There exists a profound contrast between the hours of 8pm and 8am in the French Quarter. Drunken revelers casting beads from balconies are displaced by elderly women in rocking chairs on porches. The perpetual din of clinking beer bottles and slurred speech usurped by wind chimes and birds surreptitiously foraging among Audubon Park. New Orleans is a tranquil, sleepy town at 8am on a Saturday morning. And a beautiful one.
Before arriving, I checked Google Maps for a rough idea of where I could explore while running the city. I decided on a route that followed Saint Charles Avenue west and led to Audubon Park, a 1.5 mile loop. Bypassing the massive Harrah’s Casino that loomed heavily adjacent our hotel, I stretched my legs for the first time in a week since the Bull Run Run 50 miler. Before finding Saint Charles, I took a detour along the boardwalk that shadows the vast Mississippi River.
People often lament that their vacations slip by altogether too quickly. To them I’d humbly suggest running a dozen miles in your temporary hometown without headphones. With all due respect to Einstein, time slows down while you run. You experience more of what a city has to offer once you escape the radius of hotels and tacky souvenir shops. You discover authenticity, which is rare enough to find these days, in the form of neatly kept lawns, children playing in the park, or simply the sound of your own feet as you tick off the miles over unfamiliar territory.
Despite the liberal system of laws that governed the town, the roads and sidewalks were relatively clean, even more so as you moved farther away from the depravity of Bourbon Street. It felt good to be back on my feet again, moving swiftly of my own volition through the crimson honey shafts of light, the quiet streets.
I followed Saint Charles west, past a substantial Robert E. Lee Monument, and found trolley tracks. To my surprise, the parallel tracks were accompanied on either side by lush tracts of grass. Unsure if it was safe (or legal) to run along them, I stayed on the sidewalk until I saw others jogging over the soft paths. Moving to the tracks, I continued along, dodging the occasional trolley cars as they lolled by like ghost trains, still empty at this point.
The city was hosting an official Ironman 70.3 event the Sunday of our trip. During race weekends, triathletes are generally easy to spot on the street: black compression socks, finisher gear from other events, determined expressions and purposeful strides that embody their owners’ Type-A personalities. Residents seemed curious and slightly amused by the whole situation; “who in their right minds goes out bikin’ a hundred miles?” an older man with a southern drawl asked his equally befuddle waiter. A fair enough question, for someone who has never crossed an Ironman finish line.
Although our group experienced “Southern hospitality” during our stay in the French Quarter, the people I encountered on the street seemed to know no other way of life. They would look you in the eye, smile, and comment on the beautiful morning. A woman on her porch saw me approach and cried out, “ain’t you cold, honey??,” as though ready to fetch her crocheted Saints afghan to drape over me. It was a balmy 72 degrees at the time.
In the end, New Orleans is a city thankful. Thankful for their homes and their livelihood, their beautiful town and their families. Living in the an area as frenetic as DC, it’s easy sometimes to forget these simple pleasures. I suppose that’s the fundamental gift of travel: it illuminates our worldview with unfamiliar locations and colorful individuals, and it allows us to bring a modest piece of that world back home with us.
