Day 240 - New Orleans City Tour

  Today is Hop-on-Hop off Bus day. Since Paul can\"t walk very far, we figured this was the only way we were going to get to see the city. Happily the main office and stop 5 was a reasonable walk from the RV park, so after a quick hot tub to get limbered up (mostly Paul) we made the 10.30 bus. (Its a 1.5 hour tour not counting getting off, so we figured that was about right.)

The tour went thorough the French Quarter, the Garden District, Downtown, the Irish Canal, and the borders of a few other neighborhoods. It was only the second day that the bus tour was up and running which was lucky for us. You could tell, the tree libs kept hitting the bus since it hadn't trimmed them in a year...

The view from the top of the double decker bus was great, you could see down the side streets. I won\"t recount the history here (at least now) but we learned a lot about the city. We went through the site of the 1984 World\"s Fair which was the last time I was in New Orleans. It was the rundown part of town then, now the trendy old warehouse turned into expensive loft condos area now.  My family took the train from St Louis to go to the fair. Apparently they are going to try and increase the train service again now...

We stopped for lunch at the stop we were told had the most restaurants. The Vintage looked like it was serving what we wanted, so we stopped there. We were not disappointed. Side walk dining, great sandwiches, gator poppers, beignets. A classic New Orleans experience. 

Then back on the bus to finish our tour. As my son had managed not to pack any nice pants, and we had noticed the outlet mall on the bus tour, we went back to achieve that shopping chore. Amazingly we found some that fit fairly painlessly. And a we got to gaze at the mighty Mississippi, which we had last seen when it was a fairly short crossing by bridge that we almost missed noticing. 

Our RV site came with a gazebo so we made good use of it for dinner and then crashed.

Day 239 - New Orleans - The French Quarter

We left the KOA near the airport for our Harvest Host Brewery stop. It had been suggested by the KOA that we stop at the Dot's Dinner just down the street (which we discovered was owned by the same family that had the KOA) and it being a classic dinner and we were hungry, seemed like a good plan.

It was pretty much everything we expected, service was friendly, food was classic dinner, ambience was the same. As a bonus we profitably used the time until we could check in at our next spot.

Then we headed for our Harvest Host, Faubourg Brewing Co., a brewery by the river, and it turned out near the Folger's Coffee plant (smelled great!). It was a large brewery, big tasting room, big outside venue for music, nice big parking lot with an RV section. Two downsides, Verizon had no bars of data, and the brewery wifi was down, due to storms. As we had homework and work to do, that wasn't not going to do it. Also, despite being told we could get in and out (At least for a an Uber after 8 PM) but we could not see how that worked. So we moved to plan B/C which turned out to be the expensive RV Resort in the French quarter. That turned out to be the place we wanted to be as it was close to everything and Paul's mobility was pretty limited.

After getting set up, we made reservations at Broussard's, a classic New Orleans restaurant where we made sure we had the full Cajun cuisine treatment. The food was excellent, it was a bit cold for the courtyard but the dining room was very fancy.

Afterwards we walked down Bourbon Street, found both the hotel that my parents and I stayed at when we visited for the World's Fair and Pat O'Brian's where my parents bought me my first (legal purchased) drink. A hurricane. They did not appear to be open when we walked by (as in just closed).

So we continued along Bourbon Street, which was full of people doing what people do on Bourbon Street which slightly scandalized the children, not being used to Fraternity Row about midnight.  We went along about 4-5 blocks to soak up the ambience. Then the kids said we could go home, anytime.

As I was still hobbling along on my walking stick dodging drunk people, I, at about block 5 said, okay, time to call the Uber.  We called, no Uber. Lyft! I said. No Lyft.  Well I said, if we get off of Bourbon Street a few blocks we will have more luck....

5 blocks toward the RV park and still nothing.  10 blocks still nothing, well, maybe in 21 minutes. At this point, we were only 0.3 miles or so from the RV park, and I declared that I was not too tired to keep going. Maggie was providing stability on my left and I had my walking stick on my right. So what if I was pretty much still using a walker a week or two ago, what's a few more blocks.

It took a while but we passed the Covenant House that I had seen earlier, and the police station, and the train station, and I knew we were kind of close, then I saw the building under construction next to us and we were home free.

It was after 11, and that was probably as far as I had walked in the last month in total in an evening, but there we go! Success!! A great evening.

Day 238 - Reno to New Orleans - Family Reunion

Having received grudging clearance from my Neurologist to continue the trip, and a welcome ride to the airport from a friend, Tyler and I hop a plane from Reno to New Orleans. The wheel chair drivers were very nice, Southwest was great about getting me on the plane. The trip passed without much incident.  We arrived at the shiny new New Orleans airport, got our Uber to the KOA I found near the airport, and after three weeks had a family reunion.

Lake Tahoe from the air...

South Lake Tahoe from 20,000 feet

South Lake Tahoe (in the distance) from 7,260' "Where the rest of the Snow is" (tm)

We ordered pizza. and got ready for our big adventure in New Orleans. 

Day 237 - Florida to New Orleans

This is a stub, Stephanie and Maggie had three weeks traveling without the author.

I'll  have to recreate this section this from their Facebook posts. But not today.

Day 216 - The Trip Resumes in Florida

Stephanie and Maggie go to pick up the RV after three months in the shop. They say its finally fixed.... RV repairs are not fast.

Paul is at home in Tahoe with his parents (who flew in to execute the recuperation rescue) hoping the recovery picks up enough that he can rejoin when the next set of Southwest tickets come up in mid-April.

At this point your author is still pretty much on a walker after two neck surgeries and can't go up and down stairs, much less do things like hike and drive.

----

Update, after two weeks, Paul has progressed to the point that he can walk with a cane, get up and down stairs, and just in the last couple of days that his parents were there, drive....

After two weeks, Paul was somewhat recovered and could walk and drive. 

And yes its still snowy in Incline. Not so much in Florida.

Details about the Florida part as your author pieces them together from Facebook posts....

And now a brief two month break in our trip for Ski Season!

Having had a fabulous shoulder season not being in Tahoe, but rather being at or near the beach in Florida, its time to go back to Tahoe and enjoy ski season!  So its drop off the RV to get it repaired and then drop off the rental car at the airport and head home.

So from now until mid-February no more travel, except up and down the ski-slopes. Time to catch up on some homework, and see if we can pack our usual 30-50 days into a shorter ski season....

(final note, it hasn't snowed in quite a while at home, it dumps on the day we get back, Uber comes though (no cars, no cars, no cars, 4 wheel drive giant SUV for the win!) Home at last!

Classic Mt Rose

Mt Rose

View from home is not so bad... But we aren't in Florida anymore.

Apere Ski

Mt Rose Resort (actually Slide Mt.)

Nothing like Mt Rose Pizza!

Day N Deep Valley Campground

We woke up and it was kinda of cloudy and raining, and after a discussion with the nice couple who owed the campground and they let us have a really late check out, so we decided to stay the day and get some work done. The couple had bought the park as a semi-retirement investment and lived above the office.

It is a really nice campground, a fairly large number of full or regular residents and maybe a dozen overnight spots. There was a pool (which had just closed for the season - and it was cold and rainy anyway) a game room and a large open air covered area with couches and tables where we did most of our work. 

The game room had an air hockey table which we made good use of.

There were also quite a number of cats which made Maggie happy.

We left Deep Valley at 3.40 PM and headed for the Smokey Mountains.