Riding a Motor Scooter in New Orleans

A motor scooter in New Orleans

A lot of people see our motor scooters parked in front of our inn and remark that it's probably the best way to get around New Orleans.  I've been a scooterist for a long, long time.  Frau Schmitt, a little less so, only since she met me and moved here.  Like I've always told Frau Schmitt since I met her, "Get a scooter.  It will change your life."

I stand by these words.

For our musical accompaniment today, let's listen to a song by Randy Newman.  He grew up in New Orleans.  He wrote the songs for "The Princess and the Frog," a Disney movie you may have seen.  We saw this movie before we moved here but after we had been for our first visit to see what the city is like.  Needless to say, that first visit was a success.  While the movie was a typical Disney production with the songs landing in all the usual places and all the plot points showing up where children will find them most delightful, the scenery and the spirit of the city portrayed are accurate.  So what's today's song?



This is one of my favorite songs from the 1970s.  Don't complain.  My other choices were "Disco Duck" and "The Streak."

Speaking for Frau Schmitt and myself, I can categorically say that we love short people.  Short people are always welcome at La Belle Esplanade.  Don't bother googling Disco Duck or The Streak.  I'll be treating you to these videos soon enough, gentle reader.  I love the '70s.  Shag carpet, fern bars, milky cocktails, creme de menthe, disco infernos, doing the hustle and brown-and-orange color schemes.  Sonny and Cher.

Anyhow, the electrical box on North Broad Avenue, where North Broad crosses Esplanade Avenue, four walkable blocks from our house, is painted with a portrait of Big Chief David Montana of the Washataw Nation Mardi Gras Indians.

Electrical box on North Broad Avenue, New Orleans

I had been watching the artist work on it for a few weeks and I was interested in how it would come out.  She did a very good job.  If you'll remember from a post back in this past March or April or May (I'm too lazy to look it up myself) I featured a photo of the Big Chief in this very same suit.  It's his 2015 suit.  Let's get a close-up of his portrait:

Electrical box on North Broad Ave., New Orleans

What does any of this have to do with riding a motor scooter in New Orleans?  Nothing really.  My only point is that the best way to see this magical city we call home, a city that is rich and ripe with details, a city in which cultural quirks burble out of the ground and in the very air itself, is to get out of your car or out of a taxi cab and to experience it in the flesh, in the round.  

We don't rent motor scooters to our guests.  We don't rent bicycles, either, but you can rent a bike at City Park or from Crescent City Bike Tours, and that way you'll see more than you'll see on foot.

Me?  I recommend on foot.  That's how Frau Schmitt and I explored the city the first time we came here.  We walked everywhere---in August.  New Orleans unfolded like a flower, showing us many, though not all, of the secrets its streetscapes hold.  We love where we live.

And now, since Randy Newman must be done singing about short people by now, here's the opening scene for a 1980s show called Blossom.  Maybe you remember that one.  Who sang the theme song?  Dr. John, the Night Tripper.  He also worked with Randy Newman on The Princess and the Frog.


It's just my opinionation, but I think you'll enjoy a visit to New Orleans.  It may change your life.  It changed ours.  Frau Schmitt, who is usually right about these things, seconds the motion every time I make it.

À votre santé,
La Belle Esplanade bed and breakfast.