New Orleans, USA, 2nd to 3rd November 2014.

Our time in New Orleans has passed and we are now heading back to Australia by plane.  The above and following images are somewhere over the skies of Texas, New Mexico, Arizona or California.

.

Floating above the sea of clouds….

.

A mysterious desert landscape that includes a solar power grid.

.

Another mysterious desert landscape with no solar power grid but the edge of a town or city.

.

.

.

.

.

That must be the top of a mountain just poking up above the cloud.

.

.

.

Los Angeles.  Cars, freeways and suburbia.

.

We had six hours between flights in LA and LA airport is not the most congenial place to hang around.  We had in mind to go to the La Brea Tarpits but it was too close to closing time, so we jumped into a taxi and asked him to take us somewhere.  He took us to the Queen Mary, retired and converted to a hotel fixed to the coastline at Long Beach.  This is inside a cafe looking out.

.

One of the mighty funnels.

.

.

.

The Captain’s cabin.

Panelled in maple and mahogoney and off-limits to everyone except the Captain’s Steward who kept it ship-shape, this area served as the Captain’s retreat from the demands of running a vast luxury liner.  Even here, the Captain was on call at all times in case of an emergency.

.

The Captain’s Dayroom

Twice a day, barring heavy weather, the Captain entertained the elite of world travellers.  Throughout the ship’s disinguished reign, cocktail parties in this room were attended by nobility, statesmen, financiers and stars of stage and cinema.

.

The wheel house.

.

Looking forward as the ship prepares to gather steam and lurch off into the city.

.

Radio operator’s room.

.

This is the switchboard of the Queen Mary’s mobile phone system.

In other words, when the ship was mobile, there would still be a phone system.  This wouldn’t include the ability to call the shore (other than ringing the telegraph operator) unless the ship was trailing a very long cable.

Even if you click on the image for a larger version you won’t be able to read the labels on the board because that requires the full-sized file.  The plug holes on the wooden board on the far left are for various stewards or are blank.  The rows of hole on the wooden board at the left of the main console are for shore exchange or coin box (whatever that is).  Then at the very top of the console there are plug holes variously marked shore lines, radio services, radio order wires, service, transfer and staff.  The rest are all ordered by deck for individual cabins.  Presumably only the more expensive cabins had phones.  The operator had just stepped out some decades earlier and therefore was unable to provide further information.

For those unfamiliar with this system, you would call the operator who would plug your line into a specific hole according to your request.  These days, this service is provided by very small people hidden inside mobile phones.  They are not unionised and have very poor conditions of employment, especially at the time of termination of services.

.

Looking towards the bow from the “gangplank”.

.

Many hours later, we have landed in Sydney, taken off again and are heading for Canberra.  This is still in Sydney, somewhere around Botany Bay.

.

Botany Bay.

.

.

.

.

.

Countryside not far from Canberra.

.

This has been the last post for South-West Canyonlands and New Orleans.   There have been 35 posts with 590 images and 6,500 words for South West Canyonlands, and 34 posts with 640 images and 8,500 words for New Orleans.  It has been ten months since my first post for South-West Canyonlands but I have been to and posted on Hawaii and Boolcoomatta in the meanwhile.

Next I go back to my North Atlantic trip in 2013.  It’s been eleven months since I finished posting on Scotland prior to my trip to South West Canyonlands.  I will pick up again with the Lofoten Islands in northern Norway and then move on to Spitsbergen, Greenland and Iceland.  We will see how far I get on that before the end of September.  I’ll definitely complete Lofoten and Spitsbergen.  Maybe I’ll finish Greenland and not start on Iceland.