Day 11 - KOA River Ridge (Near New Orleans), Laundry Day#2

Day 11 - KOA River Ridge (Near New Orleans), Laundry Day#2

After spending the night in my car at the New Orlean's airport parking lot, I headed to the New Orleans KOA, in the nearby suburb of River Ridge.  As most KOAs, it's not located in the best part of town, but that doesn't really bother me.  When I got there, they informed me that they offer free shuttles to the French Quarter, and during the ride, given by one of the owners of the KOA, he takes you on various scenic routes to see the city, and gives a narration.  They had already left for the day, and they usually fill their van with reservations the day before anyway, so I reserved a spot for the next day.

They also told me about a few tours I could take while visiting the city.  One of these was a riverboat tour on the historic riverboat Natchez.  When I went through Mississippi, I had stopped at the visitor center, and asked about taking a riverboat ride, and they had told me that the only ones available anymore were in New Orleans, because most of the old riverboats were no longer able to get Coast Guard approval to take on passengers.  I was also planning to drive up to Natchez, MS, so I figured this was quite fortuitous.  I bought my ticket for the Natchez early lunch cruise, thinking that it would be easier to make my way toward the dock early, rather than possibly find myself on the other end of town, and need to hustle to it.

Both of these reservations solved a bit of a problem for me, too.  I had developed blisters on both my feet, and I didn't want to walk around the French Quarter all day, so the ride limited the amount of time I would stay in the city, and the cruise gave me a meal, a chance to ride on a historic riverboat, and a little bit of jazz.  Of course, as you'll see in Day 12, I did end up walking quite a bit.

With the reservations made, I pitched my tent and ate lunch.  Afterward, I did my second load of laundry.  While sitting in the laundry room, waiting for my clothes, I used the power to run my laptop and get some updating done and pictures transferred off my camera and edited.  I also spoke with a number of the other campers, including a truck mechanic and his wife from Illinois, who were travelling with the his identical twin.  Being a twin myself, we talked about twins and a number of other things, like how much they don't like technology, which I found slightly ironic, as I had my laptop set up on the table next to me.

Overall, not a very exciting day, but it was relaxing, and I was happy to have some down time.