I chose to watch the excellent movie, Beyond All Boundaries, so I had reduced time to view the exhibits. The museum is huge, and you could spend several days there.
Here are some exhibits from the European Theater:
My father, Hiram Gates Larmon, was an aerial photographer in part of the Pacific Theater during World War II.
After breakfast, we boarded the bus for a City Tour with Milton who traces his New Orleans lineage back to the mid-1800's. Milton's lively commentary provided insight into many of the buildings/areas of the city.
We got off the bus to visit the St. Louis Cemetery #3:
Above-ground tombs are used rather than traditional in-ground graves because the city's high water table can cause underground caskets to float to the surface during heavy rains and floods.
By law and tradition, a body must remain sealed inside an above-ground tomb for at least a year and a day. The intense subtropical heat of the summer turns the brick and stone vaults into natural ovens—often reaching temperatures well over 200°F—which rapidly breaks down the soft tissue of the body.
Because space is limited, family and community tombs are designed to be multi-generational. After the required time passes, the remaining skeletal remains are gathered and placed into a lower chamber (called a cavo) or pushed to the side to make room for the next family member who passes away.
Structures range from ornate, house-like family vaults to communal wall vaults (often called "ovens") built into cemetery perimeters for benevolent societies or lower-income residents.
Milton explains the process of breaking the seal around that large rectangle to open the tomb. The small plaque in the front reads, "Perpetual Care." This means the family has paid for care of the plot.
Some multi-generational tombs:
NOLA is called the Crescent City as it's built at the crescent of the river. Gambling is illegal but "gaming" is not. 😉
They decided to build homes/buildings of different heights so that fire wouldn't spread as easily. The Great New Orleans Fire of 1788 destroyed over 77% of the buildings.
A Canadian, Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne, Sieur de Bienville, founded the city in 1718. Bienville's monument (which gives the year as 1717) depicts him in a haughty pose, his chin held high. Standing with his back to Bienville is Father Athanase, a Recollect monk. Close to Bienville's feet is an Indian holding a peace pipe.
Two different home styles are shotgun and the larger double shotgun, so named because you could shoot a gun through the front door and it would exit through the back door. High ceilings with transoms allowed the hot air to escape.
Dormers on the orange Creole cottage indicate there were children in the home as they slept in the attic. Shutters were made out of bald cypress as that wood deters termites. Decorative corbels adorn the green cottage.
There were many murals all over the city. Below is James Booker who taught Harry Connick, Jr.
At the New Orleans Cooking School, we enjoyed the lively commentary of Tom the Chef as he prepared our dinner. The overhead camera allowed us a bird's-eye view of the stove:
"Cooking Creole" begins with putting on a pot of rice and then preparing the "Holy Trinity" by finely chopping green peppers, onions, and celery. These ingredients then seem to "disappear" into the food after they are cooked.
Both gumbo and etouffee begin with a roux. First we tasted gumbo, a thin, rich, soup-like stew. It was tasty, but the amount of butter/lard in these recipes was a little off-putting...
Next Tom prepared etoufee (which means "smothered"), a thick, gravy-like classic Cajun and Creole dish featuring shellfish—most commonly crawfish or shrimp—smothered in a rich, roux-based sauce and served over white rice.
We also tasted some Po-Boy Amber. Pretty good...
Right outside NOMA was the Sydney and Walda Besthoff Sculpture Garden. There were two sections - one on the right and the left - filled with sculpture from top names and plenty of new ones to explore.
First: A white ibis was there to great us:
And in honor of Halloween coming up:
