New Orleans!

Day 19. 4/23/22. 66mi. AIS 6:33 hrs. 419 elev. 10mph.

Poche Plantation Convent , LA to New Orleans

This is coming a day late because we had an evening off and we’re in New Orleans! Blog posts can wait a day!

New Orleans is experiencing their annual (but not in 2 yrs) French Quarter Festival. So many people have told us this is their favorite festival in the city. We have plans to check it out even when we only have a few hours.

Early early start..6:25am. The road that was full of dump trucks yesterday was nice and quiet. It was a Saturday but it was early. We had a good two hours before traffic picked up. Best part of today was we had a bike trail all the way into New Orleans for 30 miles after 25 miles of traffic. The bike trail was on top of the Mississippi levee all the way into the city. It was nice to just ride and not have to look back all the time! A treat

Sample of the armada of dump trucks that we raid with for 2 days

From the blue dot all the way into New Orleans was bike path

Jim has the first flat of the ride. Picked up a roofing nail. We switched to tubeless tires on our Redux II. So it was repaired with a plug. Worked slick..no need to take wheels off. We were back riding quickly. We have seen the aftermath of a recent tornado with blue tarps on several roofs and snapped trees.

Coming into New Orleans we road in on St Charles street. It has grand beautiful homes all the way into downtown. There was a dedicated bike line so we just rolled into our hotel. We are staying at the Old #77 Hotel. Just a few blocks from the French Quarter. We had a great meal right at the restaurant. Then we went to explore the Festival. We had a great time in about 2-3 hrs. Jim’s first time in New Orleans. I was here when I was 22 with my brother Paul when we travelled the USA for 3 months. Expensive and dangerous when you’re 22.

A really old house on the Mississippi side of the levee. Unusual for houses to be on that side

A library on St Charles street in New Orleans

First thing I do when I get off my bike. Nice hotel in business district of NOLA. Just a few blocks from French Quarter

We had a nice dinner in the hotel and then set off to the French Quarter to take on the Festival and check out the scene. It was crazy busy. I can’t even imagine what Mardi Gras looks like (don’t ever want to see it actually). Anyway, it was a party, party! We stopped at a couple of the festival stages and then wandered through the streets and into a couple of bars. Just a couple of hours of this and we were back at the hotel for our early departure. Rise and shine 5:30am.