First New Orleans Road Trip Day 2
- posted in Explores
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First New Orleans Road Trip Day 2
After getting into New Orleans kinda late, we just found our hotel, went separate ways for dinner, then met back up in the morning. We made the obligatory stop at Cafe Du Monde, then Manda, Scott, and I went on a really long walk. New Orleans isn’t as bad as Detroit, but Hurricane Katrina left a lasting impression on this city. I’ve never seen another place like it in the south. There are abandoned buildings everywhere. You can see them from the highways driving in, and you can see them all over when you’re just walking around. We walked around and took really good looks at some of the buildings around town (some were absolutely jaw-dropping), but we settled on a nearby abandoned brewery.
We spotted it from a mile down the street since it still has it’s giant sign on the top, but once again, a busy street. Oh, and there was an active construction site next door. Manda elected to sit this one out and walk around the block while the two idiots walk in this place with everyone watching. It was like 2 o’clock in the afternoon on a Friday, so there were people everywhere. They must take late lunches down there because some of the construction guys started leaving. The opportunistic fellas that we are, we thought that was our chance, so we walk right in. Still, I’m sure a handful of people saw us, but oh well – we’re in. I can’t remember, but we can assume I had to pee as soon as we got in here, too! Anyway, it was a pretty cool building. Not sure how old, but the company was founded in 1907. It was apparently closed even before the hurricane. During my last visit to New Orleans (March 2014), we did drive by and see the building was still there, but it looks to be soon consumed by all the active construction surrounding it. Hopefully they save the building and repurpose it, at least. All photos below are from that location.
Not quite satisfied with the day, Scott and I decide we’ll go for a little night recon of a well known theme park and maybe stop off at a bonus spot or two. We decide 9pm sounds like a good time. Certainly there wouldn’t still be security at this place at like 10 o’clock at night, right? We pull into the RV entrance and sure enough, there’s a white Taurus sitting there pointed in our direction. “Maybe it’s just parked there” we say. After a (seemingly) 10 min conversation in the car, the Taurus door opens and a huge dude gets out. He didn’t say anything, but we know when it’s time to leave. We turn around and haul ass as quickly as possible. Feeling defeated, we still say we came here for one reason and we’re coming back at 6am, no matter what.
And hell, why not stop by an abandoned movie theater on the way back to the hotel, too? At 10pm. It was one of the creepier explores I’ve been on and we didn’t even see anyone else. It was also in the center of a large piece of property, with a fence around it, that used to be a shopping mall. For some reason, they demolished the mall, but left the theater. We parked nearby and had to run (looking like morons) across this huge field before we could even see if there was a way in this place. And it was like 10pm. We finally find an open door and go in, and it’s a typical mall theater. But here, everything’s destroyed, there’s terrible graffiti on the walls, and it smells like a wet abandonment. The only light we have is coming from our two small flashlights and there just seems like so many places people could be living in this building. Luckily we didn’t see anyone, but we made our way up to the projector area and we found some pretty cool stuff. There were unopened film reels like Wedding Crashers and Crash, and a bunch of movies that I don’t even remember. I won’t even bother posting any of the four blurry iPhone/flashlight shots that I took there. Definitely glad we made that stop, but 6am is gonna be here soon….