USA Sherpa

Hop aboard the St. Charles Avenue streetcar. It is the nation’s oldest continuously operating line for a swaying ride toward the legendary nightlife of the French Quarter. You can ride in jazz, indulgent host of Mardi Gras, capital of creole cooking and take-out margaritas — the Big Easy has been teaching the rest of America to swing ever since the original Satchmo, native son Louis Armstrong, honed his chops as a riverboat musician on the mighty Mississippi. “Let the good times roll,” natives say, a sentiment that sounds even better, sassier, in the old patois, rolling off the tongue like a Bourbon Street hurricane on a steamy summer night — “Laissez les bons temps rouler.” Part French, part Spanish, part Caribbean, shaped by African traditions, old-line gentry, and waves of Irish and Italian immigration, New Orleans serves up a cultural gumbo spiced with good music, good food and good spirits. It’s the sort of improbable place a poet would have to invent if it didn’t already exist, except no one could dream up New Orleans.

St. Charles Avenue streetcar, new orleans