The final day in New Orleans has arrived. I had plans to get tickets for the river boat tour but all the ones being offered included a buffet lunch and I really didn’t want to eat a buffet. So if I return, I will have to remember to book a tour earlier and probably not travel on a major holiday; however, if I had planned better there was an option to take a tour on Christmas Eve the night that the city lights a bunch of bonfires along the levels to help Santa find his way on Christmas.
This morning the day started with fog.
I had been doing on the days before I made a loop around the French Quarter and worked my way back to Canal Street. I stopped at French Truck Company for a coffee and a chocolate croissant. I also needed to use the bathroom and many of the places have a code to the bathroom. I could have bought a cup of water for $1, but I hadn’t have breakfast so why not eat a croissant.
It was still too early in the morning for any stores or many places to be open, most open at 10 AM. So I went back to my hotel room, finished my coffee and typed up my Christmas Day blog.
I left the hotel with a goal to buy a new bracelet and a new ring. I was able to find both, but not at the same place. I’m pretty sure I paid too much for the ring, but it is very hard to find rings that fit my fingers, so I am happy.
I think you can probably guess what will drive the narrative next, it’s lunch time. I tried the Trio Sampler or whatever it was called at Monty’s on the Corner. The meal didn’t disappoint and I got to sample a variety of New Orlean’s cuisine.
After lunch I signed up for a free Tour of The Sazerac House, which is basically a sales pitch for Buffalo Trace and Sazerac Rye Whiskey. You do learn the history of the cities cocktail, The Sazerac and how bartenders changed the recipe from Sazerac Cognac to bourbon and created a unique bitters to New Orleans.
The fog never really cleared out of the city all day. Here are some final pictures from the roof top pool of the hotel I’m staying.
And so ends my trips. The only thing left if for me to drive home. Until the next adventure.
Christmas day is finally here and the next Doctor Who Christmas Special will be airing later today on Disney+ so I will need to be back in the hotel room by 11 AM to watch before all the YouTubers and bloggers post their reviews and spoil the show. But enough of my nerdiness on to the morning adventure.
So I started the morning off with a 1 mile run, followed by a 1.25 mile walk. I planned on running the full distance but decided relax, knowing I was going to still walk a bunch later in the day. You know after the Doctor Who show.
An advantage to being up before 8 AM Christmas Day, is there is little to no traffic, so you can stand in the middle of an intersection and take pictures. This is the view from corner of Dumaine and Chartres
Looking Down Dumaine
Looking Up Chartres
Looking Up Durmaine
Looking Down Chartres
Yes, I realize you can get a better view if you just use Google Street view, but my picture is from Christmas Day, 2024.
Not only did I need to make sure I was back in my hotel room by 11 AM for the Doctor Who show. I also needed to be inside before the rain storm predicted for mid day reported for duty.
Mid Day Christmas Rain Storm
Once the rain storm pasted by the weather cleared up enough for me to go walking about again, but this time to look for a late lunch. But before that, here is a picture of my Christmas cookies, the green icing was a bit too thin, but I did better with the red.
Now, back to lunch… Which was 3 crabcakes on a bed of spinach with grilled tomatoes from The Original Pierre Maspero’s. I was surprised to as many restaurants as I did open on Christmas Day. The drink was called a Black Pearl which is made with Amador Bourbon, amaretto, soda, and sweet and sour mix.
I had to look up the drink recipe so I visited their webpage. They didn’t use stock pictures, but took pictures of the real wait staff and bartender. Just found that interesting. Oh, the crabcakes were pretty good. I’d give them a 8 out of 10. They can’t compare to the ones I had in Maryland back in October of 2023. As a sidenote, I’m going to need to reorganize my categories here on the blog. I’m thinking of adding years under the vacation category. I had trouble going back an looking up where I was in 2023 for the crabcakes.
Look at how the clouds are so low they cover the top few floors of these buildings. Just thought this was cool.
Going to call it an early day, I only walked half as far as yesterday, 5.5 miles and the drinks I had at restaurant followed by the mulled wine I made in my hotel room have made me very sleepy. Until tomorrow’s adventure – the last day in New Orleans.
I started the day off with an early morning walking hoping to get some good pictures of the sunrise over the Mississippi River. The morning was very clear, thus with our clouds the sunrise doesn’t have as many colors, but it was still very pretty.
Earlier PictureLater Picture
The pictures above were taken about 15 minutes apart, well maybe. I wasn’t really paying attention to time.
I think I took pictures of this “love lock” gate/fence thingy last time, but here it is again or possible for the first time.
Sorry this is so fuzzy
If you break up with your true love, do you have to come back and cut off your love-lock?
I continued my morning walk through Jackson Square and then down Bourbon Street. Bourbon Street is very different in the morning with all the bars closed and the cleaning crews out picking up the mess from the previous night. If I understood the news this morning, a new cleaning company was hired by the city to clean up the French Quarter and they started this week. However, they started at Canal street and were working their way down Bourbon street, I was walking up the other way so I finished my walk on cleaner streets. I did have the joy of seeing a dead rat, a live rat and some guy on a bicycle offered me marijuana at 7:30 AM. As the guy rode away he kept commenting that it’s legal here… I guess he was hoping I would change my mind. Here are some pictures from along my walk.
Sorry if you looked through the pictures hoping to see the dead rat. I did think about taking a picture but decided I would give the little animal some respect in its death. 😂😇☠️
After getting some breakfast, I headed back to Canal Street to get a street car heading toward the Art Museum and the City Park so I could visit the Botanical Gardens.
Street Car on the 48 Line
I had a nice morning walking around the Botanical Garden; however, it is quite small compared to other ones I’ve visited. It did have a children’s theme park section with playground equipment and mini rides. I didn’t go to that side of the garden.
Taking the street car back toward the French Quarter, I arrive sometime after 1:00 PM and realize breakfast was a few hours in the past, which explains why I was feeling hungry. Time to grab some sea food from Landry’s.
If you are near Landry’s in New Orleans, try their version of an Old Fashion. It was one of the best I’ve had, but it is based off peach flavorings instead of orange. You could easily have a few of them before you realized that last one was one too many. I wanted to get a beignet, but I hate waiting in long lines so I skipped Cafe Du Monde again and tried to get a beignet at Cafe Beignet; however, they closed at 2 PM because of it being Christmas Eve. So I settled for some ice cream.
Oh, I forgot to mention I did do a bit of shopping before the ice cream. I went to two Christmas themed stores looking for, well honestly, I don’t know what I was looking for which is probably why I didn’t buy anything. If I had wanted a statue of Santa or the Grinch I had a great choices to choose from. I was tempted to buy the animated Charlie Brown TV statue, but not so much that I wanted to spend $35. I did stop by a shop selling hot sauces and I dropped $45 on a few hot sauces and spice mixes.
This picture was take on Christmas Day, the day after my visit on Christmas Eve which is why it is closed.
I walked passed this store but the aroma coming out the door drew me back hence the spending of money.
With all this walking, my Garmin watch let me know I had walked double my 8000 daily step challenge for a total of 10 miles of walking around the Botanical Garden and the French Quarter. So with my ice cream purchased I headed back for an early day.
Last year I traveled to New Orleans the day after Christmas for a short trip. This year I decided why not celebrate Christmas in New Orleans. The advantage of revisiting a city is you can revisit the places you liked and look for different things to do.
I arrived in New Orleans around 4:30 PM and checked into my hotel, turning my truck over to the valet to not see it again until I leave on Friday morning. The drive getting here was very much like the previous year, so I won’t bore you, go look for it if you are new here. I can say the same annoying traffic jam on the bridge going over the Mississippi River in Baton Rouge happened. Back to the details I want to say about this trip.
After getting settled into my hotel room, so wish I had a good view out of my windows to show you, but I’m in the back corner on the 10th floor so I get to see the other back sides of the hotels around me and nothing of the city. So if I want to see the city, I’m going to have to go into it.
I was hungry and went to the Vampire Apothecary that I enjoyed last year to try another meal and desert. This time I tried their salmon sandwich, purple velvet cake. (The chocolate cake from last year was better.)
After dinner I walked around to try to find Christmas decorations and lights.
Tomorrow the plan is to see the Botanical Gardens.
Why do some IHG hotels offer free breakfast and others don’t? And why do some offer free parking and others don’t? I guess I know the answer – Money Money 💰💰💰
Didn’t do much structured adventuring today. I did a total of 9.3 miles by the end of the day. Let’s just call is lots of exploring.
One thing I can say about Bourbon Street… It’s not really my vibe. I prefer it during the day vs the night. Don’t get me wrong I like a good adult beverage, I just don’t think you are getting your bang for the buck. With that said, you have plenty of choices for frozen, slushy beverages. Something else I noticed were all the small art galleries.
I didn’t get pictures but I saw groups of “stem punk” dressed individuals with manual type writers that would compose a poem for you on the stop for any topic you gave them. I even saw a magician performing magic on the sidewalk outside Cafe Du Mont.
Speaking of the Cafe Du Mont, I’m not going to be trying their beignets unless I can get there very early. I don’t stand in lines that long.
The line was a half a block long.
I planned on going to the Museum of Art. I even purchased a ticket to ride the cable cars for the day; however, the cable cars all lost power and after waiting 10 minutes I decided to go to church.
I arrived at St. Louis Cathedral Basilica just in time (3:45PMish) to be warned the church would be closing in 5 minutes. So I took the pictures above and quickly left. I booked a history/cemetery tour for 10AM tomorrow and I think the cathedral is one of the first stops.
I’m hoping to do one of the bus ghost tours because they go to some of the cemeteries but in the evening. Assuming I can myself to an afternoon jazz club vs a nighttime jazz club. Tomorrow will tell. My feet hurt.
I’m going to end this post with a picture of a tanker on the Mississippi River. Enjoy.
Today is the second leg of the drive to New Orleans. Since check in isn’t until 3 PM, I’m in no rush.
Had a nice breakfast at the Holiday Inn, but the person that set up the buffet paired the sausage and the hashbrowns in one section with the eggs and bacon in the other. I feel that the sausage and bacon should be together. I’m probably just being silly.
So I’ve crossed the state line from Texas to Louisiana and had to stop at the welcome center.
There was even a short board walk labeled a walking trail and after a few hours of driving who can’t resist a good leg stretch?
And now back to the road and my book. Just more driving, until I get to the bridge that crosses the Mississippi River…
Traffic Jam on a Bridge
I don’t take pictures while driving, but technically I was parked. Whatever the accident was, it wasn’t a quick clear and eventually all 3 lanes stopped moving. Google actually provided an alternate route and once getting over the bridge I took the first exit, drove through a residential area, and then reconnected with I 10 and was on my way again to New Orleans.
Learning my lesson from my stay yesterday on Christmas Day, I didn’t go straight to the hotel, but looked for a grocery store to get the basics for making a sandwhich. I checked out Rouses Market. Being from Texas and having access to HEB, I am very spoiled. My choices for lunch meat was just the named brands, ie higher costs so if I’ve got to pay more for deli meat, I’m off to the deli to get fresh cut smoked turkey and muenster cheese. Strangely, I found Rouses branded deli meats there, but not prepacked. Another difference, there was a liquor store in the grocery store. You had to buy liquor at the “special” register. Liquor laws fascinate me in their absurdity. Not going to say anything more here, other than the laws are stupid because they is no consistence with them. Ok, I’ll move on…
I found my hotel easy enough on the west edge of the French Quarter. No place special just a 2 star Holiday Inn. The breakfast here is free, but you have to pay for parking. That brings up another thing of stupidity that would be nice if the corporation could have consistence between locations. This is one of those “If I was King..” moments..
A disadvantage of traveling during the winter is how quickly the sunsets. It’s only 6 PM and getting dark, so most of my pictures this evening are not the best, however; the Christmas decorations standout.
I skipped lunch today. I say that to explain my next quest, dinner. I googled like most of us do and picked a restaurant. The food was good, but the prices were touristy. The only costs that were on par were the drink prices, but $35 for grilled red fish and sautéed green beans. You’ve got to be kidding me.
I was still hungry and wasn’t going to get dessert at the restaurant. I went in search of beignets.
My plan was to eat at Cafe Du Mont, because my sister had sent me their mix to make beignets at home and I wanted to try the real thing. I’m going to blame the bright lights and the jazz music, but I went to the Cafe Beignet: French Quarter.
This may have been the “wrong” place, but the beignets were great and later I learned from a local, they prefer Cafe Beignet over Cafe Du Mont. I will have to make a comparison.
Anyone ready for ghost stories? How about a vampire story? Well I suggest to leave now, because that is how I ended my Tuesday, the 2nd day of Christmas. Pictures first.. short summary after.
Ghost guide MiaThe divide between Government and Church LawVampiresVoodooGhosts and a Full Moon
My summary of the tour will be very short, because I don’t want to ruin it, very limited spoilers ahead.
The tour started at 8 PM, Witches Brew Tours has a variety of tours. All of the basic ones were already full so I was forced to take the 21+ tour. In the description the only difference, this included stories about murders and crimes. We also had a pitstop halfway through the tour at a “haunted” bar.
My ghost guide, Mia, is a professed witch and Catholic. Wrap your head around that. She is also full of “Dad jokes”, and bad puns. I’m going to give her the benefit of the doubt for some of the stories she told, since she is from New Orleans, but some of the info about Voodoo didn’t line up with a recent podcast I listened to on a history podcast I follow. Check it out here at American History Hit. Overall I enjoyed my time and feel the tour was worth the money and with all the walking I didn’t have any trouble falling asleep. Staying asleep was another issue, but I blame the stupid “night light” by the sink in my hotel room that doesn’t have an off switch. Tonight I’m going to put a towel in front of it.
Today’s adventure started with me packing my bags to travel to Houston and then on to New Orleans The strange thing about the drive is how few people were on the road although it is Christmas Day so that would explain why the traffic was light. The second thing I noticed as I was driving was the number of places that were closed. It’s nice to see at least a few places given their employees the day off for the holidays. I even saw a few people trying to get into a Whataburger, however; every Whataburger along the drive was closed.
I do have to thank all the people that work at the gas stations though cuz I had to stop once to fuel up and then a few times to stretch my legs.
Whenever you get a chance you got to stop at a Buc-ee’s.
And guess who I saw getting more cookies before heading home.
Now I should have planned better while I was at Buc-ees cuz I grabbed something for lunch but I didn’t think about dinner. The hotel was supposed to have a restaurant but when I checked in the lady at the desk said we’re on Christmas staffing and if you need extra towels you have to come down here and get them yourself and the restaurant is closed. So next time I travel on a holiday I will bring bread and ham and cheese to make a sandwich
So I spent the afternoon playing on my computer, watching the new Doctor Who special. I’m confused about that one and I’m going to have to watch one of the YouTubers that explains it cuz it was confusing.
I’m excited for tomorrow driving to New Orleans with plenty of things planned. Hopefully I can get some good content and pictures to show off to everybody.
I really tried to video the drive through the canyon, but the sun was shining right on the car windshield, and I couldn’t position the cellphone holder to eliminate that problem. I really wish I could have videoed the drive, because my focus was on keeping the car in my lane with all the twists and turns. I even missed the stop to get the waterfall, Bridal Veil Falls, that is viewable right from UT – 189. I was thinking of stopping on the return, but some emergency was happening, 3 fire trucks and 4 ambulances.
UPDATE 6-26
While watching the local morning news this morning I learned 2 teenagers fell from a hiking trail and had to be rescued. One was seriously injured. See the complete story here.
My drive through the canyon took me to Wasatch Mountain State Park. The trails I picked were not difficulty because I didn’t want to strain my back anymore. Enjoy the views, a bird, a dragon fly and flowers.
After a good hike, you are hungry. I headed into Midway, UT which was 2 miles from the state park. I picked a restaurant via my GPS in the rental car; however, when I reached my destination, the place was not in business anymore. I did pass a place, called Lola’s Street Kitchen. There was a line which means the place is good or they are slow. I took the chance, found a place to park and joined the line. I decided to go with the daily special, a Baja tuna melt.
After lunch, I walked down the street to a year round Christmas store, Kringles.
I just can’t pass up one of those shops. I bought and ornament and two pair of Christmas socks.
While returning to my vehicle, the clock above the town hall began to play a song.
My watch said it was 2 PM
I then drove back to the hotel. Upon arrival I realized that I am slightly sunburned. I really should have put on the long sleeve shirt. I will for tomorrow.
I’m now resting for my return to Evermore this evening. I’m going with a plan. Watch the shows and pick one quest line to work towards. I’m trying to decide if I help the lich I met last night, search for more information about the vampires or look for the fairies.
Carl's Blog 
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