New Orleans, Day One
Busy day! We got up early-ish (it’s an hour earlier here) and decided to check out the sky deck. Quite a view of New Orleans, including the SuperDome
From the Skydeck
SuperDome
Panorama of New Orleans
Looking down on the Ashley House from the Skydeck
Then down to the second floor to check out the laundry room, to see if we needed detergent or anything, We couldn’t find the laundry room at all so we went to the front desk for directions, then back up to the 2nd floor.
Down to the courtyard, I didn’t get many pictures because it was raining but here’s what I have…
From here we went off to Walgreens for stuff we needed, forgot or just wanted. We took that stuff home, then decided to go the other direction on the St. Charles streetcar.
Lots of interesting old homes.
From http://www.neworleansonline.com/tools/streets/saintcharles.html
St. Charles Avenue has been described most aptly as “The Jewel of America’s Grand Avenues.” It is, indisputably, the most superb collection of great mansions of the South. The Avenue offers to all an open opportunity to enjoy the lofty magnificence of true, gracious living from 19th century New Orleans.
Visitors to our City are able to tour the Avenue by foot, car or streetcar. A ride on the infamous Saint Charles streetcar provides a unique way to enjoy the splendor of the Avenue, from the statuesque monument at Lee Circle to its end point in the old town of Carrollton upriver.
The Avenue is also in glorious state as the place of residence for historic Audubon Park, for the City’s renowned centers of higher education – Loyola and Tulane – and a score of churches and Synagogues that are our City’s major centers of worship.
But above all, it is the place of residential grandeur where the wealthiest, the more powerful of those who built this great City once lived.
Tom was looking at a map and saw that the Audubon Park and Zoo was right across from Loyola and Tulane – and it had a free shuttle – so we decided to go there.
Unfortunately, there was construction on the streetcar tracks so we got off at Napoleon and took a bus to Loyola. We walked about a block and found the shuttle waiting, just as promised.
The Zoo was fantastic. Even though we saw only about a quarter of the exhibits, we took lots of pictures, so many that Tom ran out of power.
Here are mine:
Flamingos outside the Flamingo Cafe
Flamingos. I tried to get this one with his neck extended.
I was fascinated by how they could wrap those necks around to rest their heads on their backs.
Whooping Cranes
About the Whooping Cranes
Sun Bear.
Tom’s hand inside a sun bear clar
Sheep
Goats
White tiger sleeping
White tiger.
White tigers are distinct for the normal coloration in that they lack the pheomelanin pigment that in normal tigers produces the orange color. They still produce the other color pigment, eumelanin, and hence are not considered albino. Compared to normal colored tigers without the white gene, white tigers tend to be somewhat bigger, both at birth and as fully grown adults.
The he Asian small-clawed otter, is the smallest otter species in the world,[3] weighing less than 5 kg. It lives in mangrove swamps and freshwater wetlands of Bangladesh, Burma, India, southern China, Taiwan, Laos, Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam.
Its paws are a distinctive feature, its claws not extending beyond the fleshy end pads of its partially webbed fingers and toes. This gives it a high degree of manual dexterity so that it can use its paws to feed on mollusks, crabs and other small aquatic animals.
Feeding the goats and sheep
More feeding time
Still more food
Adding oranges to the food
Special treatment
Getting greedy
Should I or shouldn’t I?
Where’s Mary?
Leopard pacing
Another leopard keeping a lookout
This was in the Discovery area where we could interact with the birds, snakes and a variety of animals. I chose not to.
Endangered Species Carousel
This beautiful carousel is decorated with oil paintings of Zoo animals and features a 60-figure menagerie including traditional horses, elephants, rhinos, giraffes and other vanishing species.
This guy looked like he was meditating – or maybe plotting how to get out of the place!
Hard to see with the shadows, but this is naptime.
A peacock just wandering around
Old trees line St. Charles Avenue
More about the zoo from http://www.neworleansonline.com/directory/location.php?locationID=1249
Audubon Zoo is a New Orleans landmark and a living museum filled with some of the rarest and most beautiful creatures of nature.
There have been animals at this site since the 1884 World Exposition in Audubon Park. Today, Audubon Zoo is 58 acres of animals in their natural habitats. The Zoo consistently ranks among this country’s best.
Visitors are enchanted to find a unique wildlife haven full of New Orleans flavor, impressive 100-year old oak trees and a cast of animal characters.
Animal favorites include elephants Jean and Panya, the Komodo dragon and the white tiger brothers from California, named King Rex and King Zulu. But also look for bears, monkeys, snakes, orangutans, elks and more exotic animals than you can imagine!
Much of the zoo dates from early in the 20th century. The sea lion pool was constructed in 1928. Its graceful columns mark one of Audubon Zoo’s most romantic spots. Monkey Hill was built by Works Progress Administration workers to show the children of New Orleans what a hill looks like! At 28 feet, it’s the legendary “highest topographical point in New Orleans.” Today it boasts wading pools, a rope bridge and a safari trail.
At the Audubon Zoo, visitors can stroll through a real swamp right in the middle of uptown New Orleans. A Cajun houseboat on a lagoon full of 14-foot alligators faces a pair of playful black bears. A raccoon defies the laws of physics by snoozing on a narrow twig at the top of a tree. At the baby animal nursery, naturalists show visitors baby nutria, explaining why that innocent-looking fuzzy creature is jeopardizing the very existence of the swamps. Further on, the world-famous white alligators float in an exhibit constructed especially for them.
Rocking chairs throughout the swamp exhibit invite visitors to slow down and take in the ambiance of the swamp. An air-conditioned restaurant provides a welcome venue for a sit-down snack and drink.
Finally, after a bit of shopping in the souvenir shop, we found the shuttle bus driver and retraced our journey back “home” It was naptime! I was so tired I never heard Tom go out to buy groceries – or come back in.
My back has been bothering me since we got here, possibly from the plane, the luggage, the bed here, just because… Whatever the cause(s) I took 6 Backaid pills to help but they didn’t really. Maybe this will lighten up tomorrow.
We had frozen stuff we nuked for dinner then watched an old B&W episode of Perry Mason, the beginning of Drumline (I have it on my iPad so it didn’t matter that I missed the end!) then bedtime!
Related articles
- Traveling to New Orleans (maryoblog.com)
The Circus Was…
…Memorable. It was also great, exciting, wonderful, fun, scary sometimes and brought back some very interesting memories…
I couldn’t remember the last time, if ever, I had been to a circus.
Memory number one: Years ago when we lived in Milwaukee, we went to the Ringling Brothers Circus Parade. That was the neatest thing – we could watch them set up, hang around the backlots.
Tom was so engrossed in taking pictures of the Budsweiser Clydesdales that he nearly got run over by them while he was trying to take their picture. Unfortunately, those are on actual film so maybe sometime I’ll scan those in.
Last night we got to the circus in the nick of time. I was sure we would be late but we got to our ringside seats a few minutes before the show started. We were literally in the front row. There was a raised platform running around the ring right in front of us where performers (and some animals) would stand, run, walk. It was amazing being so close to them.
The red in this picture is the actual ring in front our seats. I’m sorry I’d had the flash turned off!
I started looking around and took the picture of the “stage” to my left. This is where the larger props came from. The band was in the “mouth”. Most of the performers came down the aisles through the audience.
Memory number two: You can’t really see it in this picture but about halfway up on the right side is an “imagination chair”. It’s a sort of throne-looking chair with a helmut and wires sticking out the top. Seeing that took me right back to my childhood, to an unpleasant memory.
At some point when I was a child, someone had the bright idea that you could prevent crimes by making a mockup (although I was sure it was real at the time!) of a wooden electric chair and turning it into a mobile exhibit. This trailer travelled around Connecticut and scared me out of a life of crime!
Not the best way to start a circus for me.
The circus did start and there were great acrobats, clowns, a woman climbing a rope, Grandma, a juggler, a comedy magician act, beautiful horses, dogs, a porcupine(!) followed by a potbelly pig and a…
…capybara. Memory number three. This one is freaky.
When my son was about 6 I’d take him to Delaware to visit my parents. On a couple occasions, they’d take us to the zoo where there were some capybaras. My father and son both seemed fascinated by these large rodents. They are kinda cute.
I hadn’t thought about capybaras for about 25 years and here they are back, on the anniversary of my father’s death. How odd. I keep thinking maybe my Dad is sending me a message. But through a circus?
Whatever, the coincidence was astounding and helped knock the electric chair right out of my head.
We did have a great time at the circus and I’d go again, even though I got a bit more out of it than was expected – or planned.
