Our final trip for Nick's work was through the south, from Biloxi to Houston. We were excited to see a new area of the country and spend a few days exploring New Orleans.
Our first pitstop in Dallas
Luckily we had an empty seat for Camille for the long flight from Seattle to Dallas, but on the shorter flight to Biloxi she shared a seat with me. Our good flier passed out pretty much as soon as the plane took off.
One mama, 2 babies, 1 tiny airplane seat. I guess baby brother/sister makes a good pillow.
For our first dinner out in Gulfport, Nick went with the mixed seafood plate. He was excited for some oysters, shrimp, catfish, hush puppies and fries. He didn't realize he'd get a gut bomb for a meal. He claimed he didn't know they were all going to be deep fried. Welcome to the south.
Her new sunglasses came in quite handy as both glasses and a form of entertainment.
Gulfport was a cute little town with miles and miles of some of the most beautiful beaches I've seen. If you are looking for a beach vacation spot, I'd definitely recommend it.
Next stop New Orleans! We found this cute B & B online (the Fairchild House). It's location was great and the place was cute, but unfortunately the mixture of St. Patrick's day revelers, our room being on the street side, the house being old and not soundproof, the bed being quite uncomfortable and perhaps most importantly, us being old, we ended up leaving a day early to stay in a "real hotel".
One of our favorite parts of New Orleans was City Park. There is an enormous park just north of the French Quarter, with play areas, museums, a golf course and even an amusement park inside. We spent the good part of the day hanging out here.
Camille was quite excited to see mama and baby ducks.
They also had a little area called Storyland that had scenes from story books for the little ones that weren't quite old enough for the amusement park rides.
Camille loved Captain Hook's pirate ship.
Rapunzel's tower
We had to catch a parade while in town, so we headed out to one of about 8 St. Patrick's day parades they were having that weekend. We decided against the nighttime parade through the French Quarter and opted for the more family friendly daytime parade.
You had to push your way through the people to get up front to catch anything the floats were throwing. The first thing they came back with was a moldy potato - yuck. At least it wasn't a cabbage!
The next trip was more successful - some plastic flowers and a bag of potato chips. Not many floats were throwing out beads, the flowers seemed like the big thing for this parade.
The streetcars were shut down on the day of the parades so we had to wait until the next day to head down to the French Quarter. Camille loved the streetcar.
We opted for a daytime viewing of Bourbon street which wasn't as entertaining for us, but we were warned against taking kids down at night when they might see a little too much.
New Orleans famous beignets from Cafe du Monde... delicious!
The Mississippi river
Before we left we took a quick detour to the 9th ward, one of the areas hit hardest by Hurricane Katrina. Many houses had been rebuilt and we saw 2 different Habitat for Humanity groups rebuilding some houses, but many like this one were still condemned.
Quick nap in the car on the way to our next destination. By the end of the trip she did figure out the correct way to wear her glasses which was actually kind of sad - I got a kick out of seeing her wear them upside down.
On our way to Baton Rouge we stopped at a plantation and took a tour of the house and grounds. There were many choices, but we got drawn in by the beauty of these oak trees. Oak Alley Plantation was built in 1837 and restored about 100 years later.
Camille decided to pick some flowers for mama.
In Baton Rouge, Camille and I stopped at a local swamp for a quick walk while Nick went to his store. We saw lots of birds and turtles and a couple of water snakes.
People must feed the turtles because as soon as you'd walk up to the rail, they'd all come swimming over with their mouths open.
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