Last Vacation Post.....

After our ship docked in Galveston Island Texas (sadly this is where we said good bye to my mom and Rick as they caught a flight home to CA) the limo picked us back up and drove us to the airport to our rental car that was waiting. We then drove with our friends John & Tammy to New Orleans for three more days of vacation. What I ask you is a road trip without a stop at a Cracker-barrel for lunch? Dan and Morgan playing a cut throat game of checkers while we waited for our table.

We made really good time on the road and arrived to our little hotel in the French quarter. About oh say 3 minutes after we parked the guys ran in to check if our rooms were ready and our girls got a little treat. We turned just in time to see a man about my husbands size walking down the street in a bikini, fish nets and heels that would have made his mama blush. Ugh! I told Ryanne,"If you say one word I swear!" ha! We wondered in that moment what we had been thinking.....

The entire time we were planning our trip we kept saying,"We really want to stay in an authentic place. No Hilton etc. We want the experience." We joked the whole time we were in New Orleans that,"It's OK, it's "authentic." Sigh...Here we are in front of our "authentic" bungalow.

Our friends "authentic" room is down this walkway.

The place was called St.Pierre where we stayed....charming.

I literally walked around with my camera in my face the entire time. I LOVE old buildings and just history period.

The old brick, the shutters, the iron oh my!

Now you know you can't go to New Orleans without beheading and eating craw fish......the girls left it to the boys. blah!

Something about pinching the heads off something staring at me that just didn't sit well.

We were lucky enough to have the time to take a little road trip down to Lafitte which was roughly 30 minutes south. It was in the swamps and beautiful down there.

This is what we rode in.....

There is no way to look cool in these....

We saw lots of these guys......friendly face no?

A bald eagle chillin' above us....

Our guide said they have three types of snapping turtles....I will take his word for it....

The girls loved our adventure........

Our guide was CRAZY! Hand feeding these huge beasts......YIKES!

The guide asked for volunteers and without even asking our girls ran to the front of the boat.....ummmmm hello! You don't even know what he wants. They were so pleased that it was to hold a three year old alligator. Yup' he's about three. They grow about an inch a year so you measure them from the tip of their snout to the front of their face.

You will notice I am the only one not photographed holding this thing....

In my defense I had the worst land sickness that day. No really! It's real. As long as I was moving on a boat or in a vehicle I was fine. But the minute the motion stopped I got super sick. Like sweat through my clothes, pale, trying not to vomit everywhere sick. It lasted about 3 days after we got home. I was fine as long as the boat was moving in the swamp or the car or the train home but not sitting still. I get it every time we cruise. I  like to do things backwards. Do you think I could strike it rich if I came up with non-motion-motion sickness pills?

OK and yes I was scared of being eaten as well. Not by the little guy but by his mama that might get jealous, leap through the air onto the boat and eat me for man handling her  young. No?

Pictures don't do the swamp justice. I could not get over the Spanish moss everywhere. No I don't have a green thumb, just a big mouth. I ask LOTS AND LOTS of questions when I travel. Basically to anybody who will talk to me. Ha! When we were in Jamaica I talked to the driver the whole way to the resort and then translated to Dan. Dan said,"How did you understand a word he said?"

Little tid bit? New Orleans is 8 feet BELOW sea level. They put graves above the ground because in the past when hurricanes have come through and it floods, underground coffins/bodies do what? You guessed it, float to the top. 

The state capital is Baton Rouge. Major river; The Mississippi (pictured above) Counties are called Parishes and they have 64 Parishes. LA became a state in April of 1812 and is  51,846 square miles.

We walked ALL OVER this city. We had to stop now and then for a Starbucks break. Ryanne LOVES our friend John. I think they are both kindred spirits....both naughty!

I loved how all the street names were in tile on the ground.....

Red is my favorite color so this won best house for me.....

Do you love this park right in the middle of downtown?

Civil war museum........

A couple of years ago we took the girls to the Pearl Harbor memorial while in Hawaii....this trip we decided to take them to the WWII museum. It was great! We spent the entire afternoon here and the girls really enjoyed it.

At the front of the museum there is an NFL hall of fame section....Dan wanted his picture in front of his guy....

I asked him to take a picture of me in front of my team and he so kindly stated,"I took it but I think I threw up in my mouth." He hates Dallas. Hmph!

This museum really pulled all the history of the war together for the girls....

So many models and interactive things so you could really get a feel for the masses that were involved.....

There is a 50's diner attached to the museum where we stopped half way ate, rested out weary feet and hearts too. It was a tough museum to go through.

This was a GINORMOUS flag at the end of the museum.....

When you visit a new city it is a MUST to ride public transportation....no really, you learn so much when you get on a really hot, stuffy, jam packed, standing room only  cable car to ride across town.

For example; you learn that the kids and Tammy are the only ones who get to sit. John, Dan and I stunk really bad from the heat and humidity (we had to raise our arms to hold on to the hand grips) and you learn that people get testy when its so crowded they can't hardly get off at their stop. I LOVED every second of it!

After three days in a city that has enough "personality" to last me a lifetime we headed back to the train just as a storm hit. In California we call high winds, flooding, lightening and thunder a hurricane....in the south it was just another day. This is the end of the road. We are back to real life. Sigh......... we have already started our countdown to our trip to Honduras next year. More sun. More snorkeling. More family away time. More new experiences with each other. New cultures and people. I CANNOT wait! Blessings today!