N'awlins et al.: WWII Museum, Garden District, and a Jazz Dinner Cruise

Our very favorite experience in NOLA was visiting the World War II Museum on May 11, 2021.  One of the founders of the museum was Louisiana resident Stephen Ambrose, who wrote such best-selling WWII histories as "Band of Brothers" and "Citizen Soldiers."  The museum had everything, from "Beyond All Boundaries," a  movie about the war narrated by Tom Hanks in which lights flashed in the theater and our chairs shook as bombs went off in the movie, to separate presentation areas on “Road to Berlin,” “Road to Tokyo,” “D-Day,” and “The Home Front."  

There were walk-through displays of the Normandy beaches, jungles of Burma and the deserts of North Africa, complete with booming cannons, steamy jungle plants, and lots of sand!  We spent an entire day in the museum, completely enthralled!
 

On May 10, we had a completely different experience--a walking tour of the Garden District mansions.  I asked our charming guide why she didn’t have a Southern accent, since her family had lived in Louisiana for six generations.  “I have a port accent,” she said.  She said that ports like New York City and NOLA are filled with people from many countries, whose accents merge.  The tour was filled with tales of the rich elite of 19th century NOLA, when the money flowed from trading in cotton, slaves, and products floating down the Mississippi River.  Today's prices of the mansions seemed almost reasonable, after Dave and I learned of $20 to $40 million mansions in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, during our trip there in April.  The NOLA beauties could be had for just a couple of million.

Our guide also explained the symbols used in decorating the houses, such as sheaves of corn to indicate prosperity and plenty.

On the evening of May 11, we boarded the Steamboat Natchez for a “jazz dinner” down the Mississippi.  Once more, the menu was traditional Southern--gumbo, pasta with crawfish, biscuits, bananas foster, and bread pudding.  Dave and I then sat outside in the dusk, watching the lights on the barges and oil refineries along the river, as we listened to jazz floating out from the dining room.