New Orleans Trip

My good friend Angela was getting married and lives in New Orleans, so we all flew out there for the wedding.  We left on a Friday, March 25th and flew into the Louis Armstrong Airport.  None of us had ever been there before. 

 This was a cool mural in the airport.

We got to our hotel and our friends Ellen and Leben (from Orlando) were already there.  We visited for a few minutes and then went to a restaurant near the hotel.  We walked there and had about a 45 minute wait to get in.  It was a local mom and pop shop called Harbor Seafood and Oyster Bar.  It had received rave reviews from Yelp.com so we figured we'd try it out so we could have some authentic Louisiana food.

 Us at the restaurant.

We all got Po Boys, and also some onion rings and Cajun Potatoes.  The food was so delicious!  I was bad and broke two of my Lent things, I ate unhealthy fast food and I ate meat on a Friday.  I felt bad, but I knew I would never be here again and this was my only chance to try this kind of food.

After dinner we all went back to the hotel.  Jose went to a casino that was about a mile away from the hotel and Ellen came to our room to hang out.  Our other friend, Beth, flew in around 9:00pm and came to the room.  We visited for a little bit and then we all said good night and went to bed.  Jose came home around midnight.  He was unhappy at how smokey he smelled.  I guess we are spoiled here in Colorado since the casinos are all non-smoking here!

The next morning we all met for breakfast in the lobby since we were staying at the Fairfield Inn and there are free breakfasts there.  We packed up our rooms afterwards and then left for Cafe DuMond.  There is the original one in the French Quarter, but we went for this one because we knew the other one would have a long wait.  We all ordered beignets and they were delicious!!!

 Beth, Ellen, and me enjoying our beignets.

After the cafe we drove downtown to see the French Quarter.  Leben knew of a good place to park so we followed them.  We parked in a valet lot, which was cool because it parked the cars on ramps and then raised them up to fit another car underneath. 

Our first stop in the French Quarter was Jackson's Square.  We took lots of fun pictures and admired the scenery.

There were local artists there selling their paintings, and also carriages with tour guides.  We ended up taking a tour in the carriage.  It was $15 per person, so not too bad.

After the tour, we walked around the local shops.  Jasmine had a fun time trying on all the hats and masks for sale.  And we of course all bought some beads to take home as a souvenir.

We ate lunch at Bubba Gumps and then made the hour and a half drive to Springfield which was the city where Angela was getting married.  The drive was a little interesting since the highways there are bridges above swampland.  It was a little scary.  If you broke down, there is no where to go and there were no lights.  Thank goodness it was during daylight hours for us!

We got to Carter Plantation and it was beautiful.  We were upgraded to a larger room because they had run out of the room we had reserved.  That was fine with us since more space is always nice!  We all hung out in our room and then got ready for the wedding.

Angela looked beautiful and the wedding was nice.  We ended up leaving a little early that night because we all had early flights the next morning and the kids needed to get to bed.  But before we left we had time for some fun dancing.



The next day we left for the airport to fly to Orlando.  Ellen and Leben were originally on our flight, but since the flight was oversold, they volunteered to get bumped.  They received a lot of airline vouchers, so that was great for them!  If we wouldn't have had the kids with us, we would have done the same thing.