Road Trip, Days 7 through 12 - Fiber Highlight

Something I love to do on just about every trip I take is to visit yarn shops.  This three week road trip was no exception.  I had searched online for yarn shops in every city we were planning to visit and even some in between and along the way.  It hadn't gone all that well through the first week as some were closed the day we were in town and some had gone out of business.  And, some just weren't all that great.  So, I'd really only had yarn shop fun in one place over the first week, iPurl in The Woodlands, Texas.  But, I still kept trying.

One place that had been on my list since I started planning the trip was "The Quarter Stitch".  It's right in the middle of the French Quarter and on the same street as the cathedral.  It was a surprise to me that there was a yarn shop in the French Quarter and I wasn't about to miss it.

I didn't get a picture of the front of the store.  But, here's a picture of the sign hanging outside of it...

It was a very colorful store filled with lots of yarn, needlepoint canvas and bins of yarn strands in many colors for needlepoint.  It was fun to look through.

They had huge balls of yarn in the front of the store...

And, some interesting and brightly colored yarn made from fabric strips...

They had lots of other pretty yarns throughout the store...

Almost right across the street was a something that I didn't know about ahead of time, a weaver.  Stopping in there turned out to be one of the highlights of our time in the French Quarter.  Not only was it exciting to find a weaving shop and see the gorgeous rugs that were for sale and being made but the owner is a gem that we were honored and thrilled to meet.  She was so sweet and fun to visit with.  We chatted for a long time the first day and went back a second time for another visit.  The shop was like a little escape or oasis from the chaos of the quarter.  It was so inviting and comforting.  We loved it!  This is a place not to miss if you're ever in the French quarter.  And, of course, if you're in the market for a beautiful rug, give her a call or visit her website HERE.  Click on the link to see some of her gorgeous work.  I love her sign too!

Another treat at the weaving shop were the kitties that she's rescued.  It was so fun to see and visit with some furry friends while we were so far from home.  They were all so cute!

This one snuggled up next to my feet when I first got there.

Awww...so sweet!

Then, later during our visit, I sat on the floor and the same kitty snuggled up next to me on my skirt.

Such a pretty kitty!  I think it liked me!

I just love meeting people in other places and getting to know them, hearing their stories, learning about the area we're visiting, and connecting.  Our visits with Ronda were priceless and a treasured memory of our trip.  I feel like I made a friend and I hope we can stay in touch.

Oh...and, if you're ever in the market for handwoven baskets, she has some

beautiful ones in her shop as well.  They're made by one of her assistants.

Do you like to visit yarn shops and weavers on your travels?  Or, do you have a specific thing you always seek out when you're traveling?  I'd love to hear about it!  :-)

Thanks for stopping by!  Stay tuned...there's more to come!

Road Trip, Days 7 through 12 - New Orleans, Louisiana

Week two of our three week road trip was spent in New Orleans, Louisiana.  The hotel we stayed at was dirty and disappointing.  And, Bourbon Street was disgusting.  But, we were determined to make the most of every single day of our trip.  And, we kept believing that there was good things in the French Quarter.  So, we kept walking the streets and looking.  We found the secret!  Keep going past the crowds!

Here are a few of the cool things we saw along the way...

The carriages and mules were fun to see.  And, they're so darn cute!

Jackson Square and the cathedral were neat.  Here's a picture I posted on Instagram...

We went to a harp concert in the cathedral on the first day of the conference.  It was beautiful inside!

I loved that they didn't use a microphone for the harp.  The acoustics were amazing!

We saw a Kora player on the streets on the first day.  It's a harp type of instrument from Africa.  My daughter had just done a research paper on them over her spring semester of college.  The sound was surprisingly rich for how small the sound box/gourd is on the instrument.  Beautiful!

We walked through the French Market on the north end of the French Quarter.  I had expected produce and foods.  There were a few places to eat and some spices and honey to buy but most of the vendors were selling souvenirs.  It was fun to walk through and shop though.

As we headed farther from Bourbon Street and the crowds, the streets were cleaner and a lot more enjoyable to see.  The "iron lace" metal work, the shutters, the plants on the balconies and so many of the details were interesting to see.  There are lots of little shops on the bottom levels.  The upper levels are where people live.  There are also a lot of vacant buildings.

The northern part of the quarter was so much cleaner and nicer.  We liked it a lot better up there.  We found out later that the north end is where the locals go.  Of course...they would know!  I'm so glad we figured that out!

When we were on the north end of the quarter, the sky began to flash, rumble and rain.  Better music was coming from the bars and restaurants on that end and at volume levels that were pleasing instead of deafening like in the crowded areas.  We decided to pop into a place to listen to some gospel/blues music and enjoy a drink.  The music was great!  And, while we were there the rain really started to come down hard.  That brought in more people and we all had a good time watching it from inside.

After a while, we decided to head out in the rain and start walking back toward the hotel.  We thought it would be fun to do a little bar hopping too...something we'd never done.  So, we grabbed another drink and sat down to listen to some old school blues.  It was great!

As the rain started to calm down a bit, we decided to take our drinks and keep walking.

It's legal to walk around in public with alcohol there!  That was fun!

We had arrived on a weekend...the busiest and craziest time in the Quarter...besides Mardi Gras.  Things calmed down quite a bit when the weekend was over.  That was much nicer.  We continued to stay away from Bourbon Street though!  Many of the other streets were so much nicer.  Here's one of those iconic scenes we've all seen pictures of.  Pretty!  It was next to Jackson Square and there was a restaurant on the corner called, "Stanley" that a local had recommended.  We were desperate for good, stick-to-our-ribs food by this point.  Let's just say that eating healthy and gluten free in the south is a bit challenging.  Add "affordably" and it's nearly impossible.

We had a window seat and this was our view!  Like a story book!  And, yes, those are clouds.

There was rain every afternoon while we were there.  We enjoyed that!

The food was exactly what we needed...hearty, delicious, and amazing.  Not sure about the healthy part though.  It was corned beef hash that had pastrami in it, perfectly seasoned potatoes, a poached egg, and it was smothered in Hollandaise sauce.  YUM!  It was So good!

Food did wonders for our outlook and mood that day!  :-)

This chalkboard sign was outside of a little shop.

We didn't go in but I thought it was cute.

There were lanterns throughout the French Quarter and even in neighboring cities that run on gas.  They have a small tube/pipe that sticks up from the bottom for the gas and the flame.  I've heard of gas lamps but never seen them...until Louisiana.

This was the driveway/entrance to one of the neighboring hotels to where we stayed.  I thought it was interesting and kind of pretty.  The chandelier in the front was made with brass horns.

There were electric street cars that ran around parts of the French Quarter.  Here's the station near the aquarium and the Mississippi river, at the east end of Canal Street...

They ran right down Canal Street...where we were staying.  There was a Starbucks across the street that I visited a few times.  I snapped this photo one morning to post on Instagram...

While we were there, I really wanted to pop into the Westin at Canal Place...where I'd stayed years ago and was nothing but impressed with.  It was sad to see that they'd redecorated and taken away all of the antiques and beautiful furnishings that had been in the lobby/sitting area.  But, it still didn't disappoint...especially the view!  Check this out and look at those storms in the distance.  Amazing!

Here's a panoramic shot.  That's the Mississippi River to the right, the French Quarter on the left, and the view is looking north.  Click on the photo to enlarge it for a better view.

My daughter got a lot out of the conference and was happy to have gone.  She even got to go to a masquerade event on the closing night.  She bought a mask just for the occasion.  They handed out beads....lots of them...at the event.  She's such a cutie!

I have one more post about one of the highlights of our time in the French Quarter.  So, stay tuned.  Then, we were off to our next destination!  See you soon!  Thanks so much for stopping by!

Road Trip, Day 7 - New Orleans, Louisiana

The three week road trip my daughter and I took was centered around going to the national harp conference in New Orleans, Louisiana.  My daughter is a harpist and was very excited about attending.  It's the first conference she's attended that's put on by the American Harp Society.  We were also excited because this road trip not only gave us three wonderful weeks together and the opportunity to visit family along the way but also to see and experience lots of new places.  And, let me tell you....New Orleans is quite an experience!

This week started on a Saturday morning with a drive from east Texas where we'd enjoyed a few wonderful days with my aunt and cousins.  From there, the landscape changed from piney woods and very green to green with LOTS of water.  We were amazed as we drove for miles on highways/freeways that were like bridges built over water.  There were trees in the water!

As we crossed over big rivers, there were large bridges for the big boats to fit under.

I think this bridge was in Baton Rouge...

We had decided to stay at the Astor Crowne Plaza Hotel because the conference was being held there.  It would be the most convenient for all the meetings, workshops, lessons, rehearsals, performances, etc. that my daughter would be going to during the week.  It was in the French Quarter of New Orleans, right on Canal Street, one of the main streets that run through the Quarter.  It was also next to the famous Bourbon Street.  We were excited!  

It seemed to be a nice hotel with valet parking, bell hops, big chandeliers and a fancy price to go with it.  But, we were greeted at the front desk with snooty staff and our room was filthy.  So much so that we had to take allergy meds every day.  My daughter even felt like she was getting sick from it.  When we asked the front desk about leaving early we were again greeted with a bad attitude and whispering about the situation between several of the staff.  When I went to the desk a third time, I finally got someone with a professional attitude that was helpful.  She not only allowed us to end our stay early without a penalty fee but she also hugely discounted our last night.  That was a relief!  I quickly went back to the room and searched online for a new place to stay after we were to leave this place and I made a reservation.  Here's some of the filth we put up with there...

The carpet around the edges of the room and under the edges of the furniture was bad...

Even the tall headboards had dust wads on them...  Yuck!

The window sills were dirty...

The drapes were stained.  Gross!

The blow dryer was broken with exposed wires.  Seemed like a hazard to me!  They did have another one in the room that worked.  But, I have no idea why they'd leave this in the room or not fix it. 

The room and beds smelled like dust and the closet was even worse.  But, it was the only place we could fit our luggage as the room was small.  So, whenever we got into our luggage we'd try to hold our breath.

Over the three weeks of our road trip, this was the only hotel that had difficult wifi.  We couldn't connect no matter what we tried.  My daughter sat on the phone for a long time with their help desk that seemed to be in India with someone who barely spoke English.  She gave up and we ended up spending a lot of time on the phone with my husband as he worked out the problem and was able to get us connected.  He's awesome!  Fast forward a couple days and it, again, would not connect.  I sat on the phone with that crazy help desk again for a very long time and finally got connected.  Ugh!

Then, there was the AC!  It was cold in the room and I wanted to turn the AC off for a while.  I turned the thermostat temperature up.  That didn't work.  So, I turned the whole thing off.  That seemed to work but it kept coming back on.  It got a little creepy because it would go off until I'd go sit down to work on something and then come back on.  The moment I'd stand up or go over to turn it off, it would go off on it's own.  I told my daughter about it and she thought that was creepy.  I thought so too.  It was like someone was watching and turning it off over and over like a joke.  I mentioned it on Facebook and a whole discussion started about how haunted New Orleans is and how to deal with ghosts.  It was kind of funny but it had me wondering.  One evening, I Skyped with my husband and held the laptop up for him to see the thermostat.  Problem solved!  It seemed to have a motion sensor on it.  He thought the air would run to keep the air circulating but turn off when it detected someone in the room (since it was "off").  See that little rectangle by my finger...that's the sensor.  Yay!  No ghosts!  Hopefully! ;-)

It was funny that we saw this sign later that day as we walked through the French Quarter...

This was only the beginning of "haunted" house talk for this trip though.  Stay tuned for more.

Here's an interesting part of our hotel.  We passed it every time we went to our room and I thought it looked cool.  It's a space between wings of the hotel to provide light to some of the rooms.  I love the old brick.  We saw a lot of it on our trip .  I think it's interesting too how old brick and other types of walls in the south have ferns growing out of them.  So, they not only need to weed their yards but their houses and businesses too!

The hotel was only the first disappointment on this section of our road trip.  Bourbon Street was also VERY different than we had expected.  In fact, it was downright disgusting!  It seemed that about the only types of businesses on Bourbon were bars and restaurants.  That's not a problem.  The problem is that the French Quarter is a party destination and Bourbon is party central.  That explains the smell!  Let's just say that anything that can come out of a human body is probably on the street.  Combine that with heat and humidity and it's GROSS!  We felt like we needed to throw our shoes away and get new ones after walking down that street.  And, we just couldn't hold our breath long enough before we were out of that area.  Unfortunately, that smell carries and is on some of the other streets as well.
We didn't hang around on that street long enough to take pictures.  I'm not even sure there's anything I'd want a picture of.

We were not happy campers when we first arrived.  But, we always try to look on the bright side and make the best of every situation.  That's just what we did in the French Quarter.  So, stay tuned for my next post and some nicer things about New Orleans and the French Quarter.