It was sometime during this stay that I ticked over into a higher category of loyalty membership for the Hilton conglomerate; I’m assuming by nights stayed or total stays, because I’m sure as hell not worth it for dollars spent. Not with the number of cheap advance deals I’m using.

The first thing I did upon checking in was fall asleep for four hours or so. Woke up with my phone plugged in but in the floor, so maybe I fell asleep reading something?

The room faces one of the O’Hare flight paths, so I was able to get this shot of a plane landing. Or a UFO. I’m not sure.

Spent some time sorting out accommodation for the UK;

• An airport hotel for arrival, as it’s a sufficiently early flight out of Iceland that it’ll probably be easier all round to take a very late bus to the airport the night before, rather than leave the hostel at 3am and annoy everyone. That means I’ll be pretty shattered by the time I hit Gatwick, so something walking distance seems like a winning strategy.
  For even more on that winning strategy, it was cheaper to go with an actual hotel over a Yotel cabin. In theory I won’t be able to check in until nearly 4 hours after I land, but I’ve noticed that relatively few hotels will leave you in the lobby if they can avoid it, and I’m a silver member now, so let’s see what that’ll get me.
• Some accommodation in London, at a B&B who’re listed on Hostelworld for some reason, for a little over a week.

The airport hotel did have some amusing decor in places, such as in the elevators.

I was there for a couple of nights, and had had the vague plan of heading back into Chicago’s Downtown for my last day.
Even set out for the train station, but then realised that there was really nothing I wanted or needed to do there, so I went back to the hotel instead, via a 7-11 because holy crap did it get sunny that day.

Caught up with Steve & Moni on my last evening in the US.
The first choice of restaurant was closed for a private function, so we found another, from which we were able to watch them station some staff members outside to fend off unlucky patrons, and then to welcome the multiple shuttlebuses of people arriving for whatever the hell the event was.

Packing up and checking out went as well as could be expected.
Takes up less room this time, which I don’t even pretend to understand, though I did do a thorough check in case I’d forgotten something.

I turned the top compartment of the pack into a repository for occasional items, and took the cold weather stuff out of it’s drybag, but I don’t see how that’d free up much space.

Got to the airport vastly early, mostly because I was getting sick of the Housekeeping folks knocking on the room door to see if I was gone yet. In hindsight, I should have kicked back in the lobby, because Icelandair check-in didn’t open until 4 hours after I got to the airport.
Not my best plan, it would seem.

TSA screening went well though. No issues beyond the usual hair-fondling.

And someone gave me a voucher for a day’s internet access, which is how you’re getting this update.

Train leaves Indy at 6am.
Which sucks.

I packed my bags on Sunday night, post-gaming, and got to bed at maybe 1am.
Had an early alarm set, and for some reason 3am was the time I’d decided made sense.

It did allow me to have a shower and check carefully to make sure I’d not missed anything.
Didn’t find anything of mine, but I did find a pair of glasses under the couch and an item of clothing under the foot of the bed. The glasses I can understand, but the clothing, in a space the depth of my foot from toes to ankle, suggests that the cleaners didn’t vacuum there, which … could be better.

Hung out in the hotel lobby for a while before taking a taxi to the station.
I could easily walk it, but in the early morning … the underpass looks a little too ‘Crime Alley’ for me, even if it’s more likely to be “Dodge the sleeping homeless folks and try to ignore the smell of urine Alley” in reality.

There was a (possibly) homeless or drunk, or maybe just tired and sick of being outside, guy who’d somehow made it into the lobby, and was attempting to not leave by not answering questions, mumbling, and then flat-out disregarding instructions to leave while agreeing with the sentiment that he had to.
I think it was the final masterstroke of covering his ears and ignoring everything which prompted the eventual arrival of a pair of police officers, who firmly but kindly escorted him out of the lobby & on his way, with instructions not to try it anywhere else.
I think I saw him outside the Amtrak/Greyhound station.

The train was running maybe an hour late, so I sat there and tried not to fall asleep, and looked at the view.

Dozed a lot on the train, but kept leaning into the aisle in my sleep and waking up because of the feeling of keeling over, so, not the greatest sleep of all time.

Once I got to the hotel, which was a relatively simple matter of hopping a train to the airport, then calling the hotel to ask where their shuttle bus stopped (directly outside the door I was standing beside, as it turned out), and then picking out the bus from the sea of hotel & parking & other shuttles when it next came around.

And then, when I got to my room, falling asleep for four hours.

And as a side note.

Through the reading of forums and articles and the like about Vandwelling, a thing which comes up a lot is how to make the vehicle blend into an urban or suburban environment, so that you can just park up and sleep somewhere without being disturbed.
Ideally without being noticed.

Some folks go for nondescript, some make the vehicle look a bit like a tradesman’s vehicle … you get the idea.

While waiting for the shuttle I found myself wondering whether a shuttlebus would blend into a city environment.
Maybe not a hotel or airport shuttle, but if the thing looked like a charter-able vehicle?
I only wonder because those things have a tonne of space in them, though headroom can be an issue, now that I think about it.

I slept in a lot that first day.
Not having made it to the room until … well, I’m not actually sure, but maybe 1am? … did not make for an overwhelming urge to get out of bed.

Also, the blinds on the window were really good, possibly because of the constantly-lit carpark right outside.

First order of business, given that I’d well and truly missed the hotel breakfast, was to take a pair of scissors to my beard.
It hadn’t been trimmed since … Gen Con? … and it needed it.

Before

After

The downtime on this stay was mostly taken up with editing a Big Red Couch episode.
Fortunately, the hotel had both decent wifi and power points in useful locations. (that’s my one criticism of The Saint in New Orleans – There was one place I could plug in my traveling surge protector, and it was nowhere near the desk. All of the other places wouldn’t work because it’d hit furniture, or a lamp base, or something)

Caught up with Tom on Tuesday night, when we had dinner (Old Spaghetti Factory) and just sort of hung out, and then again on Saturday, when he was kind enough to drive into the shrieking nightmare of Indy traffic, pick me up, and take me out to his past & present stomping grounds.
Having seem so very many farms & rural areas from the train, it was nice to be able to wander about in them, get bitten by mosquitoes, avoid annoying bees (as in, avoid doing things which might annoy the bees. the bees weren’t annoying at all), that sort of thing.

It was a really good day.

Caught up with Frank & Kevin on Friday and Saturday, mostly at Good Games Indianapolis, who have a big space with a bunch of gaming tables, but we did break out for dinner at Kevin’s place one night, and a nearby place which was going for “upmarket sports bar” the other.

It’s pretty much all banging on about games from here on, folks

There’s not a huge amount to report from Chicago. I mean, I did things, but they were ‘catching up with friends’ sort of things, which don’t lend themselves to photos.

That said;

I played some board/card games, such as this one, where you’re building dirigibles.
Sadly, you’re not then doing battle with said dirigibles, but maybe there’s an expansion? Or some hacked house rules?

There was also;

• The Phantom Society, a Ghosts vs. Ghost Hunters game.
  There’s a memory component to this one, because the ghosts are hidden, and the hunter is trying to work out where they are based on what they’ve destroyed. I screwed up where my ghosts were hidden once, fortunately in a way that didn’t mean I’d broken the game rules, but only by luck.
  It’s entirely possible that placing the ghosts & taking note of where they were took longer than the gameplay did.
  The game does look good though; Nicely done somewhat cartoony graphics.
• Ice Cool, where a penguin hall monitor tries to catch students who are running around the school trying to collect fish.
  You move by flicking the little penguin figure, and the box cleverly turns into a five-room school building to move around in.
  Lots of fun, and very re-playable, though it’d help to have a table you can get to all sides of, or maybe put it on an enormous turntable for ease of access for the tricky shots.

When I first got to Chicago, back at the end of July, we went to a combination arcade & restaurant/bar, where they did time-based playing, rather than per-game.
This time it was just an arcade, but like the previous place, was time-based.

It was just like the arcades of the 80’s & 90’s – Kind of cramped, indifferently ventilated, dark in places, …
It was fun, and being able to just hit the ‘Continue’ button on a game you’re enjoying being awful at means that you can, if you so choose, finish the game. Without spending $50 in coins.

I’d been staying out at a hotel in … I don’t even think it was the suburbs. Suburbs have houses.
This was a hotel in a commercial/light industrial area, where I stayed back in July/August because it was close to Steve & Moni’s place, and they had some cheap rates going. Probably because, without a car, you’re stuck there.
With the squirrels.
And apparently a skunk.

Post-weekend, I moved to the same central Chicago hostel as before, to wait for the train to Indianapolis; The Freehand Chicago.

First night’s room-mate was a 70+ year old lady, in Chicago for a school/university reunion.
I did encourage her to turn the light on when she packed up for an early flight, so that it’d be easier on her and she’d not miss anything.
Don’t think that happened; I don’t remember the light coming on, and the pair of glasses & pair of trousers left behind suggest that some things that should not have been forgotten were lost.

Do … Do you think they’ve read this sign aloud?

The one thing I had to do in Chicago, after discovering how hard it was to pack everything up, was to find a bigger day-pack.
Little Red, the 15 litre which came with Big Red, just doesn’t have enough space.
I’m not sure how the volume of stuff I’m lugging has grown so much, but it has. A case of “Ounces make Pounds”, perhaps?

In any case, I checked out some stores by wandering up the Magnificent Mile until I ran out of the sort of places which looked like they’d sell a daypack. This also involved stopping off at a Starbucks with a pretty good view, because of reasons.

Eventually I decided on this one; 35 litres, fairly water-resistant, as yet un-named, with a lot of pockets. One of them has that reflective stuff in it, and can fit my water bottle.
Suggestions so far, based on the grid of loops, have been based on Hand Grenades or Daleks.

It looked like I’d get the room to myself, which was a little odd, to be honest.
Then a guy from Korea arrived at 11:30pm or so.
He was trying to be sneaky and quiet, which rarely works, so I told him that it was OK to turn the light on.
And where the light switches were.
And where he could probably find a towel, which turned out to be wrong.
And that that’s a blanket, not a towel.
And the other place he could probably find a towel, which turned out to be correct.

He was gone by the time I got out of bed, and I thought he’d left, based on the somewhat-stripped bed & no bag in evidence.
Then I worked out that the ‘discarded’ bag in the corner had shoes in it, and his lock was still on the locker, so I’m guessing early start, understandable desire of security of his stuff, and restless sleeper.

It was raining on & off during the day, and the clouds were low, which at least gave the chance for an interesting photo as I schlepped my way to the station.

It rained heavier the closer I got, and I ended up hiding in a Panera Bread for a while when I realised that a bridge closure meant even more being rained on.

I picked up a couple of pairs of cheap sunglasses a month or so back, as part of a two for one deal.
Probably tempting fate to abandon the backup pair, bit they seem sturdy, and I was getting sick of them getting tangled with everything else in my bag. There’s no ‘free’ shelf at the Freehand, so I left then in the room with a note.

Something I noticed with the shared rooms & rapid turnover; Stuff builds up, because nobody knows who it belongs to.
I did a throw-out of water bottles & the like during a previous stay, once the folks who were there before me had moved out and I could be sure that things didn’t belong to them. There was an abandoned pair of trousers in that room too, now that I think of it.

Hopefully the note makes it easier for the next person.

I’m bundling the train trip to Indianapolis in with this post; It was a short trip, at night, and not all that interesting.

There was a moment of excitement at the station when the Amtrak Policeman, with his bulletproof vest & gun, asked whether anyone knew who belonged to those bags over there.
At the point he asked, I’d heard the recorded spiel about being attentive, and if you see something say something, a good dozen times, and I’m proud to report that … I completely failed.
Could remember that it was a guy working on a laptop, but I could have told you more about the laptop than about him.

Turns out he was just a very trusting guy who’d left his bags unattended in a railway station hall while he took a walk to stretch his legs.

I can also report that panorama mode on my phone works vertically, though you look a little odd.

My seatmate on the train hadn’t had a good day.
Flight to Chicago from LA was delayed, so he missed his bus. (No idea why he didn’t fly direct, though that might be quite expensive for a last-minute flight, and his was a last-minute trip)
Uber from the airport to the bus terminal was slow because of rain and traffic, so he missed his second bus.
Got rained on while walking to the train station.

As a final ‘screw you’, the train was delayed getting into Indianapolis because the rain was interfering with the signals.

We made it in the end, though I’m not sure how late; Maybe an hour?
I didn’t check.

Got a couple of … interesting? … shots of the JW Marriott from the train, looming over the approach to the city.

This one, I think, is taken over Victory Field.

Getting to the hotel, which was only a short walk away (at night, through a somewhat dodgy-looking underpass), was … annoying.

• First taxi driver didn’t want to answer the “are you waiting for someone” question, but it turned out he was waiting for a Greyhound-related person.
• Next one was happy to take the fare, knew the location, didn’t run the meter, … And then didn’t know the location, didn’t listen when told the intersection to go for, argued with me about said location because he wasn’t listening, …
  Got there in the end, because he asked a hotel Valet at the hotel he thought I wanted, and got directions.

In hindsight, I wish I’d taken down the taxi number & his name, but it was well after midnight and I just wanted to go to sleep at that point.

The hotel room is nice, and has a kitchen.

There’s even a full sized fridge/freezer and a dishwasher.

And a view.
Sort of.
Well, there’s a window.

I figured that, as the street car which runs right to New Orleans Union Passenger Terminal goes right up Canal Street, outside the hotel, getting to the station would be easy.
Except they don’t; Not anymore.
It’s just that the maps & signs don’t tell you that. If I hadn’t told one of the other streetcar drivers that I was waiting for a different car, to the station, I might never have known.
She took me a few stops up to where it did go, and gave me a transfer ticket at no extra charge because there was no way I could have known.

Got there in the end.

There isn’t a lounge as such at New Orleans, though they do have more comfy seating (and nothing else) in the Magnolia Room.
I’d like to point out, for the record, that they tend to board sleeper & business class passengers separately, so while it wouldn’t have made much of a difference to me to sit out in the main hall, it would have complicated getting onto the train.

I figured that there’d not be lunch on the train, so grabbed something from Subway.
I’m only mentioning it because this Subway had beer on the menu.

The room seems familiar.

This time I was in one of the ‘Transition Sleepers”; There was also a regular sleeper car.
The transition sleeper, near as I can tell, has 20+ Roomette sleepers on the top level, half for passengers and half for crew (there’s a wee curtain), what looks like an accessible bedroom downstairs at the same end as the bathrooms, and then a sodding great ‘crew lounge’ at the other end. There was one of these on the Sunset Limited to New Orleans, used as the crew car exclusively until the septic system in our car packed it in.
They’re ‘transition’ cars because they have a top-floor door at one end, to meet the next double-decker car, and the other end has a door lower down, to meet a single-level car, usually the baggage car.

And now we have some photos.

Hammond, LA.

Jackson, MS.

Played around with the panorama setting again.

And this is somewhere on the approach to Chicago, I think.

This was an odd trip.

For a while there I thought I was the only passenger in the car; There was another guy there, but attitude and lanyard made me think he was Amtrak staff getting a ride somewhere. It did eventually attract a couple more people, but it was still an empty-feeling car; Or half-car, the crew were down behind the curtain, or down in the crew lounge downstairs.

The sleeping car attendant was dividing her time between ‘my’ sleeper and a coach car. She’d wander through occasionally, but that’s about it.

This was the first time I’ve needed the blanket in a sleeper.
Actually, even with the vent closed and the dial turned all the way to the ‘warm’ side, it was still cold enough that I snagged the blanket from the top bunk too, and hunkered down until the covers were over my ears.

The dining car was different.
All the other dining cars I’ve seen have a slice of ‘kitchen’ in the middle of the car, and seating booths filling the rest of the space. This one was half dining booths, half ‘cafe car’ booths, and the slice in the middle was a combined ‘kitchen’ and cafe kiosk to sell drinks & snacks.
The ‘kitchen’, in this context, is really a dish clearing zone and a place to unload the dumbwaiter from the actual kitchen below.
There was an observation car, of the sort that usually has a cafe in the basement, but that bit was marked crew only on this one.

The dining car was also different for another reason.
The folk staffing it really didn’t give a shit – Least interested Amtrak staff I’ve seen to date, and that includes the bus drivers at 7:10am. Minimal attention paid, got my order wrong and were so quick to drop off the plate and vanish that I’d have had to go look for them to let them know. Tried to get a coffee refill at breakfast, but that would have involved eye contact or responding to someone speaking.

We made it to Chicago a little late, for which they were apologetic. It was maybe 45 minutes.
I’ve had planes be later than that, and those things move at hundreds of miles an hour.

Thanks to my wondrous sleeper ticket, I could use the lounge at the Chicago end too, so I loitered there for a while to let any morning commuter rush die down, then ventured out to head for my hotel.

The main reason for coming back to Chicago for this weekend was to catch up with Steve & Moni, so I booked at the same hotel I stayed in when I first got here in … August? …, because it’s reasonably close to their place, nice, and pretty cheap.
Primarily because it’s nowhere near anything like a public transport route, it seems.
It does have squirrels, which is a plus for me.

Thus, I took a train to the airport, and a taxi the rest of the way.
The intention was to shave 20 miles off the taxi fare, but a lucky question at the airport had an information desk volunteer suggest asking the hotel whether they had a preferred taxi company, and not only did they have such a thing, they arranged it for me, at a flat rate.

And I’ve now used Chicago public transport;

First thing on today’s schedule, after a shower, was The Packing Of The Baggage. Then the eating of the breakfast.

As has become traditional, here’s the view during breakfast;

No Beignets today; I ate at the hotel restaurant, for I had things to do.

Such things.

On the bus tour yesterday, we stopped for a while at Basin Street Station, and I’d grabbed a flyer for the cemetery tours they run of Saint Louis Cemetery No. 1, resting place of somewhere between 50 & 70 thousand people, including a number of historical figures. It’s also the eventual resting place of Nicholas Cage.

They had a 9:30am tour, which struck me as a fine way to spend my last morning in New Orleans.

The picture above is Paul the tour guide, who started out by giving us (there were four of us in the tour including Paul) a basic run-down of Voodoo-as-religion, as opposed to Voodoo-as-movie-bollocks, just to set the stage. And also to loiter in the air conditioning for as long as possible.

I’ll get this one out of the way. The church sells plots, and what you put on your plot, in terms of design, is up to you. Some go big, some go small, and some … choose to go in a direction counter to the general aesthetic.

Future resting place of Nicholas Cage, with dramatic ray of light. And East Texan tourist.

The tourists were having to adjust their travel plans; They’d intended to take a cruise, but there’s a storm out there roughly the size of the first Death Star, so a re-thinking was in order.

It’s not quite a maze in there, but the paths are winding and erratic. You have to be with a licenced guide, though that’s more of a response to vandalism than a fear of lost tourists; It’s not that big.

The vaults and crypts are reused. It only takes a year for decomposition to do it’s thing, at which point the space becomes available again, and the … remnants … are either gathered into a container to stay in the crypt, or swept to the back to mix with all of the previous occupants.

If you didn’t spend time with your relatives before, you’re doing it now. ~ Paul the Tour Guide

The outer wall of the cemetery is made of multiple rows of vaults, family owned, still being used, though the wall is sinking, so the top of the bottom row is at maybe ankle height.

Standing between a couple of society tombs, where folks who don’t have a family plot can be interred.
I’m assuming you need to be a member of the specific society, the Italian Society or the French Society or so on.

The door there, we’re told, is actually where the groundskeepers store their tools.

As can be seen, some tombs are very new, some are very new, and some have crumbled almost into nothing.
The Church will intervene only if a structure could collapse and cause damage.
That said, if the structure is coming apart, they’ll try to track down a living relative. If that can’t be done, and the tomb is basically gone, and they have no alternative, they’ll re-sell the plot.

It was genuinely fascinating way to spend the morning.

Today started with the world’s messiest donut for breakfast.

It’s traditional, and therefore I cannot be judged for my breakfast choices. Don’t blame me; I don’t make the rules.

Post-Beignets, I took one of those hop-on hop-off bus trips, though I didn’t do any hopping, just enjoyed the tour guide’s commentary and basked in the air conditioning of the downstairs portion of the vehicle.

The heat is manageable, but worth avoiding. The sweating in the next picture is the result of ten minutes or so of non-strenuous walking. Not a sprinkler.

The plan had been to do a lap of the route, then go back to visit anything that caught my eye. That didn’t happen; The full tour took about two hours, two very entertaining hours, and I stopped to get lunch before proceeding.

As the song says, that was my mistake.

I’d wanted to go back to Mardi Gras World, where they build about 200 floats a year, but the tour is an hour long, and I couldn’t have made it there, done the tour, and made it to the bus back on time. Such is life, and I’ll plan better next time.

This is the one photo I got of the place that’s worth posting, and … Well, it’s a bit shit.

The bus tour was a lot of fun; Charlie the guide had a nice line in being enthusiastic about his town, wanting other people to be enthusiastic about his town, and wanting the folks on the bus to talk to each other. That last bit’s a novel approach, I thought.

Lunch didn’t consist solely of messy donuts; That was just the dessert. The slightly more nutritionally balanced portion came from a Cheesemonger (and salamimonger) in the French Market.

Did have some potential company for donuts, but they took too long to arrive.

Sparrows have business to attend to; They can’t be waiting around.

I’d spotted Dancing Vader the other day, rocking out to CCR’s “Down On The Corner”. This time it was Queen’s “We Are The Champions”, and I had some cash on me to help fund the Death Star.

That’s more or less it for the tourist stuff.

I did wander out in the evening, for a while, to listen to the various street bands and try to avoid hearing a bloody awful rapper. If you turn the volume down a bit, so that you’re not distorting every sound, then maybe, just maybe, the brilliance of your lyrics will shine through. Though probably not.

I have many questions about this sign, but the most important one is; How big are those parking tickets?

That seems unfeasible, unless the idea is that you can use it as an umbrella. It does look like they shrink, so maybe they’re like those plastic things you’d bake in a low heat to make them tiny?

And here’s a better shot of one of the floodwall/floodgate systems, presented in a transparent attempt to justify my not figuring them out the first time I saw one.

For the record, these titles are slogans from t-shirts I’ve seen in the stores here. Like most places, almost all the stores have basically the same designs at around the same prices.

Today’s alleged plan was to wander through the French Quarter, soak up the feel of the place, maybe do a tour if I felt so inclined. Two out of Two And A Half ain’t bad.

Wandered along Bourbon Street, and Royal Street, and that one starting with a “C” that I can’t remember the name of, working on the idea that I’d turn back if it looked too dodgy. Well, it got residential before it got dodgy, so that works out well.

There were a few bands set up, some in the streets, one outside Jackson Square, doing what looks to be the New Orleans variant of busking, where you put out a bucket, and the more mobile folks in the brass section occasionally carry it around during a song.

I found Cafe Du Monde more or less by accident. For the record, I wasn’t lost, so much as uninterested in exactly where I was, which allowed me to wonder what that place over there is, and find the aforementioned establishment.

Not what I expected. I’d assumed, from the name & the number of folks who’ve mentioned it unbidden and unrelated, that it would be some high-end place with fine everything and a long-ass line.

The reality was much better. Covered and railed-off area with a bunch of little cafe tables, server/porter/waiter/clearers in uniforms snaking their way through the space, and a menu so simple they can fit it on the side of the napkin dispenser.

From seeing it, I assumed I’d go to a counter, get food or maybe a little tag with a number, and find a table. Nope, table service; Sit down, wait a spell, and they come by.

I got a freshly cleared spot by the railing separating Cafe from Street, and had Cafe Au Lait and Beignets.

Not sure why the coffee comes in a lidded cup, but with an actual cup. Maybe to avoid spillage?

There is a mountain of powdered sugar on those things, which explains the white splatches on the paving. And on my black shirt. And jeans.

I looked like I had crotch-dandruff.

No regrets.

Post-pastry, I wandered back to my hotel, because the heat & sun were intense, though I went via Frenchman Street, which turns out to be a big covered market largely filled with the same tourist stuff, plus the odd unique place trying to be noticed.

It seems the housekeeping folks appreciated being left a (pretty minimal) tip.

First time that’s happened, though I have had them ask “is that for me?” if I’ve been in the room at the time.

Went out again in the evening, in time to see a high school marching band setting up & starting their march, followed by a throng of people in mostly partying attire, aside from the folks in business casual, and tail chased by a smaller band playing different tunes.

Clearly an organised thing, there were police leads & a tail of some sort, and a planned route.

The tourists took photos, the locals … sort of worked around it with a smile? The high school drummers were getting a phenomenal amount of volume going; I took some video, but uploading isn’t working, so so much for that.

I followed them for a bit, until they made a turn off Canal Street and into the French Quarter, then headed off along the waterfront for no particular reason.

I noticed structures like what’s badly pictured below yesterday, but didn’t figure them out until today; Pop-up floodwalls, to fill the gaps in the barriers.

In my defence, the walls in the other places looked to be in the sort of spots you’d have them anyway; Beside train tracks for the most part.

On the way back to the hotel, it became clear that the bands out during the Reign of the Day Star were just the beginning. A whole lot of bands on Bourbon Street, so that’s where I’ll be tomorrow night.

This is my room, with an unfeasible number of pillows and a sort of cushioned pool noodle thing.

And a view of Canal Street.

And hotel corridors which are … a little unusual in the lighting department.

That said, the whole hotel is a bit unusual.

Interesting lobby music though, which is a nice change.

I slept in a little, had Lost Bread for breakfast (it turns out to be French Toast, but more gooey) and ambled down Canal Street and along the river.

And in the course of ambling, found a place where I could take a lunchtime Jazz Cruise on the Natchez, 9th of it’s name.

It’s got a steam carillon, which they play … well, because they can.

And, to the left of the boat and the right of the picture, the Lower 9th Ward.

I’m pretty sure this is Jackson Barrracks – I should maybe take a few fewer photos and a few more notes?

Former car-part plant & current sugar refinery.
I did try to get a shot of the big-ass scoop picking up raw sugar from that boat on the right, but … it came out grainy?

OK, it was too cluttered a background to see what the hell was going on.

Sittin’ up the front, enjoying the ride down the river.
There’s the Captain’s Saloon off to the right, where one of the folk at the bar recognised my Dr. Who shirt; She was the second member of the Natchez team to do so, so apparently they’re a bunch of nerds.

A profusion of flags;
Barely visible to the right of the smokestack is the Jack of the United States, which I’d not realised was a thing.
The nearly indistinguishable one is the Flag of New Orleans.
Blue with 3 Gold Fleurs-De-Lis is a historical French-In-The-Americas thing, from what I can tell.

The ferry lets us go by, …

In addition to a steam calliope, the Natchez also has a steam whistle.
Quite a loud one, as it happens.

The Natchez, even though it only dates back to 1975, is a steamship, and runs like a much older type of ship.
Engine room telegraph (I wandered through the engine room, but took no photos), and orders relayed to the helm by one of those big cone speaking trumpets.

Got as much sleep as I could in Sauna 307, and the packing up process went very smoothly. Maybe I’m getting better at that part.

Taking a bus to the station was the easiest approach, and the only trouble I had was looking for the stop on the wrong side of the road. It’d have been correct in New Zealand, and I figured that out about halfway across the road.

For a 10pm train I was vastly early. Fortunately, a sleeper cabin comes with access to the Metropolitan Lounge at stations which have them, so I could stash my bag & go wandering.
In this case, to a bookstore Andrei had recommended I go check out, which turned out to be a not-too-bad walk from the station.

Spotted one of those multi-city signposts on the way; This is probably the closest to NZ I’ve been since … June, maybe?

And yet, some things followed me here.

And then there was The Last Bookstore.
It’s … different. In a good & eclectic way.

Upstairs is a gallery wrapping around the central space, filled with art gallery space, the book labyrinth, which essentially means you’ll be doing some meandering, and a few small arty businesses.

Luggage space is an issue, so I bought nothing, despite them having a copy of The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl in their comic & graphic novel grotto.

It was , as they say, as hot as hell out there, so I spent a bunch of time hiding from the day-star in the Amtrak Metropolitan Lounge, watching the room fill & empty as trains left.
I also watched people turn up to the lounge five minutes before their train left, then leave their boarding passes on the counter when told to run to the appropriate platform. No idea whether they made it.

Eventually, ‘my’ train arrived, and I got to see where I’d be living for the next two days.

Roomette 14, downstairs, at the other end of the car from the toilets & the shower.
Basically the same design as the other roomettes I’ve stayed in, though this one replaces the narrow ‘wardrobe’ with an indentation in the wall, a hanger rail, and a strap to hold things in place. Since I had nothing needing hanging, it meant a little more space, so I’m good with that.
In the interests of even more space, Big Red lived in the luggage rack in the centre of the car, so I could fold the top bunk hard up and get more head room.
The bed was already made up when we got on board, which makes sense, as it was kind of late.

I slept well, or at least better than in the sauna, and woke up at sunrise.

This trip seemed a lot more social than others. Not sure why.
I did make an effort to get off the train at every stop where it was feasible, so I met a lot of the other sleeper passengers.
Jay the sleeping car attendant helped, I think, by generally being cheerful and outgoing and involving everyone around him in his conversations.

I even met Daisy the Service & Therapy Dog, who, in one of the most adorable moments of the trip, shook my hand and gave me her card; She keeps them in her harness pockets.

It’s mostly photographs from here on