We were dripping wet when we got into the Lyft on Basin Street in New Orleans, and I hoped it didn’t annoy the driver too bad. A storm rolled in right as we were wrapping up our tour of St. Louis Cemetery No. 1 (go check out the post about it), and we had to run in the downpour to get to his SUV. In that kind of rain, the twenty feet to the car door seems like a mile, and once you’ve fumbled with the door handle and climbed in, you’re soaked.

As per our humble request, the Lyft guy raced us to the Audubon Aquarium & Insectarium near the Mississippi River front, and by that time, the rain had stopped completely. We hoofed it around the building and inside to the counter only to be told we missed buying tickets by about 15 minutes. Dang. We may have sacrificed a bit of our dignity to beg for tickets, since we would be living New Orleans the next day, but the kid behind the counter wouldn’t budge. So we made it a point to get up early the next morning, hop on a cable car, and be there when the doors opened. And we did!

New Orleans cable cars run a 5.5 length of track here, there, and yon within the most populous and most visited parts of town. It costs $1.25 per ride, unless you get a Jazzy Pass for three bucks which allows you to ride endlessly for 24 hours. That’s what we did. Plus, we could hardly pass up buying anything called “Jazzy Pass”. They knew what they were doing.

Your typical mass-transit, robot voice announces the upcoming stop, but we learned that the cable cars keep trucking. Only when someone “requests a stop” does the car actually stop, so you better be paying attention. One requests a stop at the next cross street by timely pulling on a string laced through eye hooks along the windows of the car. Brady managed to pull it for us successfully in time to stop on Canal Street near the Aquarium. We walked up right as they were opening the doors.

It took us a little more than an hour to peruse the Insectarium, including the butterfly garden, and the Aquarium. All of it was a wonder and very nicely done. I understand the facility was relatively new and treasured by visitors. We loved it.

We took the chance to eat one last Cajun meal (we ate Cajun food every chance we had to eat, or we didn’t eat at all) on Bourbon Street, and we took it. And yes, even at 11:45 am on a random July Wednesday, there were plenty of crazies to see, music to hear, and murky puddles to avoid.

I’m sure we looked like resident vegabonds as we schlepped our suitcases, a couple of blankets, and at least 8 shopping bags full of stuff between us into the train station and down the platform. We settled into Room D in the 8500 sleeper car and prepared to watch the world go by, Lake Pontchartrain first followed by forested South Mississippi and finally through the Mississippi Delta.

As we arrived in Memphis, we stopped. Dead still. According to my Life 360 app, the station was about a mile ahead. We did not move for a solid hour…no explanation, no announcement, no visible reason. As of this moment, I still don’t know why we sat there. My guess is too allow freight trains to pass, since they take priority. At least we were comfortable, save Keith who was not-so-patiently waiting for us and none too pleased with the extra delay beyond our expected 10:40 pm arrival time. Oops!

I would trade our mom-daughter trip to New Orleans for absolutely nothing, and I would highly recommend rail service (in a sleeper car!) to any destination. Hit me up if you ever consider traveling by Amtrak, and I will tell you what we learned. Unless you talk to someone with experience or watch a lot of YouTube videos, I promise you won’t know what in the world to do or what’s going on as Amtrak personnel are neither chatty nor instructional.

Thursday at home, I shuffled around some stuff in my suitcase and got ready to go again…

We had some of our favorite people and the Connecticut coast to see…the next day!

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