Month: October 2023

Since we were in Slidell, we decided to take a swamp tour. Captain Jason, aka CaptainPipp, was very knowledgeable and gave us lots of information on the ecology, plants, and animals. We saw wild hogs, raccoons, several types of birds, and of course alligators. The boat held 20ish people but Captain Jason was able to interact with all of us. We are planning on a private swamp tour so this was a great introduction. We drove ourselves, so we saved money and could leave when we were done.

Cajun Encounters Swamp Tours
553345 US-90
Slidell, LA 70461

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We visited the Crescent City Farmer’s Market. There are three weekly markets throughout the city. The market closest to us is at City Park on Sundays 8-12. This market mostly had farm things, veggies, eggs, gumbo, juices, and dessert. We bought a loaf of bread, salted chocolate chunk cookies, fresh pasta, a passion fruit caramel filled donut and crab gumbo and rice.

The produce was very tempting…..eggplant, squash blossoms, mushrooms, zucchini, tomatoes, etc…. There were jelly and pickle sellers, too. Very different from the farmer’s market near us that have lots of crafts.

It was really nice strolling through the park to the market and shop. Lots of interesting people, dogs and music. Some of the other markets have different venders. The line to the coffee sellers was too long or an iced coffee would have been perfect.

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Our Fort Worth Botanical Garden membership got us in for free. Besides the gardens there was a Fall Garden Fest occurring. This garden is much smaller than the FWBG. It did have a nice variety of plants…especially shade plants. The paths were a mix of brick, gravel and shells. The garden had a water lily house, cactus house, fern conservatory, tropical conservatory, miniature train display and test gardens. The garden was built between 1935 and 1936 by the WPA. It has many works of art by the Mexican artist Enrique Alferez.

There is a plant sale going on with lots of native plants, herbs, bonsai and crafts.

It was a good slow travel day. We slept late. Ate breakfast at leisure. Then walked through the park to get to the garden. We used the garden pass from home to get in at no additional cost. We walked around saw what we wanted to see. We found benches and sat under ancient oaks while enjoying the plants surrounding us. It started to get crowded so we decided to leave and return during a slower weekday. We did not feel the need to buy anything.

Our planned stop at Cafe Du Monde to grab some beignets and coffee was derailed by a long line of tour bus people. So we came home and made ourselves lunch. We will just go back during the week when the place is pretty much empty.

There is an outdoor train exhibit running G & O scale. It had various New Orleans locations from the past.

There were some Halloween themed decorations

Of course there were many pretty plants and flowers

New Orleans Botanical Gardens
5 Victory Ave
New Orleans, LA 70124

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We met Terry here who gave us a tour of the memorial. The layout is in the shape of a hurricane outlined with bald cypress trees. Is is dedicated to the unclaimed victims of the hurricane.

Hurricane Katrina Memorial
5056 Canal St
New Orleans, LA 70119

Iron work is very common in New Orleans. It is a nod to the diverse countries that influenced the the early settlers who made NOLA their home. The work was often done by West African slaves. There is a lot of hidden symbolism in the detains.

These are some examples that date as far back as the 1840’s that we found on our cemetery tour.

This was next to Morning Call Coffee Stand. We first saw the Elk and Firemen Statues

Next was Peter Peterson’s Vault who really loved his wife.

Finally we saw other vaults and lots of ironwork in both Greenwood and Cypress Grove Cemeteries

Greenwood Cemetery
5190 Canal Blvd
New Orleans, LA

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