New Orleans, Armadillos and History

We’re starting on our third week in New Orleans, and almost as long without a blog. The first week in town we stayed at Bayou Segnette State Park and worked. The park was nice, surrounded by swamp but no mosquitoes in the cold. At first it was hard to walk to the bathroom at night, hearing breaking branches in the dark. After a couple days we started to see who was making the noise ,  a very fearless Armadillo, enormous raccoons and tons of bunnies. The Armadillo hung out behind the RV – ignoring us as we got up close and even running straight for us at one point. We thought we’d them missed for good in Texas but apparently they’re all over the south.

Louisiana Armadillo at Bayou Segnette State Park

Since I decided like 15 years ago that New Orleans was my favorite US city, thanks to Ann Rice  no doubt, theres no way we could come for only a week, or 2 even, and no way we could get away with just hanging out on the outskirts of town, never going inside it. Naturally, we rented a car for the weekend to head into the center and take a look around. It was the first time we rented a car so far and was actually pretty cheap. We went out Friday night and of course walked down Bourbon Street, but avoided the busier bars. I made a list of places that sounded interested or offbeat, Ye Olde Original Dungeon, Lafitte’s Blacksmith Shop (a bar owned by a pirate and supposedly the countries oldest continuous bar) and Yo Mamas where we started the night off with a garden burger.

Saturday we headed to find a vegetarian breakfast and found 13 Monahan in thw Marigny district to be the only one so far. We spent the rest of the day walking around the French Quarter and Marigny, then drove to the Garden District where we ran into Lafayette Cemetery and walked around a while. For lunch we got some dinner at another Vegetarian place in Marigny, Cafe Bamboo at the Dragon Den. They have a fake chicken there thats pretty much the best I’ve had at  a restaurant, good texture and taste. After eating it was getting close to the voodoo tour I paid $40 for online. We still had to go all the way back to the camp to let Chena out to go to the bathroom; it was a mad rush through the French Quarter (where you go an average of 10miles an hour) and onto the freeway, then back through the same thing. We’d planned to park in Marigny and walk the 15 minutes to the meeting place of the tour but arrived downtown only 10 minutes before 7:30 when it started. Ross dropped me off at Rev. Zombies House of Voodoo where the tour was already gathering. I hate tours but was interested to see one about Voodoo in New Orleans. I turned in our ticket and waited in line while Ross tried to find parking with an almost dead cell phone. The tours started gathering in groups of about 15 people. As time went on I kept moving to the back of the line, hoping to give Ross some time to catch up. Finally the last group gathered at about 8pm and we started walking down the street. I called Ross to try to tell him how to find us but his phone died mid directions. I didn’t really know what to do. The group turned off into Pirates Alley and I tried to decide to ditch the group or hope he finds us, 30 seconds later he somehow did. Unfortunately but ok in the end, by going to the back of the lines I had gotten out of the Zombie tour and into a regular Haunted Tour. No signs or information about this difference during the group gathering process of course. It was interesting anyway and we learned about some truly gruesome history – yellow fever epidemic, civil war hospital and Dauphine the slave torturer, all in the French Quarter. Our tour guide held back no details on yellow fever, amputation or the state of Dauphine’s mutilated  slaves.

Lafayette Cemetery

Even jesters use Technology

Sunday was a different story completely. I woke up at 7am to get a drink of water, by 8 I was on the floor with a trash can next to me puking. I was in horrible pain and constantly nauseous but insisted we make use of the rental car while we had it. Every bump in the car was like a knife in my stomach. We made it to Magazine Street where lots of vintage clothing stores and cafes are but even walking felt like daggers. All the smells of the street didn’t help either. Throughout the city open sewers stink up the intersections and each cafe and restaurant provided a different set of nauseating aromas. The RV was no better, every smell but the new clean car smell was making me sick. We took an excruciating drive back to Marigny where Ross got a burger and I got a small salad, whose smell immediately made me push it to the other side of the table. After that we decided to head back to the RV so I could lay down, day ruined in my book, and from that point I was sick and basically unable to eat for 4 more days.

On Wednesday night Ross finally came down with the same thing,making its source even more confusing. The water at the state park wasn’t necessarily the safest water, although we filter it. I was sick directly after drinking  - though Ross drank from the same cup, and Ross was sick directly after a shower almost 4 days after me. The night before, 12 hours before I got sick, we shared some fries and fake chicken nuggets; but a 12 hours to 4 day delay for food poisoning? Although I was less sick after 4 days, I still had a sore stomach after everything I ate, making it discouraging to eat at all. We decided to get another rental car and a day early this time (only $30 more) so we could go buy some pro-biotics and yogurt as my mother had suggested. Ross improved over the weekend but my stomach continues to be really sensitive to anything with spice or flavor. Indian food that Ross made had be back at the trash can for hours and since I’ve been sticking to mashed potatoes, cereal, bread and pasta – boring. Hopefully this will be over soon; its horrible when in order to eat I have to prepare for hours of sharp shooting stomach pain, though nothing else at least. I started to read allot about bacteria in water and food poisoning and with only the one symptom its hard to imagine what it could be. Would be nice to know so I could avoid it in the future at least…

We spent this last weekend (3/5-3/7) discovering more neighbourhoods in the city; Magazine Street again, this time finally getting some shopping done at Buffalo Exchange, and a neighbourhood that was the worst hit by Katrina, the Ninth Ward. There were many empty spaces and most of the standing buildings were unoccupied and still had the FEMA markings on them. One building we decided to park next to while we ate out takeout also had markings from the Humane Society “2 dogs”. Its always horrible to think of what the residents and animals of the neighborhood went through. I took a photo of some graffiti I liked (not realizing it was painted over a FEMA marking till I saw it on my computer) but didnt really take many photos in the area. I love taking photos of dilapidated buildings and wreckage but this just wasn’t the same. People died in this neighbourhood, dogs drown, people homeless because of a storm and the fact an irresponsible company like FEMA left them waiting. I saw no reason to take photos, I don’t take photos for shock value.

After we left, we decided to head back towards Magazine street and St.Charles Street. A neighbourhood with huge mansions, towering cathedrals and the gorgeous Toulane University. It was definitely a contrast, as much of the city is. We stopped to use a bathroom at a McDonalds and once I saw a Borders books across the street I got into a crafty frenzy. I haven’t actually made thing this trip… somehow I’ve managed to too be busy or too tired and sore after work to manage that but I intend to change it. I bought a beading book and a “cute” crafts book, then we went to Michael’s for some supplies (because JoAnn’s was closed) and headed for the worlds most disgustingly sweet gelato sundaes.

Sunday was our moving day but the place we wanted to move to was full till Monday afternoon. We drove the car and RV to a Walmart and hung out for the night, returning the car in the morning working till 2. I’ve become increasingly annoyed by the lack of space for 2 people and a dog in the RV, so I had to enlarge my work table. Before the move we headed over to Home Depot and had a piece of wood cut, which is not strapped to my existing table with a bungee. Better than a table barely wider than my laptop, now I can actually use a mousepad and mouse!! Future improvements may include as much as a whole new trailer. We are both feeling very, very cramped in here and I’m sure Chena’s nearly insane.

The new park, Jude RV Park is our new home for an entire month. It’s closer to town and should give us some more time to look around some more, rental car or not. They even said they’d work with us if we ended up with a trailer, truck and RV all at the same time. Nice people.

I’ll try to update more often, assuming I’m not on the floor next to a trash can.

seven thirty, french quarter

• Listening to:: Blaze of Incompetence, 16
• Location:: Jude RV Park, New Orleans
• Weather:: About to storm
• Working on:: www.bellastellababy.com
• has_been_twittered: yes

Weekend drive to Cocodrie. LA

We left Bayou Vista at about 2 in the afternoon on Saturday with the intentions of driving down another road that ends deep in the marshlands, this time to Cocodrie. After about an hour of taking down the tarp and putting things away, we headed out on the road towards Houmas having eaten nothing as often in the case by that time in the day. It’s normally not an issue but on a traveling day, eating is more of a pain in the ass than days when we can just open the fridge and cook something. When we got to Houmas we only had about 2 hours of daylight left and ended up having to eat garden burgers at Burger King because the only other chain that has them at every single location is Denny’s and they don’t have one. We wanted something quick as well due to fleeting light and increasing clouds but after choking down the chewy, freezer-burnt
burgers and cold fries we ended up deciding to stay in Houmas for the night so we wouldn’t miss anything on the drive. After running a couple errands at Best Buy and Lowe’s, we found a Thai restaurant just across form the Walmart we planned to stay at and had some pretty great – and hot as hell – tofu Thai curries. Our waitress was friendly and asked how the tofu was since she hadn’t tried it before (she was from LA), in fact, she hadn’t tried hardly anything on the menu because by some sad cruel irony – she works at a Thai restaurant and is allergic to coconuts, peanuts (all nuts), raw vegetables and milk. She cant have Thai curry, peanut sauce or even Thai tea, all my favorites. It was sad news but we enjoyed our meals anyway, although a 4 out of 5 on the hot scale is a little too painful. The owner even came up to us after our meal to check it wasnt too hot, Ross ate all of his but I wasn’t quite as big of a bad ass.

It was only 9 when we finished out food but we headed over to Walmart anyway. We wanted to see a movie but will all the bad reviews, I’m still afraid to see The Wolfman and nothing else was playing. I love Benicio too much to watch him flop. I might still go anyway and think it’s fine. I usually don’t read reviews but I cant remember the last time a movie I wanted to see really bad had got a 20-30% approval by rotten tomatoes and paid critics.. a sad state. I suspected the effects were terrible but that rarely bothers me when a story is good – sadly the story is said to also be total crap. We decided to save money by just eating Thai and watching a movie at home. I wanted to see a large male comedian flop around like an idiot, so between what was on instant on Netflix for John Candy and Chris Farley, Beverly Hills Ninja won. Sad that I would rather watch Beverly Hills Ninja than The Wolfman but that’s how afraid I am right now.

Boondocking at Walmart almost always works out pretty great. We get left alone far in the back of the parking lot – by security, customers and other RV drivers, and we have a bathroom open 24 hours. We run the generator if we feel we need extra electricity (than our backup batteries can provide) and we can cook, run the heat and do anything that doesn’t involve running water. We even got to see some cops search a guys car right outside our front door – an unfortunately uneventful event, but nevertheless -something, and we left feeling good about our 40 year old RV as the guy in the Southwind motorhome next to us was stuck with his hood open and looking grumpy. It was also the first time we left before the other RV’s in the parking lot – and we left at 10 so we were shocked, but nevertheless we finally WON! (dork)

Cocodrie, LA

We drove to Cocodrie pretty much immediately, heading south on highway just barely elevated out of the swamp. The weather had managed to pull itself out of its extreemly long slump to give us a 71 degree day, humid and windy in telling of the coming storm. When we arrived in Cocodrie we were pretty impressed. We expected what was at the end of the last swamp highway, a stilted fishing town with one closed market, but instead got a stilted fishing town with a closed market AND a closed marina/restaurant/boat rental! It was actually pretty though, unlike Holly Beach and Creole. Aside from a couple nice houses, Creole had no awesome trees, fishing boats names “Big SexSea” or a bubbling outdoor pool. Cocodrie is a fisherman’s wet dream destination town as we deducted. The whole area is full of things they call “camps” which are basically rental cabanas on the water with docking, parking and of course, the pool. Said on the marina website to be the best fishing in Louisiana, while completely surrounded by swamp, several lakes and the gulf of mexico, we really couldn’t doubt it. There was even a small airport for say… boats that land on water? Men who jump onto marlins from helicopters?  Unfortunately the cabanas go for $75 and up a night or we might have rented one.  There were 2 trailers with hookups parked among the cabanas, causing us to get giddy at the thought we might be able to stay for the week, but on closer inspection – those were the only 2 empty spaces with hookups and they were probably just the “houses” the owners of the lots chose to setup. It was a really interesting town and reminded me of the town in Robin Williams Popeye, although much smaller of course. Anyway, Ross decided to take a look at the bushings and try to tape them into place, so me and Chena walked around and took photos. I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many little skeletons stacked in one place as I did in the mountains of oyster shells in Cocodrie.

Chena on the oyster mounds

We left disappointed that we couldnt stay and made it into New Orleans about 5:30pm. We drove around the French Quarter till after 6:30pm, the biggest vehicle on those narrow streets, and checked into camp just after 7. More on that tomorrow!

I’ll post some more photos tomorrow when I have better internet. night!

• Weather:: Something that only wishes it was a thunder storm :( but its warm at least!!!
• has_been_twittered: yes

Goodbye Austin, We’ll miss you

The most we’ve stayed anywhere so far is 2 weeks but Austin is just great enough to stay longer. It’s probably the only city so far I can imagine myself living in for at least a year. There is a pretty decent number of vegetarian restaurants, theater pubs and parks – plus the weather is generally awesome. I’m sure the summers are a living hell and the one day it did get humid here, it was horrible, but no place on earth is going to be awesome and have great weather all the time – that I know of yet.

We went out a few times a week and on the weekend with our friend Olivia who moved to Austin from Portland about 2 years ago. We were lucky to know someone there who knew the kind of food we wanted and places we would like to see.

Brite Wash, Austin Texas - Urban Cowboys

Beer Land Show, Austin Texas

Dont do coke in the bathroom

Zombie Attack!

Swad - cheap indian food, Austin

star wars loteria cards by Chepo Pena

• Listening to:: Captain Scarlet theme song while Ross works with his new music program
• Watching:: Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew
• Weather:: Raining and about 50 degrees
• Working on:: Kayak Website for a client
• has_been_twittered: yes

Austin Texas, Week 1

We arrived in Austin Sunday night after a pretty interesting adventure with our tail lights. They had been out the last week or so and we finally decided that driving around at night with either emergency flashers or (this is the best) an electric candle and bicycle tail light in the back window (yes, as tail lights) wasn’t going to work for a city to city trip the way it did for the movie theater or grocery store. Before dark Sunday afternoon, after an adventure with a car wash couldn’t fit into, we hung out a Pep Boys with the sole intention of leaving with tail lights no matter how. We picked out some round LED ones intended for a trailer and proceeded to wire the lights to the exposed wires of a removed indoor lamp next to the back window. After testing the connection and picking out wire, we spent the next hour trying to figure out why only 2 lights came on – of the 40 or so LED’s inside each new tail light. Ross took the lights back inside where they tested fine and it became clear that our electrical problem wasn’t only with our tail lights – but several items at the back of the RV. The problem was not only most likely responsible for the tail lights not working but the faulty light and the water pump we struggled with so long. Luckily there are 2 lamps at the back of the RV so we just disconnected the other, wired it up, taped our new tail lights to the rear window with duct tape and on to Austin we went!

We found a spot at Pecan Grove RV park. Apparently the “hip” RV park in Austin – I guess because it’s within walking distance of downtown, bars coffee shops and movie theaters, basically a really nice change. So far it doesn’t look “hip” at all. Several middle aged men and women living in trailers – long term residents – drinking beer at 11am and abusing the already unsightly bathroom. There is no water pressure in the shower and no picnic table outside (as if it’s going to be warm enough to work outside soon anyway) but the neighbourhood is cool. There’s several restaurants, coffee shops and bars within a block. The park is $195 a week – and they have no website and dont answer their phone so this may be the only way for anyone to find out their weekly rates. When we arrived they only had 2 spots open so we got pretty lucky I think.

In other news, this is the 4th week that Chena has been sick. It started in Fredericksburg with swollen lymph nodes where the local 20 year old cowboy vet prescribed her 10 days of amoxicillin. She was on these until San Antonio where her right lymph node was even larger after we ran out of pills. We took her to yet another vet who almost immediately suggested cancer. Not exactly the first diagnosis I was hoping for but we agreed to a biopsy and $500 and 4 hours later, she was returned to us with stitches in her neck, dopey from sedation and completely uninterested in everything and everyone until the next day (Chena donation button ton the right hint hint .

After a week of stressing out about the results, her lump started to go away and I started to get more annoyed that the doctor had just jumped on the cancer band-wagon before trying anything else. He called Friday to tell us she didn’t have cancer but thinks it might be something fungal. It was hard to sit on the phone and be happy it wasn’t cancer while at the same time being offered a remedy I should have been offered first. We left for Austin without the pills but picked them up in Downtown Austin Tuesday morning. We were also out looking for a new dity water inlet which we didn’t find. The good ending to the story is that we did get a good parking spot downtown and right across from some nice graffiti.

I’m hoping to be able to walk more places with some good graffiti. Portland was always so deprived of it.

Of all the places we’ve stopped since Santa Ana,  Austin is the first place where we actually know someone. Ross’s long time friend Olivia took us out last night to dinner at Titaya’s Thai, a pretty good restaurant with a really squeaky waitress. After we went to her house to pick up some mail, one of which was a film swap from Kuwait and another my Christmas package from my mom. She sent me homemade fudge, probably the best you’ll ever never have, a leopard bathrobe which I’ve decided is my new snuggy, a couple movies, purse, wallet and some stone jewelry. Ross got a card from his mom in England and his rest deposit from the apartment in Portland.

After an exciting visit with Olivia’s dog Rain and package opening, we went to a couple bars. First was Rio Rita’s, a hipster bar completely full of amazing old Victorian couches and chairs – and a stoned lady with a baby in a sling (at 11pm – whats with the kids in inappropriate places Texas?). Rio Rita’s had some pretty great looking fruit infused vodkas but I stuck to whiskey cokes all night, except for the one rum and coke – the first time I’ve had a few drinks in months.

The second bar, Longbranch, was about as hipster filled as the first with some really funny art on the walls – paintings made with children’s lion masks and a deers head painted in multicolored spots with a fake flower crown. Men with v-neck shirts and their nasty hairy chests and handlebar stashes riddled the bar stools. When we walked in there was no music, about the lamest thing you can walk in on in a bar, so Olivia played some Van Halen and I played Alice Cooper.

Plans for the week include dinner with Olivia and her roommate and watching Forrest Gump at the Alamo Theater with stand up comedians making gags at the movie throughout.

• Listening to:: Infected Mushroom
• Watching:: Hoarders
• has_been_twittered: yes

Last weekend in San Antonio

Last weekend we finally went out a bit to see some of San Antonio. We could have taken a bus but – oh so inconvenient on a Sunday, so we drove the beautiful Brougham instead! Destinations planned – Food at Green, where we had some pretty great and interesting vegantarian (vegan/vegetarian) dishes. Ross had the homemade sausage/peanut butter & habanero jelly sandwich and I had a buffalo “chicken” sandwich. We then ordered a giant cookie and java cupcake which we took home and gorged on later. The waitress was really nice and atmosphere interesting. Between the random kitsch decorations of things like a 50s light cover collection, were photos from local photographers; mostly landscapes of the southwest. It was the first place since Portland that felt a little like Portland – nice in a way since what I liked most about Portland was places like that. (excuse the iphone photos.. please).

I wrote a review on Yelp for them, apparently my new thing, as well as for The Cove, another vegantarian friendly place we went to our last night in town.

After eating we headed to the Japanese Gardens, an oddly abandoned looking place. No one supervising, slightly under maintained and some wild kittys living in the bamboo but this made it even better. It was small but the space was really well used. There was a great old building being renovated there but not much chance for a good photo without construction tape in it. I have some Holga shots that I’ll develop eventually.

After that we went to the second oldest park in the US which was pretty but not enough to take photos of. Looking forward to going to Austin, we hear its pretty lively and vegetarian friendly.

• has_been_twittered: yes