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Introduction
This post continues from the previous entries:
New Orleans Day 1 — Part 2 of Chestnut’s 2021 Christmas Year-End Mega Trip.
As usual, I started the morning by taking a photo out the Hotel window. You could see mist formed by moisture from the Mississippi River rolling in toward the west bank.
That is very much a defining trait of New Orleans as a city — it sits so close to the Mississippi River, and with the surrounding wetlands, everything at ground level always seems damp.
Lake Pontchartrain
First stop: picking up the rental car from Enterprise. Rental cars were insanely expensive those days, and New Orleans itself is a pretty compact city, so most of the time there was no need to drive. I only rented a car for one day.
That said, I made a mistake while booking and selected the wrong pickup/drop-off location myself. Fortunately, the lady at the Enterprise counter was very nice. She checked and saw they still had cars available, then transferred my reservation directly to their location. Crisis averted... Luckily NOLA was not short on cars. If this had been somewhere like Hawaii, I might have ended up with no car at all.
BTW, on the way to Enterprise I passed this spot — Robert E. Lee Circle. The statue of General Lee had already been removed from the pedestal, leaving behind a lonely dummy column... It almost felt like General Lee must have been pretty depressed. At this point he must be ready to flip his coffin lid open — what exactly did I do wrong? Lose the war?
For the rental, I picked this familiar old friend — a Nissan Versa! I drive a Nissan myself, and when I rent a car, I still rent a Nissan. No desire to change anything.
That was the interior. The moment I sat in the driver’s seat, I realized just how many electronics cars have nowadays. No wonder automakers keep blaming chip shortages for production constraints. With my personality, if chips were in short supply, I would absolutely replace everything in the car with mechanical gauges and a mechanical odometer, and in the end I’d probably even convert the engine to hand-crank starting. I bet hardly anyone now has seen how cars used to be hand-started back in the day. Very much my style: as long as it runs and the system accepts it, that’s good enough.
A funny story here: after I posted this photo in a group chat, one friend said, “Chestnut, if you’re renting a car, at least rent one with CarPlay.” I said, “This one probably has it, but I don’t know how to use it.” Then the friend replied, “Plug in a USB cable — CarPlay might just start by itself!”
Sure enough, after following that advice and plugging in the USB cable, CarPlay started right up. Nice!
After a short drive, I arrived at Lake Pontchartrain. It really felt endless.
Do mallards practice monogamy too? They all came in pairs and looked so affectionate. :)
The seagulls here were much smaller than the ones in California, and mostly white. In California there are lots of large brown-and-gray seagulls with a rather bandit-like color scheme, and they’re not cute at all.
When seagulls are smaller, they look kind of cute. Once they get too big, it’s not the same... Actually that applies to just about everything in the world: small is cute, and once it grows up, it’s over... Come to think of it, why does that feel like I’m talking about myself?
New Orleans Botanical Garden (Struck Out Again)
According to the plan, it was only about 15min to drive from the lake to the botanical garden. But when I got there, I was stunned — just like New Orleans restaurants, the botanical garden had its own little attitude and its own regularly scheduled closed days each week. My bad luck really hit the extreme this time: once again, my itinerary collided perfectly with a closed date.
With no other choice, I just wandered around the nearby green space instead. The scenery around there was pretty nice too. Of course, given my interests, the most attractive thing to me was this narrow-gauge railway in the woods.
Without a comparison, it’s hard to tell how narrow the gauge is. Compare it with my size 11 shoe and you’ll get the idea.
But there was one more problem — this little train also wasn’t operating when I showed up. Speechless... At that point, it felt like my terrible luck was practically glowing.
So instead, I took photos of the big white geese on the lake. They seemed like the same type as the ones at LA Santa Fe Dam.
These thin thread-like plants hanging from the trees looked like some kind of parasitic plant.
Wetlands by the Mississippi River
My main target had originally been old Fort Macomb by Highway 90, but unbelievably... it was closed too. I’m honestly impressed with my own luck.
What can you even see through all that grass? At that moment I really regretted not having a drone. If I’d had one, I could have launched it from the bridge, and at the risk of dropping it into the water, I probably could have gotten some shots of Fort Macomb.
With no better option, I drove back and stopped by a wetland park instead.
Tulane University
After a lap around the wetland park, I drove over to Tulane University. I applied there 12 years ago, but never got an offer. Now all of that is ancient history... Well, I’m generally easygoing, but I do hold grudges, so I absolutely had to come take a look.
A quick shot of the school’s logo: TU.
PS: I forgot to bring a pencil for a photo — otherwise I could’ve done a little “pencil test / side-eye test” joke.
Tulane University’s mascot is pretty amusing — what even is this thing... a flood baby?
I looked it up, and its official name is Green Wave.
There was even this on campus: a streetcar model.
I bought a cup of PJ coffee and had the rabbit hold it for an artsy photo.
Tulane University’s signature main building, plus the streetcar running along St Charles to the south.
This streetcar looked much older than the ones on Canal St. It even had that true old-school green-car style — like 22/22B/25B — with no air conditioning and windows that open.
Let me complain about New Orleans infrastructure again here... What exactly happened to this utility pole? Neck problems plus a herniated disc?
The building next to it does not belong to Tulane; it belongs to Loyola University.
Mississippi River Levee and Huey P Long Bridge
Before sunset, I drove to the riverbank to catch the sunset over the Mississippi River.
Someone was actually raising chickens on the levee — free-range chickens, no less.
In the distance was Huey P Long Bridge — a double-track railroad bridge in the middle, with roadway sections on both sides.
This railroad bridge is said to be the longest railroad bridge in the United States, at 7009m. I got fairly lucky when I arrived: a freight train had been stopped on the bridge by a signal, which let me capture this shot.
As the sun set, another day came to an end.
Summary
Dinner was once again at the usual place.
The familiar view outside the window — one photo a day, as always. It was almost infuriating: the weather stayed cloudy all day, and then suddenly started clearing up at night...
Want to know what happens next? Stay tuned for the next installment!