New Orleans, part 2 (friend weekend and Mardi Gras)

March 14, 2018 by Galia in new orleans

My apologies, Tinker Trailerers, for such a long gap in posting. A lot has happened! All good stuff, but not a lot of time to blog. So let's go back in time together and finish out our trip to New Orleans...

Right after I last posted, our besties Tony and Dane met us in NOLA. Dane had never been before, and they were only there three days, so that meant we had to cram ALL THE THINGS (er, all the food?) into basically a weekend. A feat we were all up for, all succeeded at, and all turned into contented blobs of jello as a result of. A few of the highlights:

Surprise parade throwing beads at our heads on our way to dinner at Jacque Imo's. Walking around looking at houses in the Garden District. Airboat tour of the swamp which felt like a roller coaster (also gators and nutria!). An armadillo burrowing (who knew?) at the Oak Alley Plantation. Late night beignets. Praline bacon at Elizabeth's. Cocktail tour with our trusty guide, Joe. Boucherie dinner, and Camellia Grill breakfast.

It was SO FUN to have friends come visit us on this trip, and I hope it happens again. I thought there might be one of those weird moments where one part of your life (San Francisco) mashes with another part of your life (New Orleans) in an uncanny way, but it felt like the most natural thing in the world for people we love so much to be in a place we love so much. It was really hard to say goodbye again, though, and the weekend definitely ended with us awkwardly standing in the driveway giving hugs over and over and saying, "... well... bye?..." I'm learning how frustrating it is to try and tell people how much they actually mean to you. Words don't quite do it.

After they left, it was life as usual. Which means multiple days a week there was a parade going by our house. You know... just a normal Thursday in the neighborhood.

For those of you who aren't particularly familiar with Carnival and Mardi Gras, here's how it generally works in New Orleans: January 6th, which is Twelfth Night (after Christmas), kicks off Carnival season. Carnival is basically a period of celebrating life and enjoying yourself until Ash Wednesday, which is the start of Lent. Mardi Gras (fat Tuesday) is the day before Ash Wednesday, and is the culmination of the Carnival Season. The date of Mardi Gras changes every year, because it's based on whenever Easter is, which then changes the date Lent would start. The sole purpose of the holiday is to just enjoy life.

In New Orleans, the entire Carnival season is littered with parades. Dozens of them. And NOLA doesn't do parades like other people do parades. The floats are multiple stories high, filled with dozens of people. In between each float are countless marching bands, dance groups, artists, Elvises, you name it. And they're participatory -- the people on the floats throw things into the audience (called "throws"), including beads (lots of beads) but also stuffed animals, toys, decorations, bags, things that light up. Contrary to what the media shows, Carnival is actually really family friendly (except maybe down in the French Quarter). When a parade is scheduled, the entire neighborhood comes out, brings chairs and snacks, talks to each other and participates in the parade. There are tons of children running around catching things. It's surprisingly wholesome fun.

It was Mike's first Mardi Gras, so his first shock came when we started seeing the parades. First of all, he thought there would just be ONE parade. Because, that's how everyone else does it. Then we go to our first parade, and before each parade starts, there's a little procession of old cars and guys on scooters and firetrucks and all that. He said, "this is just like a parade in Findlay," not realizing that the real parade hadn't even started yet. He later admitted that they were, indeed, very different! The last revelation was really just about how truly fun they are. Before we went to the first parade, I tentatively said, "...do you think you'll have fun? Do you think you'll get into catching throws and everything?" He skeptically reassured me that he'd have fun even if he was just sitting, watching, not trying to catch things. Then, five minutes into the first parade, I see him shoving up to the front with his arms up, yelling for them to throw him something. It's amazing how overcome you get with a desperate desire to catch this cheap trinket off the side of the parade float. And yes, before you roll your eyes -- it would happen to you, too!

Mardi Gras day was a fun adventure, and I finally made it to the Zulu and Rex parades for my first time, which are some of the oldest and most iconic. A few parades, like Zulu, have really special throws that are highly, highly coveted. Zulu happens to throw decorated coconuts. The jovial, generous, polite, sharing crowd would suddenly turn into single-minded coconut-thirsty zombies as soon as you'd all catch a glimpse of one. And we got some!!! I was so proud.

But to continue with the theme of the rest of the trip, even six weeks in New Orleans felt too short, and we were sad to say goodbye. And we didn't even have people there to say goodbye to! It's really amazing how quickly a place can start to feel like home.

For anyone who's interested, I updated my New Orleans Travel List with all of my new favorites (and things that, in my mind, fell from grace). Next time you're in NOLA, I hope it helps! Feel free to share it.

We end up having so many long conversations that end in "you should have a blog!" that we decided to get these printed

Lemon meringue, coffee cake, and fluffernutter

Beyonce's house

Avocado "fries"

Unicycles only.

Mardi Gras World museum

Blue Bell king cake ice cream (the best ice cream in the world)

Okay maybe this king cake thing has gone a little too far

Finally found a use for all those beads

Tourists spotted in the wild

Haunted.

Not haunted.

New Orleans, part 1 (a photo essay in food)

January 19, 2018 by Galia in new orleans

I've been postponing the writing of this blog entry, because I realized that a list of all the stuff we've done would really just be a list of all the food we've eaten. While I know at least four people who would be thrilled to read that list (you know who you are), I'll spare the rest of you.

Okay, that was a lie:

We ate grilled mac & cheese sandwiches! What?! (We forgot to take a picture of the mac and cheese and bacon sandwich, but here's one of the "Big Cheezy")

There are six different types of cheese on this perfect cheesy specimen.

We also ate a fried bologna and potato chips sandwich at the restaurant that was recently voted the best new restaurant in America, which, in my totally pretentious opinion, was just okay. But look at the picture anyway! What?!

Fried bologna with potato chips

This is what they call a salad in the south

My kind of place.

We've done muffulettas and beignets, of course, and my favorite peanut butter bacon burger:

Before pb bacon burger

After pb bacon burger.

Central Grocery

Lebanon's

Cafe du Monde

Oh yeah, and this Vietnamese coffee flavored donut filled with sweetened condensed milk pudding and tapioca balls (though I have to admit, I preferred Gourdough's in Austin). Apparently we forgot to take a picture.For the mental image: it was large and looked like a donut.

We ate fried pepper rings and the biggest platter of fried seafood I've ever seen while watching the Saints' brutal defeat to the Vikings last weekend:

Fried bell pepper rings

Mountain o' fried stuff

And a poboy, too

Conquered.

Ouch.

And we went to my favorite restaurant in the world, Boucherie, where every bite of the meal lived up to my exalted memories and where the owner at least pretended to remember me and comped us some Krispy Kreme bread pudding (Mike's favorite):

Blackened shrimp + grit cakes; best boudin balls in the world

Krispy Kreme bread pudding with rum raisin ice cream

Plus the best hot toddy for a cold night

In an effort to maintain some semblance of normalcy and still get work done, we decided to stay in most weekdays and do New Orleans on the weekends. What this actually means is that I will be losing and gaining the same two pounds weekly until we leave here. (Worth it.)

How Well My Pants Fit At Any Given Time: A Graph

Since we've been here, I have learned about myself that, contrary to my previous belief that I have a terrible memory, I somehow can remember every restaurant I've ever been to and what to order there. Mike has learned about me that I suddenly care about football as soon as I enter the state of Louisiana. We are both surprised and amused.

Look! More pictures:

Opening act of a burlesque show: three women in spandex, wearing sparkly unicorn horns, dance and do aerial stunts to the music of Olivia Newton John, aka the Most Millennial Thing I've Ever Seen

One of a few empty statue bases around town. Regardless of your political views on this, it's interesting to see.

And here's a gargoyle. Just because.

The other adventure has been the cold! We thought we'd escaped it once we got here, but there's been a freak arctic blast here for the last few days, and New Orleans CANNOT DEAL. Before it even hit freezing temperatures, the schools all closed and the government shut down and nobody knew what to do with themselves. It lightly dusted snow that night, to the delight and confusion of all the locals, who giddily took pictures of the thin layer of white that wasn't even thick enough to obscure the sidewalk underneath. Some of the highways got shut down because of the ice, but apparently people are just moving the blockades and driving down them anyway. (I love this town.)

Nope.

Icicles on the RV

omg snooooooooooooow (sort of)

All of the clothes at the same time.

First, everyone was saying that you should turn on your faucets with a slow drip, to prevent your pipes from freezing and bursting. Now, the city is telling everyone to NEVERMIND JK TURN OFF YOUR WATER because running all the faucets put the city's water pressure to a dangerously low level which somehow hightens the risk of dangerous bacteria. So now the store shelves are empty of bottled water, and we've got a pot of water boiling on the stove. Fortunately (?) we now have plenty of practice living without drinkable running water, so, it's not bothering us, but I do hope that the rest of the people around town are able to stay warm and have access to clean water.

Meanwhile, our bedroom is the only room in the house that stays warm, so we're spending our days working in bed. Again, no complaints here!

Our BFFs Tony and Dane are coming to visit this weekend! Which means there'll probably be another post full of pictures of food next week. Don't say I didn't warn you.

On the road again...

January 16, 2018 by Galia in on the road, new orleans

San Diego to New Orleans in seven days:

Day 1:

Pack up the RV, long hugs, tearful goodbyes, hit the road
Land outside Flagstaff, AZ, at the Meteor Crater RV Park
First time camping in below-freezing temperatures! Have no idea what to do with that. Put antifreeze in the gray and black tanks, leave the tank heaters on, and don't put fresh water in the fresh water pipes. And crank the heat up, because Galia gets cold if it's less than 72.
Learn to appreciate RV parks with nice bathrooms.

Day 2:

Seriously, these bathrooms are nice.
Discover that our hubcaps were stolen. Seriously? Who steals hubcaps? Find most recent picture taken of the RV, realize they could have been stolen any time in the last month. C'est la vie!
Side trip to see the giant meteor crater! It was very big and cratery.
Drive to Santa Fe, NM, pick up my friend, Desiree, from work (in our RV!). Head to her house and meet her partner, Tiffany. Realize that Desi and I haven't seen each other for five or six years, which is a bummer, but also reaffirms my previous knowledge that I could go any amount of time without seeing Desi and it would feel like we'd seen each other the day before. We had a brilliant time with them both; they're such open, interesting, and reflective people that you feel like you can ask them any questions, and they can ask you any question, so you can get right to the meat of the interesting stuff. Mike immediately understood why these people are My People! Mike and I also learned that we can still achieve our goal of deep meaningful connection even if our stay is short. Deepest thanks to Des and Tiffany for opening up their home to us on a random Tuesday night, and right after they had previous guests leave, too! Obligatory New Mexico Mexican food (chile sauce on everything!), excellent conversation, and interesting stories made for a wonderful evening.

Day 3:

Oatmeal and coffee with Des before she goes to work
More driving! Head to Oklahoma.
Start running out of gas. Next gas station isn't for 25 miles; the following one is ten miles after that. Anxiously make it and pull in; the gas pumps are down. After some commotion, discover that at least the diesel is working, so we won't have to find out the hard way what happens when a giant RV runs out of gas in the middle of nowhere.
Long driving day with nothing much to look at. Getting exhausted. Learning that more than a couple days of driving in a row can be rough, and these 8+ hour days are pretty difficult.
Somewhere around here is when I start to realize that, while it's perfectly possible to work on the road, I simply just don't want to. I'd rather sit and watch the scenery (even if there isn't much to see) and hang out with Mike than be responding to emails. I do some work this week to stay on top of things, but finally admit to myself that I should probably just plan to not work on travel days. Luckily, there will be few times this year where we'll have as many in a row as this week.
But do learn how nice it is to be able to get takeout food and then eat it in your portable house instead of inside a fast food joint or gas station.
Make it to Oklahoma City; neither of us had been to Oklahoma before. It was so cold that the electric heater shut itself off in the middle of the night to protect itself from breaking. (That was a feature we were as yet unaware of.) We were low on propane, but luckily had enough to turn the propane heater on instead to get us through till the morning.

Day 4:

Spend a few hours exploring Oklahoma City. Yummy breakfast at a place called Hatch, then a cold but pleasant walk around town. Visit the Oklahoma City bombing memorial, warm up inside a beautiful big skyscraper, walk around a nice garden park, and check out the canal at Bricktown. Can't quite get a good read on OKC; seems like they're working really hard on redevelopment and revitalizing the city, but you still can feel the undercurrent of the people and places that they seem to be trying to erase over. Like any gentrifying town, this stress felt a bit uncomfortable to us as we appreciated the new but could still feel the old.
Fill up the propane, so we won't have to worry about the heat again!
Drive to Austin, with a stop for Galia's first-ever meal at Cracker Barrel.

Day 5:

Austin! A day of recommendations from my BFF, Earnest:
Late lunch at Magnolia Grill, walk around that neighborhood and see the iconic Welcome to Austin mural.
Get a Fat Elvis donut at Gourdoughs (with peanut butter icing, topped with grilled bananas and bacon).
Find a place to store the RV in New Orleans, but the owners say we have to send the paperwork in within an hour, so we go back to the RV park and Mike sends the paperwork while I take a post-sugar-rush power nap.
Back to downtown Austin. Look for a recommended coffee shop but it's not there anymore, so grab caffeine at a coffee shop that's inside a giant bike shop, make jokes about hipster towns.
See the capitol building, walk a few blocks down Sixth Street, walk to the water, then down Rainey Street (which I adored).
Lyft across the river, check out the view from this cute spiral hill, then get really yummy bbq at Terry Black's, followed by frozen custard at Sandy's. Pick up Tiny Pies to go, and head home.
Really nice to have a day off of driving just to hang out and have fun. I love Austin. If it were closer to anything/anybody else that I loved, I'd consider moving here.
Note: We are in the South now. Most of our pictures will be of food.

Day 6:

Since we have no fresh water in the RV due to low temperatures, we have to shower at the RV park showers. We made sure to book parks with super nice bathrooms, but the only issue in Austin was that the bathroom was really far away. This morning, I bundled up (it was still really cold), walked all the way there, unpacked all my toiletries and whatnot, and then realized I didn't bring a towel with me. Powered on anyway; used shirt to dry off. Laziness breeds innovation.
Drive south, with a stop in Katy for surprisingly delicious gyros from a restaurant attached to a gas station.
Meet up with Mike's sister, all get groceries and coffee. Her friends come over and we all hang out, order pizza.
Also, since we're comfy and with family, take the opportunity to do laundry and dishes!
Sleep in the RV in the driveway so she doesn't have to do our sheets. Reinforces how convenient this thing is.

Day 7:

Eat cereal all together, then have to take off and say goodbye.
Drive to Louisiana, with a stop in Scott to pick up boudin at Don's, at the request of our AirBnB host. (I love the people here.) Mike is in Meat Heaven; we walk out with boudin, a stuffed chicken, fresh beef jerky, and literally a pound of freshly fried pork skins. Welcome to Louisiana.
Make it to New Orleans. It's hard enough driving around New Orleans with a normal car -- you never know when you'll discover a huge pothole, downed electrical wire, or overgrown tree. But in an RV, it was downright traumatic. Every other street had a No Trucks sign, which we assumed to mean Do Not Enter If You're an RV Either Because We're Too Lazy to Trim These Trees in Particular, so we spent a really long time trying to find a way across town that wouldn't somehow end with property damage. But we made it!
We ended up renting a house here for our six week stay, because the only RV park that was right in town was literally more expensive, and since we won't have a car to get around, we felt it was important to have a place in town to stay so we can use the bus. As soon as we got here, I knew the decision was a good one -- the house is adorable, comfortable, an absolutely perfect location, and has plenty of space for us to settle in to life and work.
We unpacked the RV, and then took our second perilous journey back out of town to drop it off at an RV park in Belle Chasse. Jokingly reflect how little we're staying in our RV on this RV trip.
Back to the house, order in piles of fried food, including the largest pile of fried pickles I've ever seen. New Orleans, I'm happy to see you again.
Since then, we've been taking the opportunity to settle in, explore our neighborhood, and catch up on work (Galia) and rest (Mike). One really awesome thing about being in a town for such a long time is that you can take your time, explore the details, feel like you really live there, and not like you have to cram in every single meal and activity into a few days.