Summer Vacation 2012

This year Jesse and I took our vacation along the Gulf Coast. Why? Well, I have basically one goal in my life, and that's to go to all 50 states. Two of the states still on my list were Louisiana and Alabama, so to basically, "kill 2 birds with one stone," that's where we went. (I'm now up to 42). So, on June 26th we boarded our flight at 6:24 AM; that meant getting up at 3:30AM to get to the airport on time. We flew to Los Angeles, first, with an hour and a half lay over, then took a direct flight to Louis Armstrong Airport in New Orleans. We rented a car from Hertz (through Hotwire... We got a great deal!), and after a few directions from the people at Hertz we headed to the Lafayette Hotel, at 600 St. Charles (corner of Girard). We were pretty tired by the time we got there, so we decided to eat at the restaurant inside the hotel. Jesse was all excited about having gumbo... Literally, he was gushing over it! There were only a few other things on the menu, most of which had fish... YUCK! I ended up having blackened chicken. Let me tell ya, they use waaaaaaaay too much black pepper! Afterward we walked to Lafayette Park (right behind our hotel) and then over a couple of blocks to a grocery store to buy Pepsi, and then spent the rest of the evening relaxing.

This is the front desk... I thought it was pretty.

Two views of our room... It was really nice.

That's the Lafayette Hotel behind Jesse. Our room was on the 4th floor.

This tree is in Lafayette Square... It just amazed me.

The next day we wanted to see everything! We had intended to ride the cable car, but by the time it came we were already to Canal Street (where the cable car ended) and Bourbon Street, so we decided to walk.

This was both good and bad. Good becuz we got to see lots of the French Quarter (12 x 12 blocks) and trinket shops. Bad becuz OMGosh... It was soooooooo HOT and HUMID! Thanks to a map we got in the hotel lobby, we managed to find our way to St. Louis Church and the French Market. One little detail we learned before we left: No buildings in the French Quarter can be taller than the steeples of St. Louis church.

By this time, we were getting pretty hot and tired, so we decided to take the riverside cable car back to Canal Street and attempted to find our way to Mardi Gras World. I'm so glad I had my cell phone, cuz the directions I got online were totally WRONG! And, for whatever reason, I got very sick! Any way, we called Mardi Gras World, and they sent a shuttle to come pick us up. Aaahhhh... Air conditioning!!! Mardi Gras World is where they make and store Mardi Gras floats. We watched a video, and took a tour. We saw floats being taken apart and refurbished to create new floats for next year. It was really quite interesting!

If you look close, you can see Jesse is getting "slimed" by the alien!

Batman and Robin **snicker!** Since I wasn't feeling so good, we decided to go back to the hotel for a shower and a nap, but afterward we caught the cable car (right across from the hotel) and took it as far south as it went. We weren't really going any where, other than for a ride, but it gave us a view of the BEAUTIFUL houses in New Orleans! We then took the cable car back as far north as it would go, which is Canal Street and transferred to another cable car there.

When we got off the cable car there was a brass band playing up a storm, right on the corner of Bourbon and Canal Streets.

Jesse wanted to go to Harrah's for a buffet dinner... Note: He's eating giant shrimp! On Thursday (6/28) we headed southeast to Jean LaFitte's Swamp Tour. This is something I REALLY wanted to do!!! And, it was AWESOME!!! We saw lots of alligators and several types of heron. The boat took us down a couple of canals and then into a bayou. And, the very best part... We got to hold a live alligator!

After the swamp tour we headed east to Gulf Shores, Alabama. I LOVE Gulf Shores! It's BEAUTIFUL!!! Once we found our motel and unloaded the car, we headed to the beach to see the sunset. We didn't go swimming but enjoyed some time just watching the surf. But, the next day I got up early to see the sunrise,

and then went back to the motel to get Jesse. We had sooooooooooo much fun playing in the surf!!! We bought a little inner tube and bobbed around in the waves! LOVED IT!

When we looked at the map we noticed that Florida wasn't very far from Gulf Shores, so we decided to take a quick trip in that direction. We literally went as far as the Florida sign, in Floribama! And, right there by the Florida sign was a trailer with an advertisement for parasailing. I have wanted to parasail for a long time, and this was the opportunity I've been waiting for, so we went to check it out. Once we paid and got on life preservers we rode a banana boat out to the boat with the parasail. OMGosh... That was a blast! Then, we had to transfer from the banana boat to the parasail boat... That was pretty tricky! Jesse didn't want to go up, so he just went for a ride, but once I was on the boat they had to put a harness on me. It was all pretty simple, really. They had me walk up onto a platform on the back of the boat, buckled the harness to the sail, and then sit down. Once I was all situated on the platform the boat took off and I went up! Up! UP! They took me up 500 feet, and it was AWESOME!!!! Right before the end of the ride they brought me down and dipped me in the water. That was scary!

Another picture slideshow by Smilebox

On the way to Gulf Shores we could see the USS Alabama in the port of Mobile. So, on the way back to New Orleans we took a little detour to get a closer view. A little history on this battleship: This battleship was one of 4 battleships sunk at Pearl Harbor, on December 7, 1941. The navy thought they would only be able to scrap the ship, however they experimented with an under water welding process that resulted in repairs being made so quickly that the ship was recommissioned in 3 months.

This is a DC-3

B-52 (largest and fastest bomber)

It's hard to see, but this is the "Welcome to Mississippi" sign along I-10

When we got back to New Orleans we found a (VERY expensive) parking space, and walked along the Mississippi River until we got to the dock for the Natchez Riverboat. We bought tickets for a 2-hour tour, which included lunch. Unfortunately, lunch was fish (again, YUCK!), rice, gumbo, red beans, jumbalaya, french bread and bread pudding. I was hungry, but all I ate was rice, bread and pudding... That made lunch kind of expensive.

St. Louis Church

The New Orleans cityscape

This is the Crescent City bridge After our river cruise we had planned on walking up to the St. Louis cemetary, but it was sooooooooo humid, and soooooooo hot, that we decided to just find our motel. Since we were only going to be in New Orleans overnight we made reservations at a motel near the airport. Once we found the motel, getting to the airport was EASY... It was right across the street! We had such a good time traveling to the gulf!