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kevin_standleeToday was Museum Day, with a visit to what is reportedly one of the country's top museums: the National World War II Museum.
This was where we ended up eventually. This picture was taken from the base of the former Robert E. Lee monument at Lee Circle. But first we had to get there.
We're trying to get the hang of ordering breakfast from take-out places with enough lead time to realistically get the food. We did better today, but not a lot better.
Daisy Duke's is a local chain of restaurants, one of which is only 250 m from the hotel and has online ordering for take-out. We ordered a couple of seafood omelettes including hash browns topped with ham and mushrooms. The online ordering system said it should take 40 minutes. We arrived about 45 minutes after ordering. The restaurant was rammed full and had a big queue. Our order wasn't ready. It ended up taking between 20 and 30 minutes more. I wouldn't have minded that if their system could have given us a more accurate estimate of when to collect our food. One of the points of getting take-out back to our room is that we want to minimize the time we spend standing around dodging unmasked people.
The food itself was pretty good, though. There's another branch of this restaurant that is even closer to our hotel but doesn't have online ordering — you have to phone in the orders. I'm considering making an order tomorrow morning a bit earlier than this one by phone. This other location didn't look as busy as the one from which we ordered this morning when I checked it out today, so we might get better service.
After a fairly leisurely brunch in our room, we decided that we would take a crack at the World War II Museum, bought a timed admission ticket at a time that looked like it might be a little less crowded, and set off to walk to the museum via Carondolet Street and the famous St. Charles streetcar line.
The St. Charles line is temporarily cut back to Erato Street with a bus bridge from Canal Steet downtown. The one-way loop through Lee Circle, inbound on St. Charles Street and outbound on Carondolet is out of service for pavement replacement. The purpose is to strengthen the track and reduce the need for constant asphalt pavement repairs. This is a section of the un-renovated line.
This work involves removing the asphalt: the end of the existing asphalt is shown here at the point where they've removed asphalt and laid rebar prior to pouring concrete.
Here's a stretch where they're ready to start pouring concrete.
And here's where you can see how different the line will look with the rails concreted into the pavement rather than only in asphalt. This should significantly improve the ride and reduce maintenance costs.
Walking the tracks brought us to Lee Circle. This monument used to have a statue of Robert E. Lee on it. It was here the last time we visited New Orleans. The statue was removed in 2017. According to Wikipedia, officially the traffic circle is "Tivoli Circle" (the original name) while the area within it is "Lee Place." Online searches show conflicting information about what, if any, new name this area will get.
Our trackwalking done, we set out to the WW II Museum.
The museum is located on Andrew Higgins Blvd, named for the manufacturer of the Higgins Boat and related equipment. The opening section of the museum is dedicated to this boat, which was a key piece of equipment used during the war.
The next section has a train display with this departure board. I would have liked this better if the board periodically reset, with the characteristic clicker-clack of such mechanical indicator boards.
We only briefly passed through the "train car experience" exhibit.
The museum is trying to get people to stay safe, but there is apparently no indoor mask mandate at this time, and it seems unlikely that the museum would enforce it if there was one. Fewer than half of the people in the museum were masked, and it made both of us nervous. Also, much of the first few pavilions were mostly multi-media shows about the war with fewer actual artifacts, and Lisa has many of the documentaries on which those shows are based, so she passed through it relatively quickly in order to avoid crowding.
I did not get any pictures of it, but the section after the multimedia extravaganzas and the gift shop was more interesting. "Trench Art in World War II" is a temporary exhibit dedicated to hand-crafted bits and pieces made by soldiers in their spare time, either as prisoners of war or during what time they had when they weren't using the various machine tools at hand for their intended purposes of repairing equipment. There were all manner of things, from vases and candlestick holders fashioned from empty shells, to ashtrays (lots of those) to jewelry and musical instruments. I was much taken by a violin made by a POW from scraps of wood and clue scavenged in a German POW camp.
When it comes to artifacts, however, the Boeing Center / US Freedom Pavilion has big ones, in the form of all of these airplanes.
You could climb the stairs (or try to wait for an elevator) to get up high above the planes.
This meant getting really up close and personal with some of them.
We spent more than two hours at the museum, but eventually our energy started to flag and we made our way out. We briefly passed through the gift shop, but nearly everything there was made in China, which really annoyed Lisa, although it did not surprise her.
Not factored into our travel plans (which were originally geared around a circle trip that should have taken us on to Los Angeles, and had to happen on the exact dates when I could use my Amtrak Guest Rewards points) was that the Miami Dolphins were playing the New Orleans Saints at the Superdome this evening. That means a bunch of football fans flowed into the city, some of whom appear to have actually intended to attend the game, and the rest of whom just seemed interested in getting very drunk. But that also affected us trying to get dinner.
In addition, I've been trying to get a "vacation override" prescription refill. I miscalculated how much of one of my medications (Metformin) that I needed, and while my doctor's office agreed to send a prescription order ahead of me, the first attempt to send it to a Walgreen's near the hotel here in New Orleans failed, so I sent another request after getting the Amtrak mess sorted out. The prescription went through, but bounced because it's too early. So when we got back to the hotel room, I called the pharmacy with the information that my insurance plan gave me to allow them to refill it early. It's not expensive, but they wouldn't refill it at all without permission, which they managed to sort. They told me I could collect it after 5 PM (and before they close at 7 PM) or tomorrow.
I tried to work out online orders for pickup for dinner, but all of the places we originally considered weren't taking online orders this evening. We walked down to Mother's and discovered why: huge queues of people wearing football gear. The same was true of many other places. You couldn't put in a take-out order because they were overwhelmed with football fans. We retreated to the hotel, picking up some bits and bobs of groceries from Walgreens next to our hotel.
Trying to work out what to do, we had another problem with which to contend: the toilet backed up and flooded the bathroom. Lisa quickly shut off the water to the toilet to slow the flooding and spread towels to hold back the water. I couldn't get through to the front desk, and I knew why: the check-in queue for the hotel has been nearly out the door all day long today, presumably with football fans. I went downstairs and eventually found a bell captain, who was able to find engineering (who came to our room, unclogged the toilet, and brought a wet-vac to vacuum the water away) and housekeeping (who brought us a new complete set of towels).
Somewhat in desperation, we ordered a couple of pasta bowls from Domino's for pickup. There's a Domino's visible from our hotel room looking across Canal Street. Just before the 7 PM pickup time. we walked down to Walgreen's, picked up my prescription, then went to Domino's. When we got back to the room, we discovered that despite specifying no cheese on Lisa's order — it was a "make your own pasta" custom order — one of the people there tossed cheese all over it before putting it in the oven because of course everything has to be drowned in cheese. I submitted a negative review. Lisa made a dinner out of lunchmeat and other things we've bought over the past few days.
We've also been trying to deal with washing clothes. An earlier trip plan would have had us doing laundry in the Winnipeg suite during DisCon III, but it turned out that their suite was one of those that didn't have a washer/dryer, and we simply haven't had a chance to wash clothes on this entire trip. We've done little bits of stuff in the bathtub and sink in our various hotel rooms, but not a complete wash-up, and it's getting a bit desperate here at the end of the trip. The nearest laundromat we've found here in New Orleans is more than a mile away. The Crowne Plaza doesn't have a guest laundry. An earlier version of our trip plan had us staying at the Holiday Inn Express on Lee Circle (which does have a guest laundry), but they only have showers (no bathtubs), and Lisa needs a bathtub, so that was out. It's been challenging.
We really don't mind having our meals in the hotel room. It's relaxing, really, and we can watch videos on my computer thanks to decent internet connectivity.
Tomorrow is our last full day in New Orleans and thus the last full day staying in any city on this trip. We haven't made firm plans. We'll see how busy things are tomorrow.
This was where we ended up eventually. This picture was taken from the base of the former Robert E. Lee monument at Lee Circle. But first we had to get there.
We're trying to get the hang of ordering breakfast from take-out places with enough lead time to realistically get the food. We did better today, but not a lot better.
Daisy Duke's is a local chain of restaurants, one of which is only 250 m from the hotel and has online ordering for take-out. We ordered a couple of seafood omelettes including hash browns topped with ham and mushrooms. The online ordering system said it should take 40 minutes. We arrived about 45 minutes after ordering. The restaurant was rammed full and had a big queue. Our order wasn't ready. It ended up taking between 20 and 30 minutes more. I wouldn't have minded that if their system could have given us a more accurate estimate of when to collect our food. One of the points of getting take-out back to our room is that we want to minimize the time we spend standing around dodging unmasked people.
The food itself was pretty good, though. There's another branch of this restaurant that is even closer to our hotel but doesn't have online ordering — you have to phone in the orders. I'm considering making an order tomorrow morning a bit earlier than this one by phone. This other location didn't look as busy as the one from which we ordered this morning when I checked it out today, so we might get better service.
After a fairly leisurely brunch in our room, we decided that we would take a crack at the World War II Museum, bought a timed admission ticket at a time that looked like it might be a little less crowded, and set off to walk to the museum via Carondolet Street and the famous St. Charles streetcar line.
The St. Charles line is temporarily cut back to Erato Street with a bus bridge from Canal Steet downtown. The one-way loop through Lee Circle, inbound on St. Charles Street and outbound on Carondolet is out of service for pavement replacement. The purpose is to strengthen the track and reduce the need for constant asphalt pavement repairs. This is a section of the un-renovated line.
This work involves removing the asphalt: the end of the existing asphalt is shown here at the point where they've removed asphalt and laid rebar prior to pouring concrete.
Here's a stretch where they're ready to start pouring concrete.
And here's where you can see how different the line will look with the rails concreted into the pavement rather than only in asphalt. This should significantly improve the ride and reduce maintenance costs.
Walking the tracks brought us to Lee Circle. This monument used to have a statue of Robert E. Lee on it. It was here the last time we visited New Orleans. The statue was removed in 2017. According to Wikipedia, officially the traffic circle is "Tivoli Circle" (the original name) while the area within it is "Lee Place." Online searches show conflicting information about what, if any, new name this area will get.
Our trackwalking done, we set out to the WW II Museum.
The museum is located on Andrew Higgins Blvd, named for the manufacturer of the Higgins Boat and related equipment. The opening section of the museum is dedicated to this boat, which was a key piece of equipment used during the war.
The next section has a train display with this departure board. I would have liked this better if the board periodically reset, with the characteristic clicker-clack of such mechanical indicator boards.
We only briefly passed through the "train car experience" exhibit.
The museum is trying to get people to stay safe, but there is apparently no indoor mask mandate at this time, and it seems unlikely that the museum would enforce it if there was one. Fewer than half of the people in the museum were masked, and it made both of us nervous. Also, much of the first few pavilions were mostly multi-media shows about the war with fewer actual artifacts, and Lisa has many of the documentaries on which those shows are based, so she passed through it relatively quickly in order to avoid crowding.
I did not get any pictures of it, but the section after the multimedia extravaganzas and the gift shop was more interesting. "Trench Art in World War II" is a temporary exhibit dedicated to hand-crafted bits and pieces made by soldiers in their spare time, either as prisoners of war or during what time they had when they weren't using the various machine tools at hand for their intended purposes of repairing equipment. There were all manner of things, from vases and candlestick holders fashioned from empty shells, to ashtrays (lots of those) to jewelry and musical instruments. I was much taken by a violin made by a POW from scraps of wood and clue scavenged in a German POW camp.
When it comes to artifacts, however, the Boeing Center / US Freedom Pavilion has big ones, in the form of all of these airplanes.
You could climb the stairs (or try to wait for an elevator) to get up high above the planes.
This meant getting really up close and personal with some of them.
We spent more than two hours at the museum, but eventually our energy started to flag and we made our way out. We briefly passed through the gift shop, but nearly everything there was made in China, which really annoyed Lisa, although it did not surprise her.
Not factored into our travel plans (which were originally geared around a circle trip that should have taken us on to Los Angeles, and had to happen on the exact dates when I could use my Amtrak Guest Rewards points) was that the Miami Dolphins were playing the New Orleans Saints at the Superdome this evening. That means a bunch of football fans flowed into the city, some of whom appear to have actually intended to attend the game, and the rest of whom just seemed interested in getting very drunk. But that also affected us trying to get dinner.
In addition, I've been trying to get a "vacation override" prescription refill. I miscalculated how much of one of my medications (Metformin) that I needed, and while my doctor's office agreed to send a prescription order ahead of me, the first attempt to send it to a Walgreen's near the hotel here in New Orleans failed, so I sent another request after getting the Amtrak mess sorted out. The prescription went through, but bounced because it's too early. So when we got back to the hotel room, I called the pharmacy with the information that my insurance plan gave me to allow them to refill it early. It's not expensive, but they wouldn't refill it at all without permission, which they managed to sort. They told me I could collect it after 5 PM (and before they close at 7 PM) or tomorrow.
I tried to work out online orders for pickup for dinner, but all of the places we originally considered weren't taking online orders this evening. We walked down to Mother's and discovered why: huge queues of people wearing football gear. The same was true of many other places. You couldn't put in a take-out order because they were overwhelmed with football fans. We retreated to the hotel, picking up some bits and bobs of groceries from Walgreens next to our hotel.
Trying to work out what to do, we had another problem with which to contend: the toilet backed up and flooded the bathroom. Lisa quickly shut off the water to the toilet to slow the flooding and spread towels to hold back the water. I couldn't get through to the front desk, and I knew why: the check-in queue for the hotel has been nearly out the door all day long today, presumably with football fans. I went downstairs and eventually found a bell captain, who was able to find engineering (who came to our room, unclogged the toilet, and brought a wet-vac to vacuum the water away) and housekeeping (who brought us a new complete set of towels).
Somewhat in desperation, we ordered a couple of pasta bowls from Domino's for pickup. There's a Domino's visible from our hotel room looking across Canal Street. Just before the 7 PM pickup time. we walked down to Walgreen's, picked up my prescription, then went to Domino's. When we got back to the room, we discovered that despite specifying no cheese on Lisa's order — it was a "make your own pasta" custom order — one of the people there tossed cheese all over it before putting it in the oven because of course everything has to be drowned in cheese. I submitted a negative review. Lisa made a dinner out of lunchmeat and other things we've bought over the past few days.
We've also been trying to deal with washing clothes. An earlier trip plan would have had us doing laundry in the Winnipeg suite during DisCon III, but it turned out that their suite was one of those that didn't have a washer/dryer, and we simply haven't had a chance to wash clothes on this entire trip. We've done little bits of stuff in the bathtub and sink in our various hotel rooms, but not a complete wash-up, and it's getting a bit desperate here at the end of the trip. The nearest laundromat we've found here in New Orleans is more than a mile away. The Crowne Plaza doesn't have a guest laundry. An earlier version of our trip plan had us staying at the Holiday Inn Express on Lee Circle (which does have a guest laundry), but they only have showers (no bathtubs), and Lisa needs a bathtub, so that was out. It's been challenging.
We really don't mind having our meals in the hotel room. It's relaxing, really, and we can watch videos on my computer thanks to decent internet connectivity.
Tomorrow is our last full day in New Orleans and thus the last full day staying in any city on this trip. We haven't made firm plans. We'll see how busy things are tomorrow.
no subject
Date: 2021-12-28 06:40 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-12-28 03:25 pm (UTC)Lisa says, "Even better would be for the train to have to hold for a long time at Fernley, long enough for them to let us out across from our house." She's right, too.
no subject
Date: 2022-01-02 05:32 am (UTC)