Travel Report – Page 41 – The Hermits' Rest

Pharmacy Museum: So Glad I Missed the 1800s

Kathy P., one of my roommates on the trip, and I were up bright and early on our last day in New Orleans, because the pharmacy museum she really wanted to see would finally be open (she’s a lactation consultant and wanted to see the birth-related stuff). It was mighty cold but off we went through the freezing streets of a city just waking up (many food delivery trucks for all those restaurants). Brr, it was cold and windy.

Many of the French Quarter houses have beautiful hidden courtyards. I’m glad to have seen this one.

We then discovered the museum opened at 10, not 9, so we found a coffee shop and warmed up. It was a PJ’s. Their theme is that they invented the locally roasted beans and pastries idea long before Starbucks. It was good coffee, anyway.

This is the “sick bed” display. To the right are ancient urinals, shown in detail below.

I made a quick stop at the yarn shop to get a printed copy of the complicated pattern I bought (PDF on phone was not cutting it). The lady was great about it, and we had a nice chat. Then I joined Kathy at the cool 1825 house where the pharmacy museum was.

There was display after display of some awful things they used to do to people, like amputation saws and HUGE things they stuck in your nose for reasons I don’t know. And a lot of poisons in jars, which you can see below.

Even if you aren’t interested in drugs and potions, this place is cool. The display cabinets were gorgeous, and there were amazing windows in the stairway going to the second floor.

The windows looked out on one of those typical New Orleans courtyards, which is apparently maintained by some courtyard maintenance group.

In Which Suna Pays for All Her Fun

Yesterday was a beautiful day in New Orleans. It was mostly sunny and in the 70s outside. Too bad I did not step outside the hotel until after dark, and then it was just to go across the street to eat dinner. Guess what I had?

The reason I stayed in the hotel all day is that the fun trip was over, and it was time for our annual Board meeting. In the morning, trip attendees joined us to give us input on how the trip went and suggest places to go next. It was great to hear how much fun people had and how smoothly everything went. It was a HARD slog planning this trip, but in the end, the trip planners (with a lot of help by the Board President) got it done.

I’m very glad I am not a professional trip planner, and tip my hat to my friends who are!

I Found The Tacky Stuff. Still Fun.

Yes, yes, I’m still in New Orleans with the Friends of La Leche League on their bonding trip. Today was the day of less history and more typical tourist stuff. However, I managed to have fun.

Me having fun and trying to not get sunburned. Failed.

In the morning, people mingled and bonded until time to walk (if you were fit) to the Steamboat Natchez, which is the only steam-powered paddle-wheeler in use in New Orleans.

There, we were treated/blasted to an actual steam calliope concert. It was fun to watch the steam coming out for each note.

On the boat, we had a brunch, which was adequate, and good jazz music (though one DOES weary of “When the Saints Go Marching In” around here). Since you couldn’t see a dang thing during the meal, I got out of the dining room as fast as I could to see the river.

It’s Okay to Be a Tourist

When I was a teenager in a tourist destination (Ft. Lauderdale, Florida area), I sure didn’t like tourists. They showed up and drove strangely, got horrible sunburns, and asked ignorant questions. Grr. They filled “our” restaurants.

Get off our stairs! Tourists (our group) milling around).

I currently spent half my time in another tourist destination, where natives carefully avoid downtown or our beautiful parks during certain times of the year, since so many people show up to party and have fun at festivals. We grumble, but know the economy needs it.

Right now I’m the tourist in New Orleans. I have done tourist activities like bus tours that crowd the streets, and walking tours that crowd the sidewalks. I sure wouldn’t want to live where my house is photographed by people like Suna all day long. Certainly living in the French Quarter would require a special patience.

With all this good food, the economy can’t help but do well.

I see tourists wandering around getting blitzed and screeching about things, and they are contributing to the economy, I guess.

Then I see our group asking question after question to learn more about the area. I see us making connections in local shops (I bought yarn!). This is good tourism, as far as I’m concerned.

Local yarn to celebrate the yarn shop’s 50th anniversary. Also there was needlepoint. Ah.

New Orleans. Old. Less Tacky Than I Feared.

Not a lot of time to write today. I’ll share that I am more charmed by New Orleans than I anticipated. And it’s not just noise and drunk people. Whew.

Random parades were fun. Someone is making a lot of money doing these.

We went on a walking tour of the French Quarter today. Our guide was great and we learned a lot from her.

Stacy the tour guide entertaining our group.

But, no time to go into details. Just enjoy all these buildings. More later. Hope you’re having an okay weekend!

More Architecture! It’s Old Here.

Not much soul searching to report today, though I think some of my colleagues tried to get me to do so. That’s even AFTER I said I am really doing well and coping with whatever challenges may come up. Oh well. What did I do today?

Mostly I looked at a lot of buildings and some darned impressive old oak trees. Our trip planners did us all a favor by setting up a bus tour of Greater New Orleans this morning, which makes it a lot easier to figure out what we’ll want to do in our free time tomorrow.

Our tour bus driver is usually a swamp tour driver, so I enjoyed listening to him try to remember all his NOLA facts and figure out how traffic has changed.

Of course there was the odd sighting of a wookie.

This Is a Call for Super Introvert!

I’m sitting in the Austin airport again. This time I’m also going somewhere fun, but not for relaxation. I’m traveling to New Orleans to participate in semi-annual Friends of La Leche League trip. Since I’m on the Board, my role will be to help make the trip fun for the participants.

I have to go back to my Super Introvert mode that I used to get in at the large conferences, where I had to be on and available 24/7. Usually I handle conferences by getting a room to myself. But, this is a nonprofit, so we share!

It’s fun sharing rooms with old friends. You catch up, tell funny stories, etc. I just hope note that we are all older, we will sleep some.

This is a group of wonderful people, and I am hoping everyone’s issues and infirmities don’t prevent everyone from having fun. And I hope I don’t collapse from being my busy LLL persona for 5 days. I’m not the same person I used to be.

Luckily I’m in a great mood and looking forward to some fun and good. Yes, I will eat a beignet! Moderation in everything.

Final Vacation Day: Bluffton, Then Home

I had no time to write this morning and spent all day today on planes, so I’m late. You 11 people who read these things survived, no doubt.

Friday was a nice calm day, since Anita worked until noon. But then we set out to the mainland to visit the lovely town of Bluffton. It reminded me of Green Cove Springs in my youth. Lovely old h of huge trees covered in moss, with a beautiful river.

An old church. Sadly, most of my photos got messed up, so no cool house images.

We ate lunch at a wonderful spot in an old house, called The Cottage. The food was hearty and sophisticated all at once. I got oysters, crab, and shrimp in a delicious sauce, over cheese grits. Heaven. Anita had a pot pie that she raved about.

After that joy, we found a marvelous boutique and I got an amazing poncho kind of top with sleeves. I can’t wait to wear it all winter.

The town has been beautifully preserved, with more work going on. All the new developments are out of the historical area.

We Invade the Plantation

Yesterday was a bit more of the same vacation stuff as the rest of the week. We have a routine where Anita works all morning (that’s why I have time to blog; otherwise I’d be doing activities) and then off we go. I made a lunch with our eggs and turkey and cheese all scrambled together, making me glad we got the grocery delivery package when we got here. That way, most days we don’t have to eat out but once.

We See Sea Pines

One of the negative things about Hilton Head Island is that lots of it is not easily accessible unless you live there. It’s divided into “plantations” (which were actual plantations with all the sadness that went with them), and they are gated, so only the well-do-do who live there can get in without a pass.

Luckily, for $8 they will let you into Sea Pines, so we made the most of it and drove all over the place yesterday. There’s a large forest preserve in the middle, which the developer of the property kindly deeded to the residents. We trundled through there and really enjoyed the boardwalk area with lots of labeled plants and interesting terrain.

Anita in her Halloween shirt enjoying the boardwalk.

The land was reclaimed from being a rice plantation and now actually provides drinking water. That’s a great story. We saw a couple of alligators and lots of birds, plus some huge trees that survived Hurricane Matthew.

It’s Halloween, So Time for Scary Hair

After the boating outing, we spent the second half of yesterday doing the required vacation pampering activities that are probably somewhere in the official rules for women going to resorts: You MUST receive some spa-like service or you FAIL as a vacationer!

The horror! Very unruly hair, scary eyebrows, and so many wrinkles. Good morning, Suna.

We did not fail. My hair had gotten rather unruly, and I’d been having a hard time finding time to find somewhere to get my hair cut in Austin, so hey, why not get it cut in Hilton Head? It’s only hair, right?

Oh, sure. I got an appointment with a random stylist at the place Laura from the resort goes to. It turned out to be someone a bit older than me, so I thought, hmm, I bet I get “old lady hair.” But, I enjoyed chatting with her, and I did get the back shorter, which I wanted.

There was a great deal of time spent by the stylist on blow-drying and spraying stuff on my hair. I thought Anita was going to die from holding in her thoughts until we got outside. I had very high hair. It gave me a good chuckle.