On Monday December 17, 2012 we headed East, to New Orleans, LA! We were super excited to get away for a few days (as most of you know, my husband has been away for 16 wks with seeing each other occasionally, and frankly that stinks to be apart from your husband!). We stopped at our favorite go-to place when we go 59 north...Praseks! Yum!
The trip went smoothly. We played some car games. The alphabet game ("A" in "state", and so forth all the way to "Z", license plates and vehicles didn't count!), a memory game with the alphabet, having to recite each one and add on as your turn came around (Me:Apple, Travis:Apple, Bear, Me:Apple, Bear, Cat...and all the way to Z. It was fun too! We also played a card game we got in a happy meal YEARS ago (Yes, I usually get kids meals lol!) It was cards with dice with letters on them, you roll the dice and if you get "A", you have to name: A movie, a snack, a character, ect. with different categories throughout).
Also during our trip we wrote down all of the license plates we saw (Not including 18-wheeler riggers since they aren't neccessarily "From" that place, their truck is. So this just included personal vehicles, and motorcycles! This is the list we got!
Texas
Louisiana
New Jersey
New York
California
North Carolina
Mississippi
Florida
Georgia
Ohio
Tennessee
South Carolina
Illinois
Indiana
Alabama
Kansas
Colorado
Kentucky
Virginia
Connecticut
Michigan
AND even another COUNTRY...Ontario Canada!
We thought it was interesting to see THAT many different state license plates!
Going over the Baton Rouge bridge!
New Orleans, LA from afar, with the Superdome
On day one we traveled to Louisiana. On our way we stopped by my Aunt Sue & Uncle Ron's house in Gonzales, LA to deliver their Christmas gifts and visit for a little while, I haven't been to their house since High School & Travis has never been. It's changed so much! They've done some awesome updates and it's nice. Then we ventured on down to New Orleans!
Once in New Orleans we checked into our hotel, the La Quinta (We had 2 free nights so we used one of them), once we got all checked in we headed to Harrah's casino! I got a free t-shirt since I didn't have an account (Travis opened a rewards in Vegas!) and let me tell you...that became an EXPENSIVE t-shirt, as we "donated" our money! haha. Then we ventured down to Bourbon Street. And let me tell you, NOTHING can prepare you for that! And we have been to "Sin City" Vegas! There are some "trashy" clubs down there, with some not so classy females to say the least.
We did go to Pat O'Brien's and had their famous "Hurricane" drink and enjoyed sitting by the fire fountain!
We walked around quite a bit. Travis got "douped" as we call it. "Taken advantage of". This guy comes up to us, "I bet I can tell you where you got your shoes and what kind they are". Well, before we know it the guy said "You've got them on your feet and on Bourbon street" and before we know it he's polishing Travis' boots. My first thought was "OMG what the HECK is he doing to these EXPENSIVE boots!?" well, the guy tried to get us to give him $20, he ended up with $7. lol. ugh. We felt DUMB. (But at least Travis' boots look slightly better now!) On our way back to the hotel some guy was in the median and he started talking to us, and as we ignored him he began to yell & swear at us...we picked up our fast walk to a run away from this guy!
On December 18, 2012
We got up, enjoyed the breakfast at LaQuinta and checked out, we went to the Audubon Zoo in New Orleans! We were kind of nervous that it wouldn't be that big, well, as we found out...it's HUGE! And the enclosures were super close to where you had great views of the animals and minimal caging. Loved the zoo itself, so many beautiful plants and animals! I didn't want to put all 100 pictures, so here's some of my favorites!
This guy was OUT of his enclosure. Maybe it was okay for him to be, but he is a BIG bird and I tried to get a picture NEAR him, well, that didn't happen...his wing span was about as tall as I am and he was after me! I didn't stick around...
SOOO graceful!
Otters! One of my favorite animals. We got there in time to watch them get fed, they were so excited, standing up on their hind legs and looking super cute!
Just me :)
Just the hubbs!
A beautiful cat who reminded me of my cat, Princess...VERY tempermental. This picture was taken seconds before she looked at me and growled....I quickly opted to leave her alone :)
Ok, look closely at this one. It's a HUGE Gorilla laying on his back with his legs kicked up against the wall and his right arm draped over his eyes. Priceless.
Talk about CUTE. If I could I'd take this little guy home with me ANY day!!! He was FLIRTING with another guys camera...Doing this same "kissy" face at him and batting his eyes. He only did the "peek-a-boo/kissy face" at us :)
The Oak trees are AMAZING
We couldn't get over how HUGE this one is. The sign said it's over 300 years old!
Lion, Rawr!
After the zoo we were hungry. Travis had gotten a lot of recommendations for "Mother's", parking in New Orleans is dreadful. There was no "street" parking available since it was lunch time so we parked in a lot and paid $7 (SEVEN!!!) for ONE hour!!! Eesh! haha! Mother's was good! We had "Po Boys", that had roast beef, ham, and "debris and gravy", delicious! If you go, we got the "2/3" portion over the "full" and it was 2 halfs of a sandwhich, we should have shared one because that was a HUGE lunch and we were stuffed.
At this point our parking was almost up for the hour, and I REALLY didn't want to pay somewhere else to park when it was close to check in time at our hotel for the next 2 nights. We went on to the Drury Inn & Suites and they allowed us to check in early. They were very helpful at the front desk with giving us directions and pointers. Also we FINALLY were able to use our "Gold Card" (A free card that earns you points with every stay, signed up a LONG time ago but no one's ever given us points till now!) It reduced the cost of our room by almost $15 per night, and that's awesome!
We headed up to our room on the 7th floor, not the 'best' view, BUT it was an AWESOME room! It was like an apartment. HUGE. We had a huge jaccuzi tub with a spacious bathroom, a living area and then a separate bedroom with a huge bed. 2 Tv's! It was awesome. This was our hotel for the 18th & 19th. One thing you should know about Drury is: Free Hot Breakfast (I'm talking Waffles, Buscuits and gravy, eggs, sausage, cereal, pastries, the works!), Free Managers social in the evenings from 530-700pm (each guest gets 3 free alcoholic beverages per night, and a light supper/snacks!), and soda & popcorn in the lobby from morning-night. Free wifi too! We try to always stay at Drury, they take really good care of their guests and the price per night isn't bad either.
**One thing you should know is at any hotel they charge valet parking, ranging from $20-$40 per night.**
But anyways, we went to Harrah's again for a little while to kill some time. We again, didn't do too great! We went back to the hotel and changed into our nicer attire and headed toward our dinner place for the evening. We ate at a place my cousin had recommended. "The Italian Barrel". It was like having dinner in someones house. It was very quiet and intimate. I had Chicken Parmesan and Travis had some type of crusted chicken breast. It was pretty good!
After dinner we headed to Cafe Du Monde for Beignets!
Me about to blow the mound of powdered sugar at Travis! :)
After dessert we walked back to Bourbon Street and just walked around, interesting people watching down there!
Wednesday December 19, 2012
We slept in a little and had breakfast at the hotel. Then we ventured out on foot to the WW2 Museum! We watched the film they had in 4D (VERY good) and at that point it was time for our reservations at "Emeril's"! Fancy place but good food! Travis had "Chicken & Waffles" and I had "Crusted Drum & ShoeStrings", for dessert Travis had "Banana cream pie" and I had "Chocolate peanut butter pie", YUM! So after we were full to the brim we had a long walk back to the WW2 Museum where we continued to tour the building. Amazing. It was so awesome to see all of the artifacts and articles, breathtaking indeed.
After that we decided we didn't want to walk back to Jackson's Square or anything on the other side of the French Quarter. So we went to Harrah's! We didn't take much to gamble with as we just wanted to pass some time, and we ended up coming out a little ahead! GO US! haha! Travis tried his hand at "Craps" but didn't really know what the heck we were doing!
We went back to the hotel and had our drinks, and then got ready for dinner. My cousin James & his wife Christina picked us up and treated us to a wonderful dinner at Domineca at the Roosevelt hotel, it was fantastic food and we really enjoyed getting to visit with them! They then took us to a local bar for a drink and then dropped us back off at our hotel. They were so wonderful and like I said, really enjoyed visiting with them!
After that Travis & I decided to go down to Harrah's one last time since it was 1030pm we didn't want to stay long since we had to come home the next day. Well, we were down and decided to sit at a craps table, not a live one but a machine one with multi players and all. We had SO much fun and ended up winning! Next thing we knew it was 1230am, haha!!! We headed back to the hotel! Made for a late night/early morning!
Thursday December 20, 2012
We woke up, had breakfast and headed home. We stopped and visited with Aunt Sue on our way back and ate at Panera Bread in Richmond after picking up Pudge & Barkley a little treat at PetSmart since we were gone for a few days so they wouldn't feel left out. :)
All in all, good trip. If you go to New Orleans just be mindful that it's a tourist town and things are expensive. We opted out of all of the tours just because they were pricey and the condition of the horse drawn buggy & busses was "eh", and we walked everywhere. So take comfy shoes :)
I can't believe my husband and I have been married for 2 wonderful years now, it was a great Anniversary trip and we are so blessed to have been able to go and enjoy it together. Here's to forever more :)
P.S. Please don't think we're addicted to gambling...we honestly didn't spend much, it was just something fun to do that involved sitting (which was good since we walked SO much....we tried to configure the walking distance and it's close to 15 miles that we walked over 2 days and one evening...which, isn't a LOT....but when you're not used to it it is!)
AND sorry there's not a whole lot of pictures from places we went, we often didn't take our camera! :)
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