1/18-1/22: Louisiana

We drove from Arizona to Louisiana in 2 days with a brief stop at a beautiful hotel outside San Antonio (seriously, the best hotels are where you least expect them!). They were long days of driving, but were also therapeutic to our souls.

My (Nicole's) mom flew from Washington state to meet up with us...and get her final 3 states!! We barely made it to the airport in time to pick her up. Both of us were so excited to have her join us for a time!!! After traveling the two of us for so long having Esther join us for New Mexico and my mom join us for Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and some in Florida were such treats. :)

All of us were exhausted that first day, so we drove straight to our New Orleans hotel. We quickly realized that as soon as valet parked our car, we would walk for the rest of the time...including for dinner that night. Our minds wanted to try for Cajun food, but after leaving our hotel and seeing the kind of area we were in, we opted for Subway and exploring this area in the daylight instead. ;) t was a rather awkward time of buying Subway with people staring at us, but we managed to get our sandwiches and return to the hotel. We had a lovely laid back evening after that!

The next morning we began exploring! Learning the public transportation was our first order of business. By the end of the day we had it figure out. ;) As we navigated around the city we found the waterfront. It was calming and peaceful to walk along the riverfront. 

For lunch we wanted to try the cajun food that we hadn't been able to try the night before. Our expectations were high, but sadly the shrimp poboy was bland and below our expectations. Alyssa's jambalaya was pretty good, but overly spicy. Overall lunch was a disappointment. On to the next adventure. 

There wasn't a full plan in place at this point; we just knew we wanted to see the French Quarter and some of the other well known sights of the city. As we wandered towards the French Quarter, we noticed a sign advertising a free Jazz tour of the city. Free. Tour. This had to be good! Upon closer inspection this little sign brought even better news: this tour was part of a national park. We had no idea this existed!! I am SO thankful we found that little sign because the tour filled up only minutes after we put our name down. We learned about the history of jazz and the importance of this music to the people of New Orleans. I'll be honest, many of the details have since slipped my mind because I didn't have much to connect the information to. What stayed in my mind more was the 30 minute performance we saw right after the tour. The performer was funny, engaging, and passionate. We all loved his jazz music!

We then briefly wandered around the French Quarter, looking at all of the colorful buildings. We quickly figured out that, since none of us are fully shoppers, we wanted to find something else to do. ;)

So we hopped on a public transportation bus to do a loop around the city. All of our feet hurt from our miles of walking, so seeing the city by bus was wonderful. We got off when we saw signs for a park. I'm thankful we did because it was a peaceful, calm park with beautiful trees. I saw cedar knees for the first time (in my memory!). We snapped some pictures, and then it was time for dinner.

Since New Orleans is known for its beignets, we wanted to find some! Google directed me to a vegan restaurant in the city that had beignets I could eat. We intended to just buy beignets, but they gave us a table and a menu...and we were hungry... Yup. That's where we had dinner. ;) As surprisingly disappointing as lunch had been, this place was surprisingly wonderful. Alyssa got a eggplant poboy that was SO good (from a girl who dislikes eggplant!). I got yummy veggie noodles. I forget what Mom bought, but it was equally delicious. For dessert we devoured the incredible beignets!!! They were perfect. Mmmm. Travel is full of the unexpected, and sometimes I absolutely love what I discover.

On our way back to the hotel (past the section of town that none of us were fond of), we found a group of people playing spontaneous jazz music in the street. Alyssa was SO exciting to find them. :) We stopped and listened for a little bit. As we walked away, the police came to break up the crowd that had gathered. Never a dull moment!

And so, with one more night of sleep, our time in New Orleans was concluded...

It was on to Baton Rogue!

Our first stop was a nature center. The southeastern United States is so different from anywhere else that I've lived. Of course some of the animals overlapped, but the "wet" forests (I forget the official name) were definitely new. We walked along the boardwalk that wound through the trees. Lizards were everywhere!!! They covered the railings and darted across the pathway. We didn't dare touch anything for fear of a lizard or spider or any other living creature crawling across it. It was wild! It was beautiful and refreshing after a day in the city.

We called it an early night and enjoyed having a 2 bedroom suite for the night. :) While there we found a magazine that advertised the LSU Rural Life Museum. I had never seen it before, but the description sounded so intriguing. After looking at reviews, we realized that it had incredible reviews and was ranked high on multiple museum lists. We couldn't leave without seeing it!! So we moved some things around...and the next morning headed over. So grateful we did. There was so many trinkets of history there. We had the opportunity to see slave cabins for the first time as well as how sugar was processed. All of us were seeing it for the first time which was really neat. There were also two beautiful steers there named Star and Stripe. More history was everywhere but it's more than I could ever list here. Definitely check it out if you are ever in Baton Rouge.

With that, our time in Louisiana was concluded!