The Royal Sonesta, with it’s raw bar called Desire, on Bourbon Street. We always got rooms on the other side of the hotel — quieter at night that way.When I was younger, I visited New Orleans with my parents frequently. My mother loves the French Quarter: my parents honeymooned at the Royal Sonesta. We always stayed when we went to New Orleans for my parent’s professional conferences. I remember going there as a very young girl and having my imagination fired by the feeling you get of being in another world.
The only other place I’ve visited on the North American continent that looks like the French Quarter is Montreal. And no wonder, since they were both primarily built by the French. I’ve never been to France, but I’ve always imagined it looking like these places. It’s a wonderful place to walk around and dream of travel, which was one of my favorite activities as a child. As an adult, my life revolves around travel, as I dreamed it would.
When Richard said he wanted to visit New Orleans on the trip down I was ecstatic. I couldn’t wait to walk with him in the French Quarter and share some of my memories. But particularly, I wanted to enjoy some of the fantastic food with him. For me, the French Quarter is all about sensory experience: the look, the sounds, the smells and tastes.
But the French Quarter is not someplace you want to drive around. The streets are incredibly narrow, as you would expect for a 300+ year-old location. So the best strategy if you aren’t staying in a nearby hotel or at the French Quarter RV Resort (they have regular buses), would be to find a parking lot off Canal Street.
One of the Canal Lines streetcars that run up and down the center of Canal St.I recommend Canal because it’s a large street with lots of hotels off it, which often provide the lowest price for parking. Also, there are multiple stops for the Canal/Cemeteries and Canal/City Park/Museums streetcar lines. Harrah’s New Orleans Casino is at the bottom of Canal as well, if you are so inclined. Just be aware that you’ll have to turn left across the streetcar line to get to most of these hotels, and that the maze of streets in the French Quarter can be tricky with unpredictable one way streets (one of the many reasons you don’t want to drive in the French Quarter itself).
So we parked at the Astoria lot, which is valet. Not my favorite thing to do, but it was convenient to Bourbon Street. We visited during the day, which is my recommended time to see the French Quarter, unless you are a heavy partier and intend to use cabs to return to your hotel after drinking. On a Sunday there wasn’t a lot of folks on Bourbon St, so we walked down Bourbon to St. Ann to Jackson Square.
To me, Bourbon Street is a lot more fun in the daytime. You can look down the side streets and see all the little alleys and courtyards. You can stop and check out the history plaques and read about the buildings. When you hear good music coming out of a place, you can stop and listen. And you can do all this without drunks bumping into you!
St. Ann Street is a good one to cut down to Jackson Square. It runs parallel to Canal. It’s not a huge street, but it’s big enough to feel safe during the day. If you’re there at night, I wouldn’t recommend taking side streets unless you are in a group (I wouldn’t recommend going to Bourbon St. at night unless you are in a group, either). Although it has stores and museums and restaurants on it, you can also see that people still really live in the French Quarter, that it’s not all places that cater to tourists. It’s a living place.
From St. Ann, we came out on the top end of Jackson Square. Jackson Square is bounded by the river and Decatur St. (what I think of as the bottom) and the Presbytere, St. Louis Cathedral, and the Cabildo on the top, which line Chartres St., though cars can not cross the square on the top here. The Presbytere is part of the Louisiana State Museum, featuring a huge collection of Mardi Gras artifacts. The Cabildo was the seat of government during the Spanish colonial era. We didn’t have much time (seeing all three of these gorgeous sites would have taken all day), so we went in to the St. Louis Cathedral. Having recently visited several of the oldest churches in America in New York, we wanted to see St. Louis since it is a different architectural design.
The interior of Saint Louis Cathedral, built in 1727.St. Louis Cathedral is spectacular inside. Covered in brilliant murals, the Cathedral reflects some of the different cultures brought together in New Orleans: Latin on the murals, French on the Stations of the Cross, and Spanish and French influence in design and style.
One of the main driving architectural features of all cathedrals is a beautiful ceiling. The idea was to beautify these ceilings to guide the parishioner’s eyes upward, towards God. Other architectural features do this as well, but the spectacularly painted ceilings in St. Louis’ do it to perfection. I wanted to sit in the pews and cast my eyes upward all day.
But we weren’t just in the French Quarter for the sights. Soon our stomachs reminded us that we were here for food as well! We left the Cathedral and went down St. Peter to the nearby Gumbo Shop.
The Gumbo Shop’s sign hangs from a balcony on St. Peter’s Street.The Gumbo Shop is a small restaurant tucked into a converted residential space. There are three dinning areas: the front room, an outdoor courtyard, and the back room. It is an intimate space, but even at the end of the lunch rush, still not too loud. There was a line for seating when we got there, but everyone moved through pretty quickly.
My Crawfish Etouffee at the Gumbo Shop. Ooo-Eee was it good!We started with the grilled Boudin sausage appetizer. The Boudin was rich, with a snappy natural casing and a soft interior, perfect for smearing on a French roll. Richard got the Creole combination platter: shrimp creole, jambalaya, and red beans and rice. I snuck some tastes and the red beans and rice were perfect – porky with that long cooked bean creaminess and just the right amount of smokiness. The Shrimp Creole and Jambalaya were both tasty as well, but I could have eaten a bucketful of the red beans and rice. I got the Crawfish Etouffee. The sauce was made with a shrimp stock and that extra dark roux you find down here, liberally studded with crawfish tails. Unlike other Creole/Cajun sauces the Etouffee sauce is made with the traditional trinity — onion, carrot and celery — instead of the Creole/Cajun trinity — onion, carrot, and green bell pepper. We both emptied our plates.
Art vendors in Jackson SquareAfter the Gumbo Shop, we strolled leisurely around Jackson Square down to the river. Jackson Square is a center for arts production, so the fence around the park that occupies the center of the square is a walking gallery for local artists selling their wares – everything from fine art, mixed media, street performers, and even fortune tellers is on display here.
View of New Orleans Downtown from the French Quarter RiverfrontThe riverfront affords beautiful views of downtown and the Crescent City Connection Bridge. If the wind had not been so high, we could have sat and watched the ships make their way down to various terminals for hours. Especially if we had a couple of beignets and some coffee from Café du Monde. Unfortunately the line on a Sunday afternoon for both take out and dine in at the Café were way too long, so we just sat a while and admired the view.
From Decatur St there are several streetcar stations for the Riverfront streetcar. We took the Riverfront streetcar line back to Canal, then took the Canal/Cemeteries line back up to our parking garage. A word of caution about the Canal lines. Both the Cemeteries and the City Park/Museum lines go up the center of Canal St, so don’t worry about which of these you get on if you only want to go up Canal a coupl of blocks. But the stations are in the middle of the street, and crossing can be difficult, so watch traffic carefully.
Inside the Riverfront Line StreetcarIf you’re going to do a lot of traveling on the streetcars (seeing the Garden District from the streetcars – the St. Charles St line — is my mom’s personal favorite) then get one of the Jazzy Passes. Normal rate is $1.25 for one way with $0.25 for a transfer. The Jazzy Pass is $3 for one day, which can be ordered online. But you’ll want to allow 5 to 10 days for delivery, more details on NORTA’s Jazzy Pass page.
Around Jackson Square are plenty of places to sit and people watch.The French Quarter is, in my opinion, a magical kind of place that everyone should visit at least once in their lives. To truly see it, though, allow yourself more than an afternoon if possible. Even though you can get a little taste of everything in one afternoon, like we did, to really appreciate it, you’ll want to spend more time. New Orleans itself also has a lot to offer in terms of museums, cultural events, dining, and live music. Just make sure if you are planning to stay in one of the state parks outside of the city over a weekend to make reservations some time in advance, since these parks (Foutainebleau State Park, for example) fill up. Profiter de la vie et de la danse!
Driving into the Visone RV Boneyard, you can see all the RVs parked on the rolling hills.My mind has been totally blown by a visit to the Visone RV Boneyard. I guess I should explain. In London, Kentucky, lies one of the largest RV boneyards, if not THE largest east of the Mississippi. Not only can you go there and find spare parts in their warehouse, but you can also give them a list of needed parts and they will run out to the lots and try and find them for you.
Some of the RVs lined up on the Visone Lot.When we first drove in, we were shocked by the amount of RVs, specifically motorhomes, they had on their property. And then there was the damage. I’ve never seen so much shear damage around me. It was just completely mind-boggling, to see the condition some of the RVs here are in after experiencing fire or an accident.
A fire in a Monaco completely destroyed the entire driver’s side.The fire damaged ones, to my mind, were both the most impressive, and the most frightening. Fire is something that lays heavy on my mind sometimes. If a fire starts by the furnace or refrigerator, there isn’t much that can be done. You can do the safety-training stuff and aim the fire extinguisher, but there is a good chance that you will lose your RV. On the left is a Monaco coach after a fire in, I believe, the refrigerator area. The damage is extensive, and (as we discovered from talking to the guys here about the fire-damaged HR Scepter we were hoping to pull some cabinet doors from for a future project) the interior is nearly completely a loss. The featured image for this post is a close-up of some of the fiberglass damaged by the fire.
We were a little disappointed that we were not allowed to roam over the yards to seek out parts, but we understood why. A close friend had an accident out there, and their insurance company won’t allow them to let people roam at will anymore. But we were allowed to walk around some of the coaches in the yard, which was still exciting.
Down one of the aisle inside the Visone Warehouse.The warehouse is large and extensive. It contains nearly anything you could want for your coach, from cabinet fixtures to power inverters, to exterior covers. Some of the inventory is new, but mostly it is used parts pulled from the various coaches in the yard.
A visit to an RV boneyard has been something we’ve wanted to do since we started RVing, and Visone paid off in spades. Even though it’s a bit scary to see all the different ways our RV could, well, die, it’s still an amazing site to see all these RVs in one place.
We brought our purchases home and made our replacements. In addition to the door, we also bought several covers for our overhead florescent lights which had cracked, and therefore fell down at the slightest bump in the road. The new covers fit snug and don’t look to be going anywhere.
The hinge that broke on our OE door. Note the duct tape fix.Replacing the door was not an easy task. First we removed the old door (with the fridge off so it would not beep at us). With the door off, we removed the old, broken hinge. Then we striped the black trim off one side of the old door, and knocked the wooden panel out.
The new door on our kitchen table. Yes, we got thickburgers for lunch that day. 😉The panel is held in on the edges by runnels, but it is also glued on. At Visone they’d advised us that we could possibly encounter this, and they said to run a file underneath the panel to break the hold. We didn’t have a file, so we used brute, but gentle, force. We had the cuts of wood we’d used in the great cabinet lift of 2015 that we used to protect the wood as Richard hammered the panel out.
Together we slid the old panel onto the new door. That took some coordinated effort to jimmy properly in place.
Richard sitting before the door, preparing to do the replacement.Now we were ready to mount the new door. First we slid the new door into the upper hinge. Then I got down onto my back on the floor while Richard held the (now very heavy with the wooden panel) door in place. Seating the screws properly to attach the new door’s hinge to the bottom mount was difficult, but once they were properly in place with their washer, I was able to screw the new hinge bracket in place.
What an amazing day! We got a project accomplished and had our minds totally blown by the mass of all the RVs at Visone. Definitely a place worth seeing, but it is also a great online resource.
A travel blog of our adventures across the country.
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