New Orleans

New Orleans: City of jazz! City of seafood! City of — wait a moment.... Why were we going to New Orleans? We don't like jazz and seafood!

Actually, we had a pretty good time. The fun started with a trip to the UCM Museum — that's the "You-See-'Em" Museum — showcase of the eccentric creations and collections of Louisiana artist John Preble. Upon entering the gift shop via a restored 1950's gas station, we were pulled immediately into the spirit of the place: Even the gift shop's walls and ceiling are covered entirely with bottle caps, license plates, and printed circuit boards and other electronics. Such commodities as angel snot and armadillo handbags may be purchased at this strange little store. Also for sale, of course, are tickets to the actual museum.

Inside the main exhibit, we found miniature "animated" scenes (in most cases, pushing and holding a button would cause one figure in the scene to move in an almost imperceptible way) of typical New Orleans establishments and celebrations. The "Martians at Mardi Gras" exhibit featured more motion than did most, and music, as well. There were also such products of the artist's imagination as Darrel the Dogigator and the 22-foot Bassigator. These were called "live exhibits," because, presumably, one is alive when viewing them.

The "House of Shards" is a stucco building covered over with a mosaic of broken glass, pottery, mirrors, and dishes. It was actually quite lovely in a nice-to-look-at-but-not-in-our-neighborhood sort of way. The last stop on our self-guided tour took us to the artist's studio, where he was apparently working on some more mainstream pieces (some of his work is featured at the New Orleans Museum of Art), as well as another human-alligator hybrid for his own warped collection.

Having enjoyed our morning at the UCM Museum, we crossed the seemingly endless Causeway Toll Bridge over Lake Pontchartrain into New Orleans proper. There we visited historic Metairie Cemetery and wandered among the grand tombs of important old families of New Orleans. Some of the crypts were quite impressive and immaculately maintained, while others had fallen into dreadful states of disrepair. Those were the ones we found most intriguing, of course.

We spent more than an hour among the towering monuments before making our way to the famous French Quarter, where we had planned to have lunch and take in a walking tour. Our lunch turned out to be only barely edible (Don't these people ever eat anything but seafood?), and we only managed to walk a few blocks through the crowded, foul-smelling streets before we were thoroughly disenchanted with New Orleans and ready to take our leave.

We did find a brief respite from the stinky streets and the audacious solicitors populating them by ducking into majestic St. Louis Cathedral. Built in a much simpler architectural style than cathedrals we have toured in other cities (though it did remind us a bit of our visit to the Magic Kingdom), this one had enough charm to lure us into spending some time examining the intricate details of the beautiful paintings that grace its great vaulted ceilings.

When we were ready to face the city once again, we held our breath and stepped back out into the bustling street. We stopped briefly to buy a beignet (a local pastry we had been told we must sample) on the way to our car. We had hoped to finish the tasty treat before getting back on the road, as we don't particularly care to have our car's interior coated with powdered sugar. As our luck (and latitude) would have it, we were interrupted by yet another torrential rainstorm. We stuffed the beignet into our mouths, rushed to our car, and left New Orleans behind us as fast as we safely and legally could.

After about four hours on the road, we have stopped for the night in Beaumont, Texas, home, we're told, of the world's largest fire hydrant. We'll look for that tomorrow before pressing onward toward Houston and San Antonio. Only a few days remain of this wonderful trip we've been sharing with you, and we intend to make the most we can of them!