Big Fun in the Big Easy: part 3

Day 3

Our next day's journey began with a celebrity sighting just outside our hotel:

Recognize him? It's Lightning McQueen, from the Pixar film Cars, which is Tessie's current favorite movie. (O.K., maybe it's not an exact match, but really, that #95 has to be a reference to the character, wouldn't you think?)

Our destination for the morning was the Audubon Insectarium, just up Canal Street from our hotel. The Insectarium is located on the first floor of a federal building, making it quite possibly the only maximum security insect zoo in the world. Once past the metal detectors and the bag inspection and the cavity search, you're in amongst a plethora of exotic insects. (O.K., kidding about the cavity search, but not about the rest. It's a lot like airport security - no pocket knives, nail clippers, cans of Raid, etc.)

Tessie found some of it enthralling, like taking an earthworm ride in the larger than life underground tunnel:

Contemplating the life cycle of the common house fly:

Or riding an alligator through the bayou:

The Insectarium has, as one would expect, an extensive collection of mounted (i.e. non-living) critters:

There are also a plethora of live exhibits behind glass. Tessie got to observe ants "Hello, ant friends!" close-up, saw scorpions and tarantulas and other creepy-crawlies, and was even presented with the opportunity to hold a Madagascar hissing cockroach. (She declined.) It also featured, as a temporary exhibit, a walk-through butterfly enclosure done up as a Japanese house. We walked through, and Tessie tried heartily to entice the butterflies to land on her hand, but to no avail.

Since this was the final day of the conference, Tessie's Mom was able to join us at the Insectarium around lunchtime. We had lunch at Landry's, which, on my previous visit to the Crescent City, was a linoleum-and-Formica diner offering very reasonably priced meals with generous portions. Not any more. Hurricane Katrina flooded it out, and the rebuilt Landry's has moved upscale. It's still tasty, but the value isn't the same. The city has changed since August 2005; now it's a lot harder to find a decent platter of boiled crayfish. A true tragedy.

We walked off lunch by heading back north into Jackson Square, this time to see the interior of the Church of St. Louis:

After that, we wandered the French Quarter some more, taking in more of the fine local entertainment. Tessie danced for a bit, but spent most of the trip perched atop my shoulders. I may be a few inches shorter these days - she's getting heavier!

Day 4
There are lots of Audubon Institute attractions in New Orleans. After the Zoo and the Insectarium, we still had the Aquarium left to visit. (Conveniently, one can purchase a joint ticket to visit all three in a seven-day span for a slight savings.)

The Aquarium was an even shorter walk from our hotel than the Insectarium; in fact, it was a shorter walk from our hotel than just about anything else. Since Tessie and her new friend hit it off so well at the Zoo, we arranged to meet him and his parents at the Aquarium as well.

The Aquarium of the Americas, as it is known, suffered badly during Hurricane Katrina. It wasn't the storm or the flooding that did the damage, but the inability of the staff to return  and care for the animals in the critical period after the storm was over. The collections were seriously depleted, but the larger carnivores survived. I guess that's not a huge surprise.

The aquarium is divided into regional displays of the various aquatic habitats of the Americas, such as the Gulf of Mexico, the Caribbean, and, of course, the Louisiana bayou, where this guy hangs out.

He's real. That lack of coloration is also real; he's leucistic, not albino. This seahorse, a resident of the Caribbean section, is also real, despite looking like a cross between a sci-fi monster and a Christmas ornament.

 Well, well, well - another celebrity sighting! Tessie hasn't yet been able to sit through the whole movie (the beginning is very scary), but she certainly recognizes Nemo. He seemed happy to see her, too.

Tessie's favorite part of the aquarium was the children's play area. There were rays in a touch tank (being a good Red Sox fan, Tessie wanted nothing to do with them!), sailing ships to climb and explore, kid-level fish tanks and informative signs, and a great big killer whale, uh, excuse me, orca right in the middle of the floor.

(Tessie knows them as killer whales - she inherited some of my old books from back in the days before cetaceans got all politically correct.)

We saw the whole place. It is a very good aquarium, especially the Mississippi River Gallery, which shows not only the fishes but some of the aquatic animals and birds of the region, all in one large, sunlit space. It's very thorough and well done. Also very enjoyable to just sit and watch is the giant 400,000 gallon Gulf of Mexico tank. We could have sat there for hours, just watching the sharks, turtles, jacks and other large fishes just swim around.

Of course, Tessie would never allow that!

You go, Tessie!

I took Tessie to the park today. She played in the sandbox, climbed on the play structures, rode the bouncy cars, and, oh yeah, totally smacked down some little punk chauvinist.

Tessie and this little boy were chatting as they played side by side. The boy, whose name I'll omit to spare him future embarrassment, asked Tessie how old she was. "Three and a half," Tessie replied.

"I'm three and a half. You don't talk like a three and a half [year old]," the boy replied, clearly impressed with Tessie's outstanding vocabulary and diction.

At that point, I asked the boy his birthday. "September Fourth," he told me.

"Then Tessie is only a month older than you," I informed him.

"She is too tall to be three and a half," he replied.

While sensing that he was calling my integrity into question, I let it slide, and went back to observing their interactions.

"Are you a boy or a girl," the boy asked.

"I'm a girl," Tessie told him.

"Why do you have a crab on your shirt? Only boys like crabs." Tessie was wearing a shirt with a cartoon lobster on it, and it read "Lotsa Lobster." [Target, $8.99, FYI.]

"It's a lobster," Tessie told him, then marched right up to him. "See? It says 'lobster' right here."

"How do you know what it says?" the boy asked.

Then came the best part: Tessie raised herself up to her full height, towering two or three inches over the boy, pulled her shoulders back and stated matter-of-factly, "I can read it. I know how to read. I learned from my Mommy and Daddy."

Big Fun in the Big Easy: Part 2

Day 2 

The conference continued with its demands on Tessie's Mom's time, so again we had to find ways to amuse ourselves. We planned to visit the Audubon Zoo, which was too far away for a walk.

We left the hotel and headed up Canal Street toward a streetcar stop when we ran into another conference-attendee-spouse and his son looking for something to do. We joined forces and boarded the St. Charles line streetcar heading west to Audubon Park. With traffic, and stops just about every block, it seemed the streetcar might not be the most expedient form of travel in the city, but we had already come to realize that alacrity in service is not the Big Easy's strong suit. So we just relaxed and took in the scenery. St. Charles Street is lined with stately nineteenth-century mansions, as well as a few more recent architectural attractions, so despite the slow pace we reached our stop without first reaching boredom.

That stop, however, was at the gate to Audubon Park, not Audubon Zoo, and we were left with a one mile walk to the zoo. It was not too warm and the scenery was delightfully bucolic, so we enjoyed the stroll and arrived at the gate with the rest of the throng.

After entering the zoo, we headed to Tessie's priority, the tigers, but were soon distracted by some of her other interests, such as the flamingos and elephants, as Tessie showed her new friend how to get the most out of a visit to the zoo.

Sure, there are animals to look at, but there are also animals to ride! As soon as she saw that the zoo's carousel had a tiger, we knew what we had to do. (Of course, that's not a huge surprise; all zoo carousels have tigers, don't they?)

After getting ourselves all turned around on the carousel, a quick map check was needed before we found the tigers.

The Audubon Zoo's tigers are white tigers. [I'll give Kanye West a moment here -- he's not coming? Good; I'll move on.] These tigers get their pigmentation from a recessive gene, and are not albinos, no matter what Sigfried and Roy may have told you. (Come to think of it, we can add white tigers to the list of things New Orleans has in common with Las Vegas. Other items on that list include casinos and rampant debauchery.)

After lunch in a staggeringly overcrowded cafeteria, we headed back out to take in more of the zoo while Tessie's new friend decided it was time for a nap. We saw the rest of the zoo on our own, including an animatronic dinosaur exhibition that Tessie found enthralling. Especially the one that spit. (Water, thankfully.) 

The zoo was scheduled to close right around that time, so we exited and began the long walk through the park back up to the streetcar line. The shadows were getting long, but Tessie still had loads of energy to burn up. Fortunately, there was a playground with swings and slides along our route, and a few other children to play with as well. 

 We did eventually reach the streetcar stop, and didn't have to wait long before one ambled down the track toward us. We boarded and took our seats, with Tessie staking out a window, and watched as the mansions of St. Charles Street slid by.

Then the streetcar ahead of ours broke down, blocking the tracks at Lee Circle and adding about 45 minutes to our journey. Tessie didn't mind one bit, though. She had fallen asleep in my lap a few blocks earlier.