Vaca 2020 - Day 2, New Orleans WWII Museum

I'm probably not going to comment on a lot of these pics as there's really not a ton to say.   I will say this tho,  I had no idea of what to expect with this museum but the reviews online were pretty amazing.  Lots of reviews said, "plan to spend your entire day here!".  While there's no way that any museum other than guitars/rock memorabilia would keep my interest for that long, this place was pretty amazing.

The pictures may very well look boring to you, and I would fully understand, but the part of the museum that makes it amazing is all of the little individual movies that tell the personal stories that tie into the displays.

Had a decent lunch in the cafeteria too!  That never hurts anything. And they had a new beer that I had not enjoyed before, Jucifer by Gnarly Barley Brewing.  It was yummy.

We walked from our Hotel (Hotel Monteleone) which was probably about a mile.  It was a bit hot even though it was pretty early morning. 

The sidewalks outside of the museum.  I always think this is super-cool, but at the same time, I feel bad for walking on them.

I'm not sure what this new monstrosity of a exhibit/statue/monument is supposed to be, but it appeared to be about 50% done and it is HUGE!!!

I cannot imagine what it would be like to be on one of these boats waiting for that back gate/ramp to drop...   whew.

This room was quite large and super cool!  The lighting doesn't come across well in the picture, but it felt, looked and smelled a bit like how it looks.  Of course, there were movies to illustrate personal stories again.  Amazing stuff.

As you can see from the reflections in the glass, we're still in the same room.  I took a picture of the plaque describing this flag and how it got to it's current state, but sadly, it was too blurry to read.

A display of the various guns used throughout the battles.

My favorite room with all of the airplanes!

Now from up above them.

I love this picture because Caleb's sillhouette is on the left while you can see both Rob and Lesley is the distance just North of the center of the photo.  All the while, the plane doesn't suck either.  The items in the display cases were uniforms worn by the pilots.

One of the original "dog tag" machines.

This was a room where they showed a heap of the manufacturing of equipment used in the war called the Arsenal Of Democracy.  We were tired by this point, which was a shame, because it was super cool and they had tons of detail on everything.

This was my favorite piece from the Remembered Lights: Glass fragments from WWII; The McDonald Windows, which you can explore a bit more here.

There were a few areas that we didn't even explore because we were shot. But, I could easily see how a couple (sans kids) could spend a full day here and not ever be bored. Although, I'm a bit biased since my favorite period of history is from about 1930 - the mid-fifties! None-the-less, a very cool museum that appears to not be done adding on by a long shot!

Vaca 2020 - Day 2, 3 & 4 (a few random things), Travelling to NOLA & More...

Having never been close around New Orleans, Dallas to the West, Pensacola to the East, I really had no idea what to expect. My mind was blown when the I-55, just South of Ponchatoula, turned into a bridge.  I expected to go over some swampy lands and then back down to terra firma.  Never happened until we "arroved" in New Orleans!!!   I would guess it was somewhere just around 40 miles of bridged swamp land and lakes Maurepas and Pontchartrain, which of course, put Hank Williams in my head.

So, a little heads-up about this post.  It's our drive from Vicksburg down to New Orleans, but also some random stuff from our four days in New Orleans that didn't really fit other posts...  I'll get it out of the way now and hopefully the next few will be more enjoyable than this one.  But thanks for reading anyways.

At first we thought it was just a bit of an extended bridge and not very exciting, so, no pictures.  But after it continued and went on and on and on and on, Lesley snapped a photo or three as we migrated further South. The bridge in across the water there is a railroad bridge.

I pulled this from Google Maps roadside view, but yes, this is what about 40 miles of that road looks like, with more or less water, depending on where you're at.

The bridge across the water on this side is I-55 Northbound.  That is Lake Pontchartrain that you can see betwixt the bridges.

Just a bit more proof that our species will build what they want, where they want, logistics be cursed.  I think this was within a stone's throw of New Orleans, after I-55 merged with I-10 by Kennar.  

And finally, Naw'lens.  That is the Mercedez Benz Superdome where the Saints play, made even more famous by Hurricane Katrina.  At this point, I was starting to wonder what the heck I had gotten myself into as NO was never high on my list to see...  What I didn't know yet is what we would "experience" once we hit the French Quarter around 7pm on a Saturday night...  Oh boy...

This is from the top of our new, 4-day home, the Hotel Monteleone, which has been featured in a few tv shows and movies.  We were amazed at how all of the central air units are practically piled on top of one another on some of those rooftops.

Another from up top, just looking a different direction.

Another...

And another, of the big, gigantic poo-hole that they call New Orleans.  Just about as filthy as Las Vegas, but with less street porn and much more homeless.

But, there was a pool on the rooftop, so we made good use of that!

Hotel top pool area. Pretty nice to barely hear the city noises from below.

Nothing special, just a street shot while we were out exploring.

I took this picture NOT because of the dude, but because I didn't want to forget where we ate by the time I wanted to write this blog.  This was roughly a block from our hotel, not fancy at all, but they made these:

Smoked oysters that were absolutely STINKIN' GOOD!!!  They are the "Char-Grilled Oysters" on their menu and I've never experienced, that's right, experienced... not tasted, anything like it.  All four of us were acting like pigs trying to get to the next one.

Back at the hotel, this was Caleb's favorite spot IF the Impractical Jokers weren't on the tv.  The window had a wide ledge where he could look down from whatever floor we were on and see parts of the street.  We also played a lot of games of the card game Blitz in this room, admiring sunsets out the window.  We also had a view of the Hard Rock Hotel that collapsed last Fall and they had just recovered another body the week before we got there, and I believe the last known body, the week after we left.  That could possibly explain some of the smell in the French Quarter... just sayin'.

And so...   that messy looking building on the left of the photo where the crane is at, is the aforementioned Hard Rock Casino collapse.

Rob and Mom down for breakfast on one of the days...

I have no idea, because I wasn't there...  maybe where they ordered breakfast from?

I think we had a few breakfast's and coffee's from this joint, but it was always my bride handling this stuff.  If it were up to me we would have bread and beer (not for breakfast... I'm not an animal!) most likely...  The kids don't get the beer as that would be too expensive.

We had to try the original Muffaletta and we all liked it, although two of us didn't think we would (kids). What is a Muffaletta, you may ask?  You can read about that here!

  

One of their silly breakfasts...  The coffee isn't even black... there's no eggs, bacon or sausage, so obviously a waste of time!

Same...   although this looks like it has some promise.

The last full day there, the Rockstar had to go down and have breakfast with mom.  Note the similaraties about the coffee and lack of other essential items.

We played a lot of blitz when we were "stuck" with each other in small quarters.  Makes me think that we have too much bullshit in our lives that keeps us from doing simple stuff like this.  In fact, I don't think, I know...  More board games and more games as opposed to screens.  Me included.

More evidence of Caleb on the ledge...

More...  This was what happened betwixt commercials in the episodes of Impractical Jokers.

So, I had to get a more boring post out of the way before we get into some of the cooler things that we did that actually made me think more highly of New Orleans than I thought possible!  Hopefully the next several will be a bit more entertaining.

Pure Filth...

The boy wants jobs to earn some money and this job apparently needed to be done a bit worse than I had thought!!  That is dirty!!

 

Football Season Returns for 2020

 I left a bit early to pick up Caleb from football practice today, partly because I wanted to go walk around the field while watching practice as I haven't seen much yet, and then because Caleb thinks I was late to pick him up from the last practice because, as I saw him walking from the field to the fence by the parking lot, he had to wait approximately 7 seconds as I looped the parking lot to get back to where he was NOW standing.  Ridiculous.

No matter tho...  as I was walking up to practice looking for the bright orange socks that he wears so I can easily find him, I spied an orange sock...  but only one.  And it seemed that a coach was on a knee looking at the knee of the lad, which as I got closer, I could tell had blood running down the shin.

Fun stuff to walk "in on".  But I could read the body language of the coach asking him if he was ok and seeing the positive head shake of Caleb that he would continue.

I did either 6 or 7 trek's around the field on the cement sidewalks they have while watching practice and occasionally stopping to observe and take pics.

The last thing they did at practice was work on special teams, especially kick-offs, since that's new for 7th grade.  I can see Caleb's one orange sock in the pick as he's on D, the ball in the air at almost the exact middle of the press box roof.

Here he is lined up (#27) on offense as the receiver of a screen pass.  They screwed this play up in EPIC fashion the first time they ran it.  Everyone got chewed out a bit and they lined it up again.  I think this is one that we can work on out in the yard with me and Rob helping.

You can't see his # but he's just to the right of dead center in the pic on D.

The lad as we're about to board the spaceship for the ride home.  His arm is bandaged from the previous practice and his leg is garffed up from this practice, hence what I noticed when I was first walking up.

Welcome to football.

Canning Round 2, Missed some!

 

Had another round after a grocery visit!  My eye's are still burning!