Episode: 4000
Title: HPR4000: New Orleans
Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr4000/hpr4000.mp3
Transcribed: 2025-10-25 18:27:37

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This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 4,000 for Friday 1 December 2023.
Today's show is entitled New Orleans.
It is part of the series Travel.
It is hosted by Ahukah and is about 16 minutes long.
It carries a clean flag.
The summary is, we visit the big easy.
Hello, this is Ahukah, welcoming you to Hacker Public Radio and another exciting episode
in our ongoing saga of RV travels and we are going to New Orleans.
So New Year's Day, January 1, 2023.
We left Vicksburg and took US 61 South to Louisiana, heading for the town of Convent, about
an hour outside of New Orleans.
We had reservations at a campground called Sugar Hill, but when we got there, the camp
post sent us down the road to the post plantation RV park.
We were worried that this was going to be a big snaffoo, but the camp post there was
very friendly and accommodating and it turns out he is from Michigan.
Apparently, both of those campgrounds are owned by the same person.
The one that we had talked to at Sugar Hill also owns this post plantation.
So there was everything was fine, whatever he said would go.
So we were able to get a spot and it seemed like a nice place to spend a few nights and
get in the town for some sightseeing, so we got settled in and so the host at the post
plantation we said was from Michigan and we were parked right next to him.
On the other side of us was parked a couple, but it was also from Michigan.
In the course of this trip, we ran into people from Michigan more often than we would have
expected and even people who had actually heard of the town of Ipsilanti, which I thought
was I was always going to have to spell it out for people and sometimes I did, but a lot
of people said no, I know about Ipsilanti.
Anyway the next day, January 2nd, we thought that would be a good day to do a tour of the
French Quarter.
Now the first problem we had to deal with is parking.
Parking in a city when you have a big truck like ours is not easy.
This parking is for ordinary automobiles and we need more space.
Our truck is too large to go into a parking structure, it's taller than a car, it's a
freight liner truck.
So we needed to find an open lot that could accommodate us and if yesterday was any guide
we expected a lot of humidity.
But once we were in the city, it was cooler than expected.
The river gives a cool breeze and it was even a bit chilly on top of the levee.
We were able to park without a problem, thankfully, in a lot about six blocks away from Jackson
Square.
We did a little walking around the French Quarter on our own and then we hit a range
to take a guided tour and we met our guide for a two hour walking tour of the old city.
We were in a group of, I know, 10-15 people on this walking tour.
We learned a lot of New Orleans history and had a great time.
We may not need to go back to this area again.
We've walked the French Quarter, we've been on Bourbon Street and aside from getting
back there during Mardi Gras, I wouldn't think that there's any other reason to do
it again.
We went back to the post plantation RV park after this and joined our neighbors.
They had an informal happy hour and we've seen this in a number of the parks where people
would get together around four o'clock and those who partake would maybe get out of
beer.
I'm not sure when I don't drink so, you know, I got my diet Pepsi and I'm now made dinner
and that was that for the day.
January 3rd, the weather report was for thunderstorms so you decided, okay, take a day of rest, stay
inside.
I played a few hours of civilization for without getting into a winning position.
Then we had dinner and watched another episode of Picard before going to bed.
January 4th, and we had a weird night.
There was a thunderstorm which was in the forecast so not unexpected.
In fact, we looked forward to it since the humidity was uncomfortably high and we needed
a fan to get to sleep.
But around 3am I realized the fan had stopped and my CPAP machine had stopped and that made
it harder to breathe.
I got up and verified that all of the outlets in our bedroom were dead.
But the outlets in the living room and kitchen were still working.
So we ran extension cords and got everything running again but it took a while to get
back to sleep.
Around 5.30am we lost power again and now all of our outlets were out.
So our first question was whether something had happened to our RV or was it more general.
But you know, you don't go knocking on people's doors at 5.30am.
That a few minutes later I hear a loud bang and a flash of light and I thought to myself
I bet a transformer just blew.
And that is indeed what happened to a transformer about 100 feet from our camper.
And as other folks got up and came outside we discovered it had taken out power for most
of the campground.
Then a fellow came by who is an electrical engineer who also lives in this area and who monitored
what happened.
He said that one leg had gone out first, then a few hours later the other one had gone.
So apparently the 120 volt power to the bed room is on a different leg from the 120 volt
power to the rest of the RV.
Now we have 50 amp power and the way that works, 50 amps is a 4 prong plug and the way
that 4 prong plug works is you've got one prong gives you 120 volts of power.
The other prong also gives you 120 volts of power and the other two are the neutral and
the ground.
So the neutral is how the power returns because you know electricity is a flow and the
ground is there if something goes wrong.
So with 50 amp power we do have two different legs coming in and apparently that matters
in that some of the outlets are on one leg and some are on the other.
So we learned something about electricity and electric power from this.
Now this guy who is the engineer also knew someone who he could call and get reasonably
prompt action from the utility.
But in meantime Tom and Judy from the rig next to us, a couple from Mexican, invited us
to join them and going out for coffee and breakfast which we were very happy to accept.
And we drove around the area after breakfast to see some of the plantations and explained
to us about the sugar cane fields.
Now this area grows a lot of sugar cane and you could say that in this part of Louisiana
it is either chemicals and refining or sugar production.
We saw a lot of both.
Now shortly after getting back to the post plantation, our V Park we saw utility truck arrive.
And after looking at the transformer he decided he needed to have a new one brought to him.
So we kind of sat there watching the park truck for a little bit and then thought well this
is stupid.
We need to do some grocery shopping, let's go do it.
And by the time we got back from the grocery shopping the utility truck was just pulling
out and power had been restored.
Now at this point I was not entirely happy with the state of the world because I had not
gotten a good night's sleep.
I hadn't had my morning shower and I now had a bit of headache so it was just dinner and
go to bed.
Now January 5th we got an early start and headed into downtown New Orleans to visit
the National World War II Museum.
This is a pretty big place occupying a city block with some great exhibits.
But when they say national that means they're only concerned with the US experience.
Things like the Battle of Britain are only mentioned in passing, nothing about the
Stalingrad and the Eastern Front, nothing about the fall of Singapore and so on.
So everything starts on December 7th, 1941 and talks about the places where US soldiers
were officially fighting.
But it was very well done.
We were told by our camp host who had been here to start with the movie.
This build is 4D, but what that really means is that the lights in the theater are actively
flashing and the seats are rumbling along with the film.
Still, very nicely done, reminded me of some things we'd seen at Disney World where
they had done similar things with movies.
We had 40 minutes to kill before the next showing however, so we went to the D-Day landings
exhibit first.
Then we went to the film and after the film, Cheryl had lunch and I had a coffee.
I don't usually eat lunch, breakfast usually holds me until dinner time.
So after Cheryl had her lunch and I had my coffee, we went to the road to Berlin exhibit.
This started with the Allied landings in Morocco, then through the capture of Tunisia, the
invasion of Sicily and finally Italy up to the capture of Rome, which was in June 1944
a few days before D-Day.
Then it was on to D-Day, the hedgerows of Normandy, the capture of Paris, and from there to the
disaster of Market Garden, the Battle of the Bulge, breaching the Siegfried Line, and
finally Berlin and the German surrender in May 1945.
After that, we went to the road to Tokyo and this was all about naval warfare and jungle
fighting.
It started with Pearl Harbor, then Midway, Guadalcanal, the Battle of the Coral Sea,
and the island hopping.
There was lots of stuff about naval aircraft and carriers, about the engineers and construction
battalions called the sea bees, and the amphibious landings on the islands.
A look at what Japan did in China brought to mind that we tend to focus on the Nazis,
as the ultimate evil, but Japan was every bit as evil as the Nazis and for much the same
reason.
A conviction of racial superiority coupled with the belief that other races and nationalities
were less human.
It was a good reminder of why it is so important that we stamp out white supremacy wherever it
appears.
Then it came to the fighting on Iwo Jima and Okinawa, which made a very convincing case
for dropping the bomb.
Now we could probably spend another day there quite productively, and if you have any
interest in the history of World War II, I recommend it highly.
But a day was about what we had to spend.
So January 6th, our last full day, is mostly about taking it easy and doing some errands.
We need to fill a propane tank, do a little shopping, we need to dump our tanks.
Life on the road in an RV is not one long vacation.
You have to do life things as well.
And in the evening, we went to an American Legion post in Tibido for the Cajun Jam.
You see January 6th, epiphany, is known as Kings Day here, and it's the start of the
Mardi Gras season.
We had a nice dinner there, lots of Cajun music and people dancing, many of them in colorful
costumes.
Kind of reminded me of the Irish Calies that we've been to.
The music was very different, but the spirit was much the same.
At the time we got back from that, we just went to bed.
January 7th.
Now we start our journey across the Gulf Coast, going from New Orleans to Alabama.
We were on the road shortly after 9am and continued our acquaintance with I-10.
I-10 runs across the Southern United States from coast to coast.
And we spent a lot of time on the I-10 in Arizona, New Mexico, Texas.
Well, now Louisiana, and Mississippi, and Alabama, and Florida.
So anyway, just over the border in Mississippi is the John C. Stennis Space Center.
And this is the place where they test the rocket engines.
Now we saw a genuine Saturn V first stage, left over when they canceled the Apollo program.
But frankly, there just wasn't as much stuff to see here as, say, in Huntsville.
We went through in about two hours, and honestly you wouldn't need to spend more time than
that here.
We did catch a half hour 3D movie while we were there, which was nice.
Then it was time to get back on the road to Gulf Shore's Alabama, just south of Mobile.
We pulled into Sunrunner's RV Park a little after four, and relaxed until bedtime.
So this is a hookup for hacker public radio, signing off, and encouraging you as always
to support free software.
Bye-bye.
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