McBride Family Vacation 2010
New Orleans, Louisiana
(Mississippi and Alabama too!)
Monday: 2:30pm flight with a lay-over in Denver. The lay-over was delayed with weather issues so the kids (Glen included) had to find ways to pass the time. Riding the moving walkways, walking to the far reaches of the airport, and sprints on the upper levels!
Tuesday: Our first day exploring the city. We stayed in downtown New Orleans making a quick walk to the Riverwalk (shopping and food mall ) and the Canal St. Ferry dock convenient. One round trip on the ferry was enough with the highlight being the breeze the moving boat created! It was crazy hot and humid!
Although there was lots to see, not much of it was photographable (questionable content!), but these gas lamp where beautiful.
We made sure to be in before dark and drove most places to avoid being caught in any bad situations. This colorful mural was painted on the walls of our valet parking area at the hotel.
Wednesday: Plantation Day! About an hour outside of New Orleans are many beautiful plantations to tour. We chose two (didn't want to bore the chillins'), the Laura and Oak Alley.
The Laura was a Creole plantation (note the bright colors and no main front door) and our hour and a half tour was full of Creole history, slave practices, and restored buildings.
Here the kids are hanging out with the builders of this plantation.
This is one of the amazing trees at Oak Alley. The branches touch the ground and then some!
The dots in the distance are my family walking up to the plantation. A line of 28 300+ year old oaks leads to this gorgeous home.
Of course someone was more interested in the costumes worn by the tour guides.
Thursday: Swamp Day!!
A surprisingly peaceful place to be! We met some friends (Little Al & Jimmy 3-4 feet) small and big (Stand-in Sammy 10-12 feet). Fed them marshmallows and hot dogs. Our guide tried to share the feeding privileges with our second son, he passed!
Saturday: Three States in One Day!
After a large hotel breakfast of omelets, biscuits and gravy, fresh fruit and more we began our drive in the pouring rain. When it rains in the south it drops buckets!
After crossing the Mississippi boarder we followed signs to the NASA Stennis Space Center Visitors Center. They offered a free tour and we had no plans so we checked in and while waiting for the shuttle we found this astronauts foot prints. (Fred Haise of Biloxi, Miss. from the the Apollo 13 mission.)
After a tour of the grounds where I honestly was more depressed by the government money spent than impressed by the testing of space shuttle engines, we played in their museum.
Flight simulators, heat sensors, space station reproductions, time lines and much more.
Dinner in Ocean Springs, Mississippi. An ocean side community with a quaint home style restaurant made perfect by the most gorgeous tree outside our window. We ate early so we had the place to ourselves.
After Dinner we continued our road trip into Alabama where we had dessert! Yummy ice cream at the Marble Slab Creamery.
Along our way we noticed some interesting real estate!
Yes, that's "Trailer Lots for Rent"!
What a day! Breakfast in Louisiana, Dinner in Mississippi, and Dessert in Alabama!
Saturday: Downtown New Orleans
Kid activities are hard to find in the city, but the Aquarium looked like a good bet. It had its share of sea life with a fun tunnel of sharks, penguins, sting ray petting pool, and an albino alligator.
An upset stomach can ruin all of that though! Yep, she is throwing up in the trash can! Fun Times!
After that Dad and the girls went back to the hotel while Mom took her strong boys along site seeing for protection. We managed the St. Louis Cathedral, Jackson Square, interesting street performers and old French Quarter architecture before it became too much for mom to edit and explain the other interesting sites. (A flashy red dress festival of sorts, worn by both women and men for starters!)
Sunday: Here we are at the 1st Branch of New Orleans.
We lasted through sacrament meeting, but we weren't sure where our children would go for primary since we doubled the youth population, so we passed on the rest of our meetings that day.
This is the address for that church if you are ever in the area:
We spent the rest of the day on a two part mission.
First: Remember the dead.
This was the only memorial of sentiment in the thousands of grave markers, but it is a great one!
(The rest simply have names and dates.)
Second: A mission of gratitude for where we live and the blessings we have!
We drove up and down the streets of several different neighborhoods in the New Orleans area taking note of the homes still vacant after Katrina and the poverty that was obviously there even before.
Monday: Last Day!!
One last cemetery, St. Louis Cemetery No.1.
Just a little warning.
They should post this outside city limits and include the entire New Orleans area.
We visited the possible last resting place of their famous "Voodoo Queen", but withheld from leaving gifts and/or making wishes.
We did find a lovely voodoo doll left at someones grave.
The final activity and best kids activity within the city was the Louisiana Children's museum. Lots of hands on experiments and gizmo's!
The cutest ever miniature store with old fashioned cash registers, mini carts and fake grocery items. Awesome!
Even Glen had to try to capture himself in a bubble!
My Monkeys!
And finally, a Lucky Dog in the airport!
When it came time to choose our destination for this years trip we were late in the season before our free Southwest tickets were all available, so options were low. Surprise, surprise, but New Orleans was wide open! With the continued struggle to recover from Hurricane Katrina and the more recent Oil Spill off the coast, it wasn't very popular. Honestly I saw many things there that lead me to believe Katrina is just an excuse for a failing social network (and guess who's paying the bill?!), but an hour or so away are many fun and beautiful communities! This was our families first ( and most likely last) trip to the lower south.
Top Five: Swamp Tour, Plantation tours, Dinner at Mulate's, Driving through three states in one day, Louisiana's Children's Museum!
We learned a lot, enjoyed what we could, and gained a better appreciation for what we have.
