My favorite New Orleans hotel stepped up for the third year in a row and offered a 3-night stay in the family-owned, French Quarter Hotel Monteleone for Passports With Purpose. Now, if you hang around Passports With Purpose very much, you know that cupcakes are a recurring theme. The four Seattle travel bloggers who thought up the innovative fund raiser (this year raising money to build two libraries in Zambia) purportedly do all their planning over cupcakes. How appropriate then, that my photos from my last stay at Hotel Monteleone (in 2009) coincided with a celebration that involved cupcakes.

Which cupcake do you want?

The crowd was wowed.

Cupcake Tier at Hotel Monteleone

Always a busy place, the very classy Hotel Monteleone lobby drew plenty of people during the Food and Wine Festival and Royal Street Ramble.

Lobby of Monteleone

If YOU win the 3-night stay at the Hotel Monteleone, I cannot guarantee you cupcakes, but I can guarantee you a stay in an attentive, beautiful, well-located New Orleans Hotel.  If you ask nicely, they might even be able to get you a room with a river view. But don’t worry, if your room doesn’t have the view, the roof-top workout room does.

I can’t say enough good things about this wonderful, friendly hotel.  The rooms are classy and gorgeous. The Carousel Bar, which recently reopened after a face-lift, is one-of-a-kind. The hotel’s concierge can help you find whatever you want in New Orleans. Meet your friends as the clock in the lobby, or take in the roof-top view of the Mississippi, or just relax after antiquing on Royal Street, or bar hopping on nearby Bourbon Street. HUGE THANKS to my friends at Moneteleone for supporting Passports With Purpose three years in a row.

How do you win this fantastic prize, you ask?  Click on this link to Passports With Purpose, and pledge $10 for each chance you want. Couldn’t be simpler. And as a traveler who reads, you can be proud of the fact that all your ten dollar bills are going to build libraries for kids in Zambia. HURRY! Tomorrow is the LAST DAY!

This has been my contribution to Travel Photo Thursday. To see more photos from travel bloggers around the world, go to Budget Travelers Sandbox and click on the names of the contributors.

Disclaimer: I was the guest of Hotel Monteleone in 2009, however I was not required to write nice things about them, nor wheedle prizes out of them.

Photos all are my property. And though they are not of a quality that you’d want to copy, I still request permission in case you do want to reuse them.

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Well of course you are going to do that by donating $10 to Passports With Purpose, by picking a travel-related prize that you want, right?

NO? Oh, I see, you are going to donate $50 and put it all on that one prize you’re hankering for.

NO? Still don’t have it right?  Oh, I see, you are going to donate $100, but you are going to put it on 10 different prizes.

See, there are lots of ways that you can help build two libraries in Zambia with Room to Read, to help kids who like to read as much as you do.  Take a gander at that thermometer thingy over there on the right hand side of this page, and you will see how Passports With Purpose is doing.

Okay, but could be better.  After all, your LAST DAY to bid is coming up soon–Friday as a matter of fact.

So I am here to let you in on a little secret.  Those prizes like a $4000 trips to Maui, and a $3000 trip to La Puerta Spa and $3000 Mexico Resort stay are absolutely wonderful. You think so. I think so. Several hundred people think so. Do the math. How are your odds? I have the feeling that the fantastic collection of $300 worth of books that you can win from Interlink Books, or the $100 worth of CDs from Mac Millan Audio you can stock up on for your next road trip– although they are terrific for a traveler who reads, and a great addition to a traveler’s library–may not get as many bids as a $4000 trip.  What do you think? Maybe the odds are better for us library nerds?

Interlink Books

INTERLINK BOOKS

Have you looked at the catalog for Interlink Books? You will see:

                                  Interlink Books

Changing the Way That People Think About the World

I quoted their self description once before, but I’m going to repeat it, because it is so enticing for travelers who really want to KNOW the country they are traveling to.

Using travel as a way to build cultural bridges has been part of Interlink’s fabric since its birth 24 years ago…(Our books) give you the background information to enrich your journey; they encourage you to connect with people; they nudge you to leave your comfort zone, and help you to discover the unfamiliar. If you would like to get to the heart and soul of a city, go there with an open mind—independently; read about the city’s history and indulge in its genuine cuisine culture; and most importantly sample the literature of its leading novelists.

Sounds like it could be the mantra for A Traveler’s Library as well, doesn’t it?

I can’t begin to tell you what a joy it is to browse through their carefully selected titles. You can browse by region of the world or by category. Although they have a category called “travel”, every book they carry relates to enriching your travel experience, or tempting you to book a ticket.

And here’s a tip–sign up for their e-newsletter. I get the best ideas for new reading material from them and they are constantly introducing me to foreign authors I would otherwise have missed.  But then go to Passports With Purpose and bid on  $300 worth of  Interlink books. (It’s fourth under Gift Certificates).

MacMillan Audio

And audio books. Don’t you love ‘em? Here’s what Macmillan audio has to say about their business:

Macmillan Audio offers titles both abridged and unabridged both on physical media and by digital delivery. The division was honored with prestigious Audie Awards in three categories in 2007, and has Pulitzer Prize-winning authors and Academy Award-winning narrators on its list. Macmillan Audio publishes audio editions of the best fiction and non-fiction books for adults and children, from among the Macmillan trade publishers including Farrar, Straus & Giroux, Feiwel and Friends, Henry Holt and Company, Picador, Roaring Brook Press, Square Fish, St. Martin’s Press, and Tor Books, and it acquires titles from outside publishers as well.

The Macmillan Audio list is filled with such bestselling and acclaimed authors as Jackie Collins, Michael Cunningham, Jeffrey Eugenides, Janet Evanovich, Thomas L. Friedman, Robert Jordan, Robert Ludlum, Tom Perrotta, Marilyn Robinson, Scott Turow, and Tom Wolfe.

Books we have talked about here that come on MacMillan Audio, The Last Child (thriller and winner of Edgar award) by John Hart; Back of Beyond by C. J. Box; Summer Rental by Mary Kay Reynolds.  Or try something I haven’t read yet:  the Irish Country series by Patrick Taylor or the books about Province by Peter Mayle.

Bid at Passports With Purpose is $100 worth of audio books from MacMillan Audio. (It’s 5th under Gift Certificates.)

Hotel Monteleone

Hotel Monteleone

On Thursday this week, I’m going to talk a little bit about my third sponsored gift, a 3-night stay at the Hotel Monteleone in New Orleans. You can read more about Hotel Monteleone at this article from the archives. (Bid on it, 4th under Hotel-North America)

Good luck winning books or audio books, and please thank MacMillan Audio and Interlink Books for supporting Passports with Purpose.  And while I’m on the subject of thanks, here are the financial sponsors of Passports With Purpose. PLEASE support them in every way possible. Go to their website, check out their products. Tell them we love them.

• Round the World With Us
• TravellersPoint
• Home and Away 
• Good 2 Go (travel Insurance)

But go make your bid today while it is fresh in your mind.

THANKS!!

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Haunted House

I’ve been to a few scary places while traveling–most of them because I got lost and wandered where I should not be. But today I’m thinking about scary places that people plan travel to–in Phoenix, Mansfield Ohio, and New Orleans.

THE NEST

For the second year now, Rawhide, just south of Phoenix, has been home to “The Nest.”  The ironically named Halloween attraction is based on the home of a mass murderer who killed off his Arizona family back in the 1940s. Jacob Kell and his idea of a good time– cutting people up and stuffing them in the fridge–forms the centerpiece of The Nest, but before you get to Jacob’s house, you traverse three mazes and a graveyard full of zombies plus a freak show.

Zombie in the graveyard

I’ll admit that I am cynical about haunted attractions.  I think my mind is still stuck back in the home-made haunted houses of childhood where someone blindfolded me and made me stick my hand in a pot full of cold spaghetti which they said was brains. Never did believe that stuff.  And going through a mirror maze was so lame because I could generally see through cracks and easily figure out where I was. But haunted attractions today have gone to Disney School–they are packed with special effects including animatronics and laser lights playing tricks on your perception.

Second admission–I actually got a kick out of The Nest, even though I went through in the daytime so I could see the tops of false walls and never truly got disoriented. I would like to go back when all of the 100 plus actors were there jumping out at people.

Snarling Joker

Some of it was downright beautiful, like the neon-painted, laser-lighted Turmoil maze that plays all kinds of tricks on your eyes.

Turmoil Maze

Some of it was gag-inducing. Finger sandwich anyone?

Kell's Kitchen Counter

This attraction was purpose built in a large warehouse on the grounds of Rawhide, an old West attraction. No one under 12 is allowed through, but that doesn’t mean the family can’t enjoy a Halloween visit to Rawhide, because out on the main street the younger set can enjoy Doomtown, including such wholesome fun as “Legend of the Zombie Hunters.”

Glenn Rea, main creator, is proud of the fact that 36,000 people went through last year.  Many of the actors (whom he says are “in to being creepy”) have been with him for 20 years as he developed every scarier scares. The secret of a good haunted house? Rea says he tries to recreate your childhood fears.  Fear of falling, the dark, being shut in, and of course the biggie–getting sliced up in little pieces.

DERANGED

I have not yet visited the Mansfield Reformatory in Ohio which not only sponsors night-time ghost walks all year round, but creates a special Halloween attraction called Deranged.  Like The Nest, this one strictly forbids anyone under 12 on the tours. Unlike The Nest, the creator, Myron St. John does not allow any photos and will not give out information about attendance (although he says they are in the top 2% in the country) or specific activities on the tour. He did say that they have more than 60 actors and brand new animatronics this year.

St. John says, “..a customer going through the prison will go through close to 90% of the structure(which is huge) and travel through cell blocks, solitary confinement, administrative areas and eventually to the basement which actually housed the prison’s morgue… The time is usually 40-45 minutes, although many only last about 5 minutes and leave early due to fright.”

The Mansfield Reformatory, closed since 1974, was the home of endless real horrors for many years. You’d recognize it as the location  for Shawshank Redemption, and probably agree that it  is about the last place that anyone would want to spend time normally, so naturally that makes it a great candidate for a Halloween Haunt.

And about those real ghosts at the Reformatory? St. John says, “Every year I have customers tell me about their hair being pulled, getting pinched or a shadow moving into or out of a wall and ask how we did it…well, we didn’t…that’s the supernatural part, obviously the spirits want some Halloween fun too.

The Mortuary

New Orleans, even before Anne Rice, has some extremely spooky corners. Take those above ground cemeteries, for instance.  And right beside one of the cemeteries stands a lovely old house built in 1972 that once housed a mortuary.  Now packed with electronic gear, TV cameras, sound sensers and thermostats, the morturary attracts ghost seekers year round as  Mystère Mansion.  Managers emphasizes the beauty of the house as they markets to event-planners. The only hint that something different lurks here, is the availability of a seance room.  Like the Reformatory, though, at Halloween it ups the ante with electronic ghostliness and becomes simply The Mortuary.

In the seance room of the Haunted Mortuary

You can read more about the Mystère  Mansion and its evil twin, The Haunted Mortuary in my 2009 article here.

And here are more scary places:

• FreeEEEEE  Halloween Events from National Geographic Travelers
• If you want to actually SLEEP with the ghosts, try this article:    Haunted Hotels by Kerri Campbell at Mainstreet.com
• Planing a trip? How about haunted highways?  Wandering Educators.com  invites you to…“travel down a narrow dark highway late at night” “In Haunted Highways … see what it is like to feel scared when you see hitchhikers dSite Statsisappear into thin air in your back seat, or … see the ghost train with Lincoln’s casket on board.”
• Scary songs and ghostly music from Music Road. (I like the one in which the murder victim’s bones turn into a fiddle.)
• Bake some Ghostly Brownies with My Kids Eat Squid.com.
• Some comic relief from all that scary stuff, from My Itchy Travel Feet and dogs in worldly costumes from Will My Dog Hate Me.

With the exception of the top photo which came from Flickr, all of the photos are the property of Vera Marie Badertscher, all rights reserved.  I saw The Nest on a preview press tour, and will soon travel to Mansfield Ohio Reformatory at the invitation of the Mansfield Convention and Visitor’s Bureau. My trip to New Orleans, when I visited Mystère Mansion was sponsored by the Hotel Monteleone. No matter who pays for the ticket, I only write about things I think you will be interested in.

Your turn. If you had to vote for the scariest Haunted  attraction you had ever visited, what would be your choice?

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Family Travel Friday

Destination: Aquarium

By Jennifer Close

The mystery of the ocean never ceases to amaze children and adults alike.  There is lots of information about the ocean, but there is still so much exploring to be done.  I have been fascinated with the ocean, its inhabitants and geography, since I was a little girl.  My children are just as fascinated with the ocean as I am.  We make regular visits to the beach where we almost always spy crabs, fish, and jellyfish.  If the sun is bright and high in the sky, we wander down the pier so that we can walk over the ocean while watching the water to spy the occasional stingray or turtle.

The Audubon Aquarium of the Americas, New Orleans

Visiting an aquarium is a good way to get an up close look at sharks, turtles, fish, seahorses and more without having to get your dive certification!We have visited aquariums in Baltimore, Virginia Beach, Atlanta, and Myrtle Beach just to name a few.

RipleysAquarium Myrtle Beach

Aquarium underwater picture with wax resist technique

Jennifer Close, of Two Kids and a Map, is a regular Contributor to A Traveler’s Library, bringing us cultural inspirations for travel.  As a policy of A Traveler’s Library, we tell you about affiliate links. The links to books included here make it possible for you to go directly to Amazon if you wish to buy a book. They are affiliate links, and if you buy anything through the affiliate links in this post, you will be supporting A Traveler’s Library. Thank you.

As much as I love New Orleans, I’ve never been to the aquarium there, so am glad to have Jennifer’s introduction. I did love the one in Chatanooga, Tennessee. Where is your favorite aquarium?

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Notre Dame Cathedral, Paris

Congratulations to Susan Johnston, writer of a blog for writers called The Urban Muse, for winning the YakPak student backpack that was part of our Christmas Giveaway. If you’re disappointed, stick around, we have another YakPak to give away in January.

Huge thanks to YakPak for sharing one of their indestructible bags for readers of A Traveler’s Library.  Take a look at their colorful web site, and check them out on Facebook, too.  And thanks to everybody who entered the contest.

Hotel Monteleone

And thanks to the Passports With Purpose fund raiser for the purpose of building a village in India, Jessica Spiegel, blogger at Why Go Italy Guide, will be going to an Italian-family owned hotel in New Orleans, the wonderful Hotel Monteleone. Here’s a preview of what she’l enjoy at the Literary Landmark Hotel.

Sun C brand of Los Caballeros

AND Laura L. C. will be rounding up her cowboy gear for a trip to Wickenburg Arizona, compliments of Passports With Purpose (and thanks to the generosity of the Rancho de los Caballeros.) You can read about Ken’s and My experience at the ranch. Huge thanks to everyone who donated and helped bust right through the $50,000 goal to over $58,000. To keep track of the progress of the village that YOU built, and the lives you have changed, tune in to Passports With Purpose now and again. Thanks to the Five Cupcakes (aka Meg, Beth, Pam, Debbie, and Michelle) who organized and made it work.  Thanks to the major sponsors who put up the front money–lots of it. And hugs and kisses to the two terrific properties who let me host outstanding prizes–Hotel Monteleone and Rancho de los Caballeros, you’re da bomb!

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Book Cover

Destination: Anywhere

Book: The Witching Hour (1993) by Anne Rice

A GUEST POST BY Susan Lanier-Graham

Anne Rice’s The Witching Hour helped me discover those elusive travel moments

I have always loved to travel and I don’t remember a book that specifically planted that desire. But I do know the book that made me see the beauty of weaving a story about a place to make it come alive. Not a traditional travel book, Anne Rice’s The Witching Hour (Lives of the Mayfair Witches)
made me realize that words can create a unique sense of place that help readers see, feel, smell, be in a far-away place.

Anne Rice's Garden District home

My love affair with The Witching Hour actually started with my husband. He had read the book and was obsessed with finding the mansion on First and Chestnut Streets in New Orleans’ Garden District (also Anne’s private residence). On a trip to New Orleans, we found the house. I watched the emotion on his face and knew I had to read the book. I did when we returned home. I realized then the power of Anne Rice’s words as she brought the house from the story to life. All of the components were there in her book – the grand oak in the yard, the screened porch overlooking a Southern garden, the vines growing on the garden walls, the columns on the front porch.  Even a month after visiting, I was back on that sidewalk, outside those wrought-iron gates, gazing at the stately mansion.

I’ve never experienced places the same way since reading The Witching Hour.  Now, I think about how I could bring the place to life for others. I examine the small details that make the locale real, even if it’s half a world away. I want my words to transport readers to places they’ve never seen. But the book also affects me as a traveler. Now I search out places to find that special something wherever I travel. That sense of wonder of the place, the magic, the thing that makes it feel unique, but at the same time gives me a connection to it that lets me believe I belonged there all along.

One of the characters in The Witching Hour thinks about that magic as he’s standing inside the house. “…had any wandering observer ever loved it more? And in a way he had always lived in it, it was the place he had longed for when he went away, the place he had dreamed of…”

After all, isn’t it that elusive something we all look for when we explore the world?

—

Susan Lanier Graham

Susan Lanier-Graham has been a freelance journalist for more than 20 years. While her articles usually specialize in luxury travel and fine dining, she realizes that wonders are everywhere. Sharing those wonders — whether they be around the world or across the street — is what she enjoys most. The treasures we each find in our travels are the things that make us stop and say “Wow” and sigh in wonder. That’s what makes traveling such a thrill. Her own blog, Wander With Wonder is all about exploring those “Wow” moments.

Susan’s blog is one of my must reads, and so I was very happy when she accepted an invitation to write a guest blog for us. How interesting to peek behind the curtain and see what gives inspiration to a talented travel writer.Thanks, Susan.

Readers: Have you read a book that affected you like this–maybe not inspiring travel to a specific place, but showing you how a writer can effectively recreate an experience? And remember, you have until September 30 to leave a comment and enter the Italy Giveaway.

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Carnival Masks

Destination: New Orleans, Louisiana (1817)

Books: A Free Man of Color by Barbara Hambly (1997)

New Orleans Noir, edited by Julie Smith (2007)

People of color could be classified in a dozen ways like mulatto, griffe, octoroon, musterfino and more. But whites were classified, also. Besides the Spanish, there were the Creoles–French who had settled in New Orleans, frequently coming up from Caribbean islands.

“White Creoles, by the way, had an intricate hierarchy of words to categorize each other as to social standing and how long their families had been prominent in New Orleans society, so they evidently just liked to label things.  Americans, of course, simply did not count.”

A Free Man of Color

It takes a scholar of medieval history to explain the complex social system of early nineteenth century New Orleans.  In A Free Man of Color, Barbara Hambly*, who studied medieval history, manages to familiarize the reader with New Orleans society’s nuances while Benjamin January, the main character, weaves and dodges through a suspense-filled story line.

This book defies skimming. Getting through the first couple of chapters felt like pushing through a murky swamp, because of all the background information that the author needed to convey. But give the book time and you’ll embark on a series of action-packed scenes as January fights to save his own life by uncovering who killed a glamorous octoroon in Mardi Gras season.

Candlelit dinner in New Orleans

Hambly skillfully evokes an era that we romanticize, seeing it lit by soft candlelight or gas lamps. But even though he is a highly educated free Black man, January’s life reminds us of the daily humiliation of living as a black in the days of slavery. Trained as a physician, he works as a musician, and frequently has to duck his head and act subservient for his own survival. Because he has recently returned from several years in Paris, we get his fresh observations on New Orleans.

The book also serves as a reminder that New Orleans did not become instantly American when the Declaration of Independence was signed in far away New England. I once talked to the owner of a French language bookstore in New Orleans who told me that in the 1700s, the newspapers in the city did not mention the Declaration of Independence or victory over the British. To these French speakers, America was a far-off place, crude and without culture.

That flavor of the nineteenth century lingers in New Orleans and makes it distinct from any other city in the United States. That is why A Free Man of Color, or any of the other Benjamin January series that came after it, belongs in the traveler’s library.  The ninth January novel, Dead and Buried, became available last spring, after a hiatus of several years since the eighth.

*The website linked here has an up-to-date blog, mostly not written by Barbara herself and a lot of outdated pages. For another route to Hambly updates, follow her on Twitter, where for some reason she has only 102 followers.

Lagniappe

In New Orleans, you frequently get a little extra–the 13th doughnut in a dozen philosophy expanded to life in general. So here’s another book.

Old New Orleans

New Orleans Noir (2007), edited by Julie Smith, pulls together a collection of stories written by New Orleans writers just a year after the devastation of hurricane Katrina. Each story was crafted specially for this book.

Barbara Hambly presents a short Benjamin January mystery with humor and other New Orleans writers reflect on mystery and violence, both fictional and real, that take place in various parts of the city.

This book, by the way, is also part of a series that presents noir in various cities–for example, Brooklyn, London, Miami, Rome, etc.  I’m off to seek out the Paris Noir.

(And meanwhile you can read more about New Orleans at a number of my posts, starting with New Orleans writers;  plus for lagniappe, this post on Girls’ Getaway to help you plan your trip to New Orleans.)

See Music for New Orleans (it is not all jazz) at Kerry Dexter’s wonderful musical guide, Music Road.

What do YOU like to do in New Orleans? And what do you read to get into the New Orleans frame of mind?

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Books: You Buy ‘em!

Boy With a Flute in Cambodia

Because the Khmer Rouge routinely slaughtered anyone in Cambodia who was educated, the country needs to restore literacy to its nation, but how can that happen when children are wandering the dusty roads instead of going to school? It is heart breaking. But you can help.

Passports With Purpose: Build a School in Cambodia

As I explained last week, I have joined an effort by a group of travel bloggers to raise money to build a school in Cambodia. Dozens of bloggers will be participating. The money raised goes directly to AAfC, American Assistance for Cambodia’s Rural Schools Project, to build a school.

What You Can Do

For each $10 in donations that you make to AAfC, you will will be entered to win a prize (or prizes) of your choice. The raffle opens on today, November 30th and closes on December 21. (Complete rules appear on the Passports With Purpose website, and you can see all of the prizes offered at that same addresss) 100% of all donations go directly to AAfC a 501 (c)(3) charity. And if you want to see first hand how the project works, see this video from ABC News.

What A Traveler’s Library is Offering for a Prize

Although I encourage you to go to the Passports with a Purpose website and contribute for lots of chances on various items, I know you’re really going to like what I came up with here. TWO NIGHTS AT THE:

Hotel Monteleone

YEP! TWO NIGHTS AT THE 4-star HOTEL MONTELEONE in the FRENCH QUARTER in exciting NEW ORLEANS. VALUE $600!

You have heard me rave about the Monteleone before, when I talked about Literary New Orleans here, and at Girls Getaway. I think of the Monteleone as my home in New Orleans, and if you win this prize, you will find out why I love it.

Fine print:

Two (2) night, two (2) persons stay in deluxe accommodations as guests of the historic Hotel Monteleone in the heart of the French Quarter in New Orleans. This offer is for room charges only and excludes Friday and Saturday nights. This offer is valid from December 1, 2009 – November 30, 2010 and does not apply during Special Events such as Sugar Bowl, Mardi Gras, French Quarter Festival, Jazz Fest, Bayou Classic, etc. Total value $600.

This prize is available only to residents of the United States. (Sorry Canada, but you have different laws).

A COMBO PRIZE: LIGHT UP YOUR READING LIFE AND READ A GOOD BOOK:

Periscope Book Cover and Built-in Light

And so that you won’t be looking at a blank leather cover:

Mistress of the Sun

You can read more about the Periscope Book Cover here (it is number 3), and my review of Mistress of the Sun here. The Periscope Book Covers come in various sizes, but this one will wrap your standard hard back or trade paper back book in soft brown leather. An ingenious double lamp (an LED) on a periscoping arm, pull up out of the “spine” of the cover to illuminate both pages so you can read in bed without bothering the person on the other side or read in a darkened airplane cabin. You can fit your favorite book in the cover, but if you like historic fiction, or love France, you’re going to love the book I’m sending to go with your book cover. I will ship a copy of the book to the winner, and Periscope will ship their book cover directly to you.  Value $59.95 for book cover; Mistress of the Sun $26.00 list price.

This combo prize is available only to residents of the United States. (Sorry Canada, you have different laws.)

LAGNIAPPE

On your trip to New Orleans, you learn about lagniappe, that little something extra. Here’s the little something extra from A Traveler’s Library.

Since we are all about libraries here, I am pledging to contribute a bookshelf full of books to AAfC when Passport With Purpose hits the goal of $13,000. That is a $150 contribution to AAfC, and with your help, I would like to send more than one bookshelf. Would you like to contribute another bookshelf? Think about getting your book club, or your family to pitch in, and e-mail me directly at vmb @ atravelerslibrary.com, since this is a complement to Passports with a Prupose and will not show up on their web page. But please make your $10 donations to Passport With a Purpose first!!

Now run on over to the Passport With Purpose web site and choose the gift or gifts that your $10 donations are going to go for. I know my two are fabulous, but there are others just as wonderful in the total list.

Read more about the Rural Schools project in a personal account of participation in the program by the NYTimes columnist Nicholas Kristof.

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In the séance room of the Haunted Mortuary

Destination: New Orleans

Venue: The Haunted Mortuary, aka Mansion Mystére

I promised I would tell you the spookiest place I had ever visited and here it is.

When I was in New Orleans earlier this year, I visited the 1872 Mystére Mansion, “at the very dead end of Canal Street“, that has been certified haunted by 7 ghosts. Would a ghost hunter lie to you?

And if you don’t believe the professionals, you can attend some training and be set loose in three stories of the Mystére Mansion which once was a funeral home. It must be haunted. It sits right on the edge of a cemetery, and everyone knows how hard it is to keep the dead in their place in New Orleans. Your ghost hunting training includes seeing videos from the cameras posted in corners of all the rooms and running all night to capture ghostly excursions.

If an hours worth of ghost hunting does not sate your appetite for the spectral, you can even book a room. Only one suite available, and no one guarantees a good night’s sleep.

Ghostly Bride at the Mansion Mystere

Would you believe that brides book the haunted mansion for their weddings? Perhaps they have not seen the mannequin upstairs representing the ghostly bride–of Frankenstein? Will they have the bridal dinner around the séance table, surrounded by skeletons and weird symbolic art works?

This time of year, the mansion becomes The Mortuary –the biggest, scariest,  haunted house in Louisiana. I dare you to go through the Mortuary and then return to stay overnight at the Mansion. And they invite you to spend the night on Halloween Eve. Good luck. You may need it.

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And now a few scary posts from my friends, starting with a family outing and homemade treats for Halloween. (Remember when we actually knew our neighbors and could accept home-baked cookies for the Trick or Treat TREAT?)

A Halloween outing to Legoland from The Baby Bonding Book for Dads website.

Ghoulishly gluten-free cupcakes from over at Wasabimon.

Munch those cookies while watching a scary film recommended by Film Gecko.

Five places to scare your family from Jen Miner at Fodors.com

Is your Halloween distinctly American? Here’s a comparison with Ireland from Wander Mom.

Caught on the Web points us to a site with really yucky pumpkins.

If you have not done your Halloween reading yet, here’s A Traveler’s Library suggestions for some ghostly guide books.

I know I must have missed some, so feel free to recommend your favorite reading for Halloween in the comment section below. (Back to semi-normal with France on Friday tomorrow, but scary stuff continues on Tuesday next week as I interview the author of Decoding The Lost Symbol. Will the world end on December 12, 2012? Does a secret order rule Washington D.C.? Tune in Tuesday.)

Photos by Vera Marie Badertscher.  All rights reserved.

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©2012 A Traveler's Library. All Rights Reserved.

New Orleans Mardi Gras figure at workshop.

Four years ago we had a personal family crisis that took us to the far northwest of our country. But while we were there dealing with our own problems, we had one ear on the radio and television, watching the path of a hurricane called Katrina, as she made her way into the Gulf of Mexico. It can’t hit New Orleans, we thought. It must not hit New Orleans.

We remembered our first visit to the city, when we stayed in a funky inn at the quiet end of the quarter in what had been a grand house with slave quarters across the garden.  We stayed in the former slave quarters.  But the spiffily dressed Black man who came to the gate in the tall wall around the property, and carried our bags, and informed us that the lady of the house would see us upstairs…could have been the favored house slave of the plantation owner 200 years ago.  And the lady upstairs, who expected each visitor to her hotel to climb the stairs to her dining room and be interviewed, could have very well been a plantation owner, hanging on to her gracious ways long after the Emancipation Proclamation and the surrender by General Lee.

She was our first direct experience of a true New Orleans character. And nobody comes up with characters more eccentric and interesting than New Orleans. There were rumors of hurricanes that summer, and we asked her what she did when a hurricane threatened.  She drew herself up and informed us that she did nothing.  It was all nonsense. People were always saying a hurricane was coming, but it never hit New Orleans.  Sometimes they got some wind and rain, but nothing that would make her evacuate.

The private inn no longer exists–having been taken over by a pricey boutique hotel. And as she was quite elderly when we were there more than twenty years ago, we assume she has passed away.  Hurricanes waited until she was gone to wallop the city.

As we watched T.V. four years ago, the waves roiled over the barriers, the people fled or were drowned and total disaster reigned. When things calmed down, it became  evident that although wide swaths of New Orleans were left uninhabitable, the French Quarter, the very heart and soul of the city had survived.  And sure enough, five months after the storm, the Mardi Gras proceeded to raise hell as usual.

In compiling a list of the times A Traveler’s Library has focused on New Orleans, I realize that I have paid it more attention than any other city or state. But New Orleans is a traveler’s favorite and a place where stories grow. So take a moment as you remember the disaster of four years ago, to read about the lasting legacy, the literature, a book about survival, bookstores and a literary landmark hotel.

Surviving in New Orleans

Literary Hotel

New Orleans as Seen by Faulkner

Classic New Orleans Restaurant

Book Lover’s NOLA

Book Stores

Faulkner and Williams

Writers from Faulkner to Ford

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©2012 A Traveler's Library. All Rights Reserved.