After spending 6 months in Florida establishing our domicile and completing our first Workamping gig, it was time to start moving West! From Miramar Beach we headed toward New Orleans. We had two days to get there and planned to stop overnight somewhere along the way. After driving for a few hours, we noticed billboards for casinos in Biloxi, MS. Although we don’t gamble, we like staying near casinos since they usually have decent restaurants and entertainment. We called ahead and found out that Boomtown Casino offers full hookup sites for $35 a night if you are a member of Good Sam.  

Getting through Biloxi with our rig wasn’t much fun, but we made it to the casino RV Park and did a light setup. There were two casinos within easy walking distance and we walked to the closest, Boomtown Casino. As we were walking through it, we passed the Stadium Sports Bar and Grill. We had timed it well since our beloved Baltimore Ravens were playing the Seattle Seahawks at the time! When we got there the game was at half time and the score was tied. We ordered some drinks and appetizers and sat down to watch the Ravens win! (Sorry, Annette!)

After the game we walked to IP Casino to check it out. It is much larger and busier than Boomtown and we spent some time walking through and watching some of the tables. The next morning, we went back to IP Casino for their breakfast buffet, then got on the road to New Orleans.

When we were planning our trip people in some of our online groups had suggested not traveling on I-10 in Louisiana and Texas. There were many comments about the horrible shape the road is in as well as heavy traffic and no shoulders. One commenter said the road was so rough their slide came out, another one said their fireplace fell out of their wall! Besides that, there was an incident and part of I-10 was shut down.  After doing a lot of research we decided to take Route 90 most of the way. We got to see a lot of the country we wouldn’t have seen on an interstate and the road was mostly good. However, there were some sections that were very isolated and others that were really rough. We were a little nervous about what kind of shape the inside of our camper would be in when we got there. Mike swears if we ever go back east , we are going AROUND Louisiana! Another part of the drive that was very nerve wracking was driving through New Orleans, which is bad enough on a good day – we were doing it pulling our 5r … in the rain. We were very happy to arrive at the RV park when we got there! And even happier to find no damage or broken items inside the rig.

The resort was expensive, but definitely worth it in our opinions. The French Quarter RV Resort is a small park but the spaces are large. The sites are close together with no real separation, but they’re paved and level. The main attraction of the park is definitely their location! It’s an easy 3 block walk to the French Quarter, where we spent most of our time.

The person that checked us in was very helpful. She gave us a map of the area and suggested a few places we might be interested in. She also told us that the French Quarter was safe to walk around at any time and walking from the resort to the French Quarter was fine during the day but at night we should plan to take a cab or an Uber back.

The next morning, we set off to see the sights (and eat, of course!). Everyone knows you have to eat beignets for breakfast at least once while you are in New Orleans, and the place to get them is Café Du Monde on Decatur Street. A beignet is sort of a cross between a donut and fried dough and is served with a ton of powdered sugar! The beignets were great and the coffee was okay. After that, we knew we had to do a lot of walking to counteract at least a few of those calories!

We spent the morning walking along Decatur Street and went through the French Market.

The historic houses with the balconies were fun to see and many of them were decorated for Halloween.

We also went through Jackson Square and visited the Saint Louis Cathedral.

Lunch was a muffuletta at the Central Grocery Company, an Italian Market right on Decatur that claims to be the home of the original muffuletta. It is the only sandwich they serve and they only serve it two ways. We got half of a regular one to share and ate it at the counters in the back of the store.

After resting up at the camper for a while we headed into town for dinner and some night life. We had dinner at the Gumbo Shop. We had intended to get Gumbo there but oddly, neither of us did! A gentleman we were sitting next to said their Crawfish Pasta with Tasso sauce was the best pasta he’d ever had, so Candi decided to try that while Mike got a sampler dish with Jambalaya, Shrimp Etouffee, and Shrimp Creole.  Both dishes were excellent!

After that we went to Pat O’Brien’s on Bourbon Street for one of their famous Hurricanes. They were very good and VERY big and they came in a souvenir glass and were accompanied by a small bag of popcorn. Of course, since we live in an RV, we don’t have room for souvenir glasses so luckily you can turn them back in for $4.

Next up we walked around Bourbon Street and went into a few bars where we saw some good bands and even got to dance a little!

Wednesday we decided to visit a different area of New Orleans. We ate a light breakfast at home and went out around lunchtime to go to The Garden District. On our way there we stopped for lunch at Mother’s Restaurant. A friend had told us this was great place to get sandwiches and he was not wrong! HUGE Sandwiches!

After lunch we walked to a streetcar stop to get a ride to the Garden District. The collapse of The Hard Rock hotel that was under construction had occurred a couple of weeks ago and had somewhat crippled the city. About four blocks right in the middle of town were closed. Traffic and trolley lines had to be routed around it.

This meant the street car couldn’t pick us up at the usual place. However, they had buses running as connections to the street cars. The ride was fun and we got to explore a completely different part of New Orleans.

That night we decided to go to the Frenchman Street area for dinner since we had been told it is a little less ‘touristy’ and is where the locals hang out. We had another amazing meal at The Maison. We both got Shrimp and Grits are so glad we did. It was so good neither of us would have wanted to share it with the other!

 After dinner we walked around for a little while then decided to head home – and get dessert on the way! We stopped at Muriel’s at Jackson Square and sat at the bar for coffee and dessert. This is a very nice restaurant and honestly is more expensive than we would usually do, but for dessert we thought we’d treat ourselves. We shared a bread pudding a la mode and each got a coffee (decaf!) with Bailey’s and Frangelico (one of our favorite campfire drinks!). It was honestly one of the best bread puddings we’ve ever had, and Candi considers herself to be somewhat of a bread pudding aficionado.

The next day we were big mealed out (if you can believe that!). So we went to a coffee shop near the resort for pastries for breakfast.

As most of our friends know, we are both huge Doobie Brothers fans (and keep voting to get them nominated to the hall of fame (click here if you want to vote, you can log in with Google, FB, or Amazon)); one of their albums was shot in a house on Toulouse Street and also named after the street. So, one of the last things we did was walk from one end of Toulouse to the other in their honor. Unfortunately, we had no idea what house it was so we couldn’t pay homage to it.

Since we were planning to leave the next day and they were calling for rain we went back early to start packing up the camper. The next day we started heading toward Galveston.

Before you go, some of the sights we saw in and around NOLA: