Road Trip, Days 12 and 13 - Dansereau House

Our recent stay in the French Quarter of New Orleans wasn't quite what we'd hoped.  So, we cut it short by a couple of days.  We felt very lucky to have found the Dansereau House and were able to make reservations to spend two more nights in Louisiana.  That gave us time to see some of the other sights we'd hoped to see while we were there.  And, the Dansereau House was a destination in itself and a highlight of our trip.  Just look at this magnificent old mansion...

While we were there, I posted a picture on Facebook and someone mentioned that it looked a lot like the Haunted Mansion at Disneyland.  I pulled up the picture and realized they were right.  I think it does look very similar.  It does have stories about being haunted but I'll leave those out of the post.  We felt very at peace and loved spending time there.

It had a lovely entry.

I love the porch!  It wrapped around three sides of the house.

There were rockers, chairs, and tables all around to sit and relax.

There were interesting things all around and through the house.

This is the door knocker on the front door...

Inside the front entry...

This is what you see as you walk in the front door.  I found it interesting
that the stairs started going up from the back instead of the front.  

I thought this was an interesting light in the front entry area...

This door knocker was on the door at the rear of the house, where we entered...

I love the door handle on the back door.  I think it's gorgeous!

The tile in the back entry is lovely as well...

This is the view as we entered from the back...

Another fabulous light fixture...

This old elevator went from the first floor to the second level veranda that wrapped all the way around the house, and the top level.  It came in handy to take luggage up to our room.

We had made reservations for another room but the inn was vacant that night and they gave us a choice of any other room we wanted.  We chose the Caldwell Room.  Isn't it lovely?!

I love the hardwood floors.  I'm curious what kind of wood they were made of.

This is the upstairs hall area...complete with a two sitting areas.

This is one of the seating areas...

Here it is from another angle.

The photos of the other area, near a large front window didn't turn out.

This was our second favorite room.  It was right across the hall...

Every room had a private bath...complete with fluffy, white towels and bathrobes.

This is the room we had originally reserved. 

It's cute but we were happy to stay in the Caldwell Room as it was a lot larger and brighter.

The room in the above photo and this one were in the back of the house on the second floor.

This one is cute but had a bit of a creepy feel to us.  So, we passed on this one.

The stairs were amazing!

Up to the third floor!  It had leaded glass on one side, a huge painting on the other, and a chandelier at the end (my daughter is taking my photo from behind it...lol).  I'm not sure what they're called, but the wood posts at the top of the stairs were huge and beautiful!  There was a large seating area with antique furniture in the landing area.

The top floor consists of two large suites that can be rented singly or together as there is a door to connect them.  This is the bridal suite side.  Magnificent!

I'm not sure what's up with that art(?) hanging above the fireplace with black stone inside of it.

I've never seen anything like it.  But, check out the amazing fireplace...

Just wait until you see the bathroom.

That beautiful stained and leaded glass door leads to it...

Straight across from that door and inside the bathroom, we were greeted with this gorgeous sight.

These doors lead to the room with the toilet.  We were told that brides often have their photo taken there.  No one would know there was a toilet behind them.  And, I can certainly understand wanting to take a photo with those beautiful blue doors.  Gorgeous!

After entering the bathroom, this is to the left...

And, this is to the right...

It had an interesting sink...

The shower was very ornate with more leaded glass in the window next to it.

Across from the shower was a urinal but it was not to be used and held a plant.

At the back the bridal suite, at the rear of the house, was this room.  I think that's the elevator on the left of the photo.  We have a feeling the door in the center lead to the cupola at the top of the house.

Through those curtains is a doorway to the family suite on the other side of the house.

I didn't take any photos in that room as I felt very uncomfortable in there and just wanted to get out and go back downstairs.  My daughter felt the same.  So, if there truly is a ghost...that might be where it hangs out.  The stories we heard say it hangs out in that top level.  Oh, and by the way...we never heard those ghost stories until the morning we left.  So, how we felt up there was not influenced by stories we'd heard.

Back down to the first level and this is the parlor...

The dining room was huge!  The baseboards were mid-shin high.

All of the rooms are very tall.  I wondered how high....at least 10', I think.

I love this room that's part of the kitchen.  It's so cute!

I love the copper ceiling and those adorable stools!

  

They host an event every Thursday evening called, "The Drinkery".  There's a bar at the rear corner of the house.  They serve drinks and amazing food that is prepared by their new inn keeper who is a Cordon Bleu chef.  It was delicious and the amazing smells of it filled the house as she cooked.  They also have live music in the parlor....or outside if weather permits.

The porch on this side of the house leads into The Drinkery bar.  We enjoyed relaxing out there with a view of the side yard as we enjoyed a glass of wine and delicious food...

They opened the windows and doors at the bottoms of the windows that lead to the

parlor so guests could hear the music while sitting on the porch.

My daughter and I later went up to the second floor veranda and enjoyed having the whole thing to ourselves.  We also enjoyed watching a storm roll in as the sky flashed and rumbled and rain dumped for a couple of hours.  It was relaxing and spectacular all at the same time.  Oh...and...see those red, white and blue banners?  They hung those on our first morning there.  They held a fund raising event that night (our second night) for a Louisiana Senator.  It was interesting to think that a senator was in the house as we went up and down the stairs, going about our business, and as we relaxed in our room.  Everyone was so nicely dressed and very stiff and proper.

But, back to our first night at the inn...

We uncorked a bottle of wine we'd brought with us and enjoyed it while we sat on the veranda.

I also did a little crocheting in one of the rocking chairs.

If you've been following along with my posts about our road trip, you might remember the mention of weeds growing on walls.  Here's another example.  These ferns were literally everywhere...on the ground, on tree trunks and branches, and on houses and roofs.  Yeah...I think it rains a LOT there!

This looks to be a bit of ivy growing out of the wall...

Yup...lots of rain and humidity.  Some of the inside walls would be wet and drippy in the mornings.

This is a window in The Drinkery/bar area of the house on one of the mornings...

The guest parking area was at the rear of the house.

I just had to get a photo of these weathered green, louver doors.

They looked like something I associate with the south and Louisiana.

This photo is a bit foggy because my camera steamed up from the humidity.

We really enjoyed our stay at Dansereau House and would highly recommend it.  It was clean, comfortable and inviting.  The inn keeper, Debra was wonderful!  The staff were super nice!  The food was delicious!  Oh...and we were served a big breakfast every morning.  She even takes into account any allergies as well as things we like and don't like.  We wouldn't hesitate to stay there again if we're ever in the Thibodaux area.  It's not all that far from New Orleans and the drive to see some of the famous plantation homes is fairly close as well.  The history of the house is interesting too.  You can read about it by following the link above.

This was the end of the second week of our three week road trip.

There's still more to come!  I hope you'll come back!  :-)

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.