale or tourist-tacky. There are grafitti’d panel doorways barring entry to industrial laundries next to fancy hotels next to beat up falling down warehouses next to kitschy tourist shops next to lurid neon-lit girlie bars next to fancy refined eateries. And across from our building is a run down parking lot and a greasy spoon diner which occasionally appears to be open. The diner is the bottom floor of a four-story building which appears to have once been twice as large. The roof slopes up from the street side to peak over the parking lot, and there are obvious markings along that far wall to indicate in the raw brick facade where stairs and landing doors once ran up those four stories. The windows above the diner are ajar, askew, gaping, broken or just missing. So far as I can tell, the place is waiting for somebody to have the money to tear it down so it can find its peace.
Earlier, while passing the “No Child Left Behind Monument” in West Texas (an abandoned adobe school house with no roof, no windows and no anything that wasn’t made of cracked dried clay), WR and I discussed a fascination we share with things like that--images of desolation or decay or passed grandeur, things that were once relevant and are now vestigial. Ozymandiosity. These are my thoughts, I may confer tomorrow and see if they match her thoughts as well. But I pondered that building, what I imagined went on then, what it was like now, what might be. And then I tried to go to bed.

Day 5:
A lazy morning getting ready meant that we were down late for breakfast (half an hour before it closed) and all that was left was toast and bagels and the dregs of the milk pitcher. Tomorrow it will be different.
A casual stroll down Camp to the Confederate Museum, of which we were half an hour early for the opening, led us across the street to the D-Day Museum (sponsored by the company that produced over 90% of the USA’s WWII naval fleet). It was very informative, and there were walls and walls of pictures and text and video programmes. It was rather like spending a morning with the History Channel, but with suspended hallways over an open central well. Then we were back across the street, to a long hall filled with cases and cases of *stuff*--kepis, sashes, swords, flags, and a chamber pot the bottom of which was decorated by the face of the Union General who held New Orleans.
The cabbie who drove us to Jackson Square was helpful and informative, suggesting more museums, and gave up the address of a research library which I expect will become a target of future visits for WR’s authorial efforts. We visited the cathedral, which was very pretty but the signs said ‘Don’t go anywhere or do anything without a tour guide’ and none such were in evidence. And so after standing about for a few minutes admiring what I could see from my vantage point, I allowed us to move on. Then we continued our stroll down Rue Chartres (pronounced Charters) with a quick look-in at a shop that sold highly articulated wooden carvings, including a snake that nearly slew WR with delight. Then on to Erzalie’s, a voudoun shop hosted by a very effervescent queen who called me ‘ma petit’ and a quieter woman who does the email. They both had lots of engaging conversation and helpful suggestions, and before long we had spent a chunk of change on some items for house warming and blessing and a candle holder for burning a candle for Legba, the Loa of the Crossroads, for me. Because I feel like I could use a few crossroads and options in my life right now. A few open doors would not be seen amiss, Papa. We lunched at La Madeleine, mostly because Arnaud’s felt like too far away and WR was running out of steam.
Back to the hotel, where customer service for the broadband service in the hotel not only failed to fix my broadband connection but also fucked up my wireless connection and so now I’m completely offline. (As it turns out, I was apparently not connected to the hotel’s service ever--my spotty and slow connection earlier was probably through the unprotected wireless in one of the apartments behind the hotel that I could see through our window.)
The plan as of now is to pack as much as possible tonight, go to bed quite early, get up quite early, get some actual breakfast before hitting the road, and possibly get as far as Gainesville. If we’re very lucky WR will get to have dinner with her father before he goes out of town again.

Comments

[tersa.livejournal.com]

Rue Chartres (pronounced Charters)

My 8.25 years of French classes refuses to pronounce it like that. :)

[miss-friday.livejournal.com]

Traffic through Houston was less than fun.

Currently the traffic in Houston is the second worse in the country, lagging only L.A. Was a time when the two cities standings were reversed.

[cyranocyrano.livejournal.com]

I have had 0 years of French classes and it took me two hours.

[cyranocyrano.livejournal.com]

I love that you are full of obscure and relevant facts like this. Thank you! (: