Other states, other lives, other souls

Before leaving Minneapolis a friend who had been there said she had taken a bike tour in New Orleans and it was fun. We brought our road bikes on this monthlong trip down the Mississippi River, along with our kayaks. We booked an AirB&B in the Lake View neighborhood, which is near Lake Ponchartrain and the City Park. We had only been in the French Quarter in previous work-related trips, so we knew little about the rest of the city. In general, why bike around?
1. You are going to be eating calorie-dense food, so how do you plan to burn those?
2. You will be going downtown. How do you plan to park?
3. Driving a car around is too fast to see the city. Just walking around is too slow, unless you just want to stick in the French Quarter.
4. New Orleans is flat, so no particular fitness is required.
5. NOLA is varied, ethnically, economically, and historically. You want to see it all.

With those admonitions in mind, we started to experiment. The first night, Friday, we drove to Lakeshore Drive to have happy hour raw oysters. Yum! But beware of the horseradish sauce. Creole wasabi! A busy intersection and darkness made us nervous about biking. The band was all covers so we did a quick google search search and used GPS to find a hole-in-the wall bar called Chicki-Wah-Wah on Canal Street. What luck! Tiny, two seats available at the bar, $10 cover and an amazing band: the South Austin Moonlighters. A mix of country rock, blues, jazz–mostly their own music. A chance to talk to the musicians at break. They had some Minneapolis experience, so in the next set they did a piece about the 35W bridge collapse!

The next morning our AirB&B host Diane took us on a 90 minute car tour of highlights of the city. That was invaluable for giving us the confidence to take off on our own biking, instead of an organized tour. Don’t fence us in!

We took off at 10:45 on bikes to find the District Donuts place nearby she insisted was the real deal and, most importantly, no line! “Never wait in line”,  she advised. We took that to heart as tourists. After a lovely outdoor brunch we got ready to jump on our bikes to head back to City Park, where the Art Museum was. We had used Phil’s “Barbie” lock–a thin cable lock with a four digit combination. But what was that combination again? The remembered numbers didnt seem to work. There were 3 numbers in some combination for sure–3, 6 and 2. We started writing down and eliminating all the possible combinations of 3, 6 and 2, but none of them worked!

We probably had an audience at District Donuts, but no one called the police. What to do? Phil scheduled an Uber to take us to the closest hardware store to buy a wire cutter suitable for Barbie’s lock. We walked the one mile back to the bikes, to avoid another $13 charge. Snap! Again, no police were called. Phil rode back to the car to drop off the wire cutter and returned in short order. What were we doing again? Oh yes, riding to the City Park to see the Art museum. About a half hour ride along pretty quiet streets and then a dedicated trail along Wisner canal and then continuing into the park. GPS works for bikes too. The museum was great. Art in Bloom, a common spring event at museums, was still there with many spectacular and gaudy displays befitting the NOLA aesthetic.

We rode back, even more confidently, rested, and drove off to the Three Muses in the French Quarter to partake of some of the St. Patricks Day revelry. Sazeracs and a jazz combo hit the spot, followed by a stop on Frenchman’s street for sidewalk jerk chicken, red beans and rice at midnight. Delicious! We don’t recommend biking at night downtown, which we didn’t.

On Sunday, following Diane’s advice, we rode again to City Park and stopped for lattes, beignets and muffuletta at Morning Call–before the tour bus lines started. We then rode to the eastern edge of the park, locked up our bikes, and hopped on the red Canal Street streetcar to go to the end of the line at the Mississippi River. One hour of relaxed looking out the window at the changing scenes.

At the river was the Aquarium, which was delightful. One can walk the river walk as well, but we opted for a late lunch at Grand Isle in the Convention District. More yummy fresh seafood. After that we walked around the French Quarter and ended up at Jackson Square where a giant amateur marching band was playing. By then it was past 6:30 at a time when sunset was 7:15. We scurried back to the Canal streetcar. By the time we got back to the park and our bikes, it was dark. A new challenge! Phil took the lead because he had the headlight and I only had rear lights. We rode back to the Art Museum, but then we felt confused about which was the most direct way back onto the Wisner canal trail. Up ahead we saw a dozen bicycles with bright colored lights around their wheels, stopped under a shelter. We went up to get directions. They were a group who meets for bike rides every Sunday evening. They assigned one of their best to take us elders to the main trail. Before long we were reoriented and on our way home, loving the quiet, cool night riding, when the law of gravity seems repealed as we flew along.

On our last day, Monday, Phil set a goal of finding the newish Lafitte Greenway into downtown.

First we rode back to City Park to stroll the Sculpture Garden next to the Art Museum.  A gorgeous place with lots of interesting pieces–highly recommended. This was where GPS came in handy. Starting from Lake View neighborhood we twisted and turned and backtracked a little until we finally found the Greenway. It was not stressful because the neighborhoods were residential without a lot of traffic and the sunny spring day was fine. Lafitte is fun because because there are no cars and it goes through various neighborhoods, like Treme of the 2010 HBO series, Treme. There were almost no other cyclists, but it was a Monday and not the height of the tourist season.

Suddenly the Greenway ended and we were dumped into the center of the French Quarter, with noise and traffic everywhere. Our plan was to return through the Garden District, but how to get there? No dedicated trail. No bike lanes in sight. A tidge of panic. Then, stopped on the sidewalk, we began to notice that some of the narrow oneway streets had the bike 🚲 share symbol painted on them. We google-mapped the way to the Garden District, identified a good sounding lunch place in it, and took off down the marked street. Suddenly the busy unfamiliar downtown tourist scene didn’t seem threatening anymore.

We were back in the B&B by 5, changed clothes and drove off for one more round of raw happy hour oysters before leaving the city the next day for Cajun country. In summary, biking gave us a mind map of the city, which is not very big. We saw the varied types of housing: old French side-by-sides, Spanish iron work, tiny lots, big elegant homes, We chatted with people. We saw who was walking, bussing, biking, driving. We did not feel frightened to explore. We imagined what it would be like to live in New Orleans. We gloried in the 70 degree sunshine, remembering the winter we had left behind.