#Gates50States

Spring Break 2022 took us to Louisiana and Mississippi, and it was nice to travel as a family on our #Gates50States tour again.  We’d visited Indiana last year in an overlap with Junior Team Tennis, but it had been awhile since we’d traveled as a group without other items on our agenda.

Once again, it’s important to point out the difficulty of being fair to all of the states.  Saying, “No,” to so many seemingly very neat things and items in each state is the hardest part of this whole project.  We wanted to get this said again because we know our Southern, and especially our Louisiana friends and readers, will cringe at the thought of our spending most of our Louisiana time in and around New Orleans.  We know there is so much more to Louisiana than New Orleans, but time is an enemy in all of this, and we had to prioritize the logistics of time and travel, so we did our best to show the kids some Louisiana stuff that would serve all of us well.

We arrived in New Orleans at 2:00am on Saturday following some flight delays out of Cleveland and Charlotte, and we did our best to catch up on sleep right away.

One of the first things we and most think about when New Orleans comes to mind is Mardi Gras, and we Gateses are 100% ignorant of all things Mardi Gras.  I was aware it had something to do with Fat Tuesday and Lent, but the costumes and beads and parades… yeah, we didn’t get it.  So before we checked into our VRBO on Carondelet Street, we visited Carl Mack’s Mardi Gras Museum of Costume and Culture.

“This is weird.  All the sparkle and feathers are too weird for me,” thought Lincoln.

First, we dressed up in the costume room, not knowing a thing about what we were doing.  Then, when the tour started, Mr. Mack gave us the whole rundown, from the neighborhood involvement, to the significance of the beads, to the theming, to second line parades.  While we may not have left with a big interest in participating in a parade, we definitely left with an appreciation for why Mardi Gras is important to the neighborhoods of New Orleans, as well as an interest in returning to observe a parade and perhaps a ball.

Mission accomplished, Mr. Mack.

Right after that, and a stop to get some authentic beignets at Cafe Beignet (YUM!),

we had to run up to Bayou St. John for some kayaking with Trichelle of Kayak-iti-Yat.  While kayaking the bayou, we were treated to more history of New Orleans, from the founding on.  What an interesting story, and we had a lot of fun seeing a section of the city from the water.

“Kayaking was a great adventure!” recalled Henry, as we reminisced around the dinner table on our last evening away.

Afterward, while Lydia and Henry played at the pool back at the house, Lincoln and I walked under the I-10 bridge to Lee Circle.  I was not aware Robert E. Lee’s statue had been removed two years ago.  The “art” form now standing at the base of the pillar upon which his statue once stood is exactly the type of history denying, formless crap that passes for meaning in this woke era.  The plaque marking the “significance” of this change in acknowledgement at the center of this circle is an embarrassment to our time.  The pendulum has swung.  Future generations will be doomed to repeat the sins of the past precisely because of our generation’s inability to maturely deal with our nation’s history.

Lincoln thought we were going to see a neat monument, but, “I was disappointed to see a big ice cream scoop with boobs,” he said.

 </soapbox>

We walked just a little further to familiarize ourselves with the National World War Two Museum that was on our next day’s agenda.

Upon Trichelle’s recommendation, we visited Clesi’s for dinner.  Now before I start telling you about this dinner, I need to point out a short visit I had with a colleague from New Orleans at Western Veterinary Conference.  When I told her we were soon to visit her hometown, and inquired of what we ought to be sure not to miss, she replied, “The food.”  So we prioritized the food.  And our meal at Clesi’s got us off to a great start.  Jenn’s efforts to expand the kids’ palates and make them into more adventurous eaters has paid off.

We ordered a pound of crawfish and a pound of shrimp.  First, these shrimp were huge, and the crawfish were… like nothing we’ve ever ordered in Ohio.  These Buckeyes were getting baptized into NOLA eating.  In addition to this, Lydia ordered a Po Boy.  We’d not had Po Boys before, and in my lead up to the trip I found a cool website about the history and significance of them to the area, and I texted it to Lincoln and Lydia to help them prepare for what was to be a good surprise.  Dad is adapting to the times for these growing and maturing kids.  😉

While Jenn and I finished our meals, the kids got to watch the guys on the boilers sorting and cooking the crawfish.  Just a cool experience we don’t get at home.  And we finished off the evening with bread pudding from a waffle iron.  Oh, my! We would soon find out bread pudding is apparently the official dessert of the South.

To get away from the city a bit, and to take in another aspect of Louisiana culture, we drove out across the bayous to Oak Alley Plantation.  We’re sensitive to the dual aspects of plantation life, the importance of the landowners in Southern society as well as the gravity of the slavery culture and the darkness it represents.  We’d heard Oak Alley didn’t sufficiently portray the slavery aspect of the experience, but our visit did not support this claim.  Our tour of the Big House was very neat; learning of what life was like for the plantation owner was fascinating.

<tangent>Our guide… the information she provided on her own and through the prompting of Jenn’s questions was very good… her presentation was simply awful.  So while we engaged the kids in learning about plantations and slavery, we also got to discuss with them the importance of presentation; how one might have great information, but if the delivery sucks, nobody wants to hear it. We’re always looking for teaching moments with the kids, and sometimes they come when you least expect it.</tangent>

Outside the Big House, make sure to order a Mint Julep as you stroll the rest of the grounds.  And be sure to take in a recounting of the lives of various slaves on the plantation as told by an Oak Alley historian.  Holy cow, was that a blight on mankind’s history.

Lydia recalled, “I liked how it showed both sides of the story, the slave’s and the master’s.  I liked the paintings in the Big House, too, and also the big fan in the dining room.  The talk outside by the slave quarters was also very good.”

For dinner we followed a second recommendation of Trechelle’s, and we made the short drive over to Cochon.  This was another fabulous New Orleans meal.  Lydia ordered gumbo, Henry ordered gator (!), and Lincoln went with rabbit and dumplings.  For real!  Jenn was so proud. 

Jenn had a fish dish and I had the title dish, the pork chop.  This was truly a meal that we all passed around the table, enjoying bites from each other’s dishes.  Same with our desserts, German chocolate pie and pineapple upside down cake.  I’m quite sure the plates were clean before they made it back to the kitchen.

The next morning we arrived at the National WWII Museum just before it opened.  It was a Monday, and it was packed.  I can’t imagine visiting on a weekend, or God forbid a holiday such as Veterans Day.  I’m not going to itemize each individual interpretive display within the museum, but suffice it to say it was second to none.  And it’s not even close.  The combination of information, artistic display, and flow is simply wonderful and powerfully communicates the gravity and importance of all aspects of the war.  Sure, our younger kids weren’t as enthralled as Jenn or I, but the exhibits spoke to them on their level, as well as to us on ours.  This museum truly is a treasure, and I look forward to the day I can return and catch up on much that I missed.  There simply weren’t enough hours for us to take it all in on this stop.

Jenn added, “It was huge; I couldn’t possibly take it all in on one day. It was the most well-done history museum I’ve ever seen. In fact, the best museum, period.”

After the museum, we lunched at The Court of Two Sisters, for a buffet of all dishes New Orleans (Lincoln enjoyed duck!) and live jazz.  We so would have liked to incorporate more jazz into our visit, but there just wasn’t enough time to squeeze it all in.  Getting the sampling at this lunch served as a good seed to plant in the minds of the kids for times in the future when we can listen to jazz and recall our Louisiana tour stop.

Lincoln’s favorite part… “The fact that it was a buffet, I mean, come on.  And I loved the duck.”  Lydia’s favorite: “Bread pudding!”

Of course no visit to New Orleans, apparently, is complete without a stroll through the French Quarter, or a ride on the St. Charles streetcar, or a plate full of beignets, or seeing a few dozen mentally ill homeless men on and around the streets.

We experienced all of this in between the events itemized above, and while we were planning on leaving for Mississippi early on our final morning, we decided to push back our plans, and hire a guide to lead us around the Garden District, with its beautiful homes and pretty landscaping.  Jackie of Lucky Bean definitely held up her end of the bargain.  We had wonderful weather, and we got to hear some really neat stories about the history of the neighborhood.

After a lunch at the Rum House, and meeting some locals at the table next to us (s/o to Chlo and Chloe, along with Chloe’s two cute daughters), we set off for Ocean Springs, Mississippi, and the pleasant drive along the bayous and beach on the way.