Wednesday, May 04, 2011

new orleans

we left the house at 230AM thursday night (or friday morning depending how you count), drove an hour and a half to the greenville, SC amtrak station, and at 5AM boarded the crescent bound for new orleans. i woke up 4 hours later pulling out of the atlanta station.

sleeping

we had a roomette which was nice because you can lower the seats and put on a bedroll they provide and completely lie down, also can close the door and curtain. there's a toilet in there, which is too close for comfort for me.

dining car carnation

in the dining car they sat you with strangers if you didn't have a party of 4. they ran out of things like nobody's business. the service took forever. the coffee was piping hot. the salad had dark green lettuce not just iceberg. the meals were extremely overpriced, but free for those who were traveling in the roomettes.

broken trees lost roofs

the train slowed way down through tuscaloosa alabama. there were neighborhoods completely leveled by the tornadoes 2 days before. so many snapped trees and then 100 year old trees on their sides - their red roots unnaturally perpendicular. factories a heap of twisted steel and cinder blocks. people in neon yellow shirts handing out water. old men in their backyards surrounded by shredded belongings watching the train go by. (slide show of the destruction)

black jack

there is no open container law in new orleans and no last call. (or seemingly). there's a casino. where you can't take pictures of the blackjack table. you can take bloody marys and walk down by the mississippi river while an old lady plays the pipes on top of the natchez paddle boat, it's so windy the pipe steam cloud is blowing right back in her face.

alo + josh clark

tipitinas uptown is a legendary venue and i loved seeing two of my alltime favorite bands share the stage there and also some old friends on the dancefloor. the show was supposed to start at 1, but instead doors opened at 2 and it was sunrise when we stumbled out. my time's coming but it's not tonight.

jama jama fricasse plantains

the food at the fairgrounds of jazz fest is worth the price of admission alone. ingested included: giant strawberry lemonade with chunks of real strawberries, chicken fricassee, fried plantains, and 'jama jama' (spinach) from the african food court. to die for. a bowl of shrimp and grits. perfection.

mardi gras indians

old timers playing the blues and some mardi gras indians. sunday morning. can you beat it? no.

mr b's bistro best meal ever

as a last hurrah, later that night mr. b's had the best dining experience of my life. perfect service and timing and not too stuffy and awesome AWESOME food.

blue nile floor

the floor of the blue nile has the arabic patterned tile. waiting for the show to start a man asked us "did they find his body?" which is how i found out they killed bin laden. the hippie next to me said super sarcastic "a trillion in war debt and how many thousands killed? mission accomplished! yay america! are the troops on their way home?" i tend to agree. watching teenagers rejoice in front of the white house on tv later i didn't feel like celebrating and i didn't feel any safer.

sidewalks could use some more improving

the train left new orleans at 7am. we got to the station in a cab whose driver had lived in the city for 4 days and had to plug the train station into the gps. he moved to new orleans from charlotte where his wife and kids still live because he couldn't find work in charlotte.

mooning the train

we got back to greenville at 1130 monday night, back home at 1. we got mooned in mississippi.

5 comments:

kid D said...

Would you take the train ride again or was it a bust? - kidD

skippy haha said...

definitely! much more relaxing than driving or flying. and close to on-time.

the roomettes are the way to go though, i walked through coach on the way down and i can't begin to describe the smell of human waste they had to endure. everybody in there looked sad. really sad. i would have been sad. on the way back home it wasn't as bad at all. but if i had to sit 14 hours in that i would have jumped off at the first stop.

Unknown said...

Great photos and good times. We took Amtrak from California to DC and back again with a stop off in Aspen for a few days. It was nice because we had one of those sleeper car/Mini hotel rooms. The highlight of our trip was me going off on a snotty DC Amtrak 'waitress' at dinner, getting up and going back to our car hungry. It was so worth it, though. Ha!

skippy haha said...

ha! yes we experienced some of that service too and there was some surliness from australian bartender with a beehive.

Anonymous said...

Magnificent beat ! I would like to apprentice while you amend your website,
how could i subscribe for a blog website? The account helped me a acceptable
deal. I had been tiny bit acquainted of this your broadcast offered bright clear concept

my web site :: training powered by wordpress
Here is my webpage :: wordpress 3 essential training