More Nola

Amtrak Adventure 26/31 (about October 25th, 2021)

Yesterday was a pretty calm one—at least for me.

While I worked and met (is that a proper use?) for a few hours in the morning, Mom & Mattea went adventuring. Our Airbnb is near the very-large City Park, so they decided to check it out!

After a few backtracks—to get lunch and pick up some forgotten things—they made it to “Big Lake,” a lake that differs in one dimension from the nearby “Small Lake.” There were rentable paddleboats and it was quite hot out, so they took one with a swan design on the front… and went out to a fountain in the middle of the lake that the wind was blowing into a nicely cooling mist.

They paddled back and forth a few times through the mist; it took about the same amount of time to turn around as it did for the water to evaporate off their skin, so keeping cool was sustainable—but didn’t allow for slacking! Partway through, an actual swan joined them in going through the fountain.

Around 2:30 PM, they came back and we tested out our accommodation’s pool (very deep, and very cold—especially when you jump in without having been in the sun for a few hours).

But then Mom’s flight was approaching—so she packed up and headed to the airport. She’s back in Seattle now, but will be joining us again in LA on Friday.

That left Mattea and I alone and hungry, so we walked to a good-looking BBQ place (“Vegan Free Since 2012”) that had been closed when we came in the previous night.

I got a pulled pork sandwich (a reliable test), she tried the mac, and we split a classic Southern banana pudding (with Nilla wafers, lots of whipped cream, etc… if you don’t know what I mean, you’re missing out). It was excellent—and everything was properly spicy, a pleasantly recurring theme in Nola.

Much later, as evening hit, we wanted to see the river—so we looked at a map, drew a straight line, and started walking to the river. About 80% of the way there, we were feeling very fatigued—and increasingly unsafe—and turned back. We had a good conversation about life, even if we failed to see the water!