November 2021: Pre-Cruise New Orleans

 November 19, 2021 

We took the first flight of the day on Southwest so we were seated breakfast in New Orleans by 9:15 am local time after checking in at Loews New Orlean. I was pretty excited a room was available.  I chose Luke because I've wanted to try it for a long time. 

It did not disappoint. We had terrific shrimp and grits. After breakfast, we headed to City Park to visit the New Orleans Museum of Art. Our Uber driver was a lifelong New Orleans resident and former taxi driver. He gave us a great little tour pointing out great restaurants and the history of places as we drove by. 

The Art Museum was a mixed bag. I realized I like exhibitions and this museum had a lot of collections. By exhibitions, I mean highly curated works of art around a theme, to tell a story, or give insight. It had a very good exhibition on the depictions of Asian men in art during the turn of the 19th century and how that contributed to a desire for isolationism.

 It also had an incredible exhibition of Dawn DeDeaux's works. She's a New Orleans based artist. Many of her exhibitions were destroyed when her studio was destroyed by fire and flood during Hurricane Katrina. In this exhibition, some of those works were recreated and new works added. One work that really impacted me was a series of glass panes painted with water marks up to the heights of the different flood levels. When you stand by, it looks like a cityscape. 

We also explored the Sculpture Garden. One piece that captured our attention was George Rickey's Four Line Oblique. It was in perpetual motion with the slightest breeze. Glenn said it reminded him of Erector sets. 

I was exited to see work by Jaume Pensa. I've seen his sculptures on Celebrity cruise ships. 

We headed back to the hotel so I could work for a couple hours. At 3 pm, we decided it was time for happy hour. We went to the Peacock Room for Sazeracs - the must have cocktail of New Orleans. 

We met up with my parents and headed to Josephine Estelle for dinner. We had a bit of a laugh entering the restaurant because you had to show your vaccine card to get a wristband to enter. The security guard looked at my mom and said, Sweetheart, let me see that vaccine card. For some reason, that just cracked us all up. We had a terrific dinner. Everyone agreed the veal ragu was the highlight, but the burrata salad was also great. 

November 20, 2021 

We started bright and early and headed to the National WWII musuem. 

This is an incredible museum. It combines oral histories, newsreel, and personal artifacts to follow the war in the Pacific, North Africa, and European theaters. Glenn's review of the museum: 

My father fought in WWII as part of the Army in the 12th Armored Division. He never really talked much about it other then mentioning his division had participated in the Battle of the Bulge,, they had helped to liberate one of the Nazi concentration camps and that he was the soldier in his troop that had to carry the Browning Automatic since he was the tallest.

What I remember being taught in school about WWII is the beginning (Pearl Harbor), the middle (D-Day) and the end (Hiroshima and Nagasaki). This carefully curated museum really tells the whole story of the war, and all the fronts it was fought on. So much strategy and in a few cases pure luck. It is scary to think about what would have happened if Hitler and Germany had succeeded on their plan. There is even a whole room that really portrays what the Battle of the Bulge must have been like. And I got to see what a Browning Automatic looks like up.close and try to imagine what my 18 year old father must have felt like during the war.

It was three years ago this week that we visited the beaches of Normandy. And in February we will visit Pearl Harbor. Seeing these places is a much better way to learn about and appreciate what happened and what was sacrificed for our freedom.

I highly recommend a visit. 

For lunch, we headed to the famous Commander's Palace. Miranda kept our drinks full. She even made up a little hand signal if we needed another drink and she was across the room. 

We enjoyed the live music, though someone had to be talked out of requesting the "music from Deliverance". 

After lunch, we went to Harrah's casino and had a lot of fun on the penny slots. For dinner, we went to Gordon Biersch brewery. 

November 21, 2021 

We have an easy morning with breakfast at the hotel and then we head over to the pier to board the Norwegian Breakaway for a 7 night Western Caribbean cruise.