NOLA

We started a fun little tradition with Isaac in the form of a Kindergarten celebration trip. The summer after he finished kindergarten, Eric and I took him (just him, Ethan and Jaylie stayed with my parents) camping. We went to a state park here in MS and stayed in a cabin and fished and played poker and monopoly and all that stuff for 2 days. We thought this was a good way to celebrate Isaac's completion of his first year in school. So a few weeks ago, we carried on the tradition with Ethan.

Now that we've been here for a while, I kinda know about a lot more things to do than when we were planning this trip for Isaac. Ethan is not as content to play poker or monopoly or fish so I thought we should go for a different sort of trip. We settled on an Amtrak ride down to New Orleans and back. I booked our hotel on hotels.com and got a fabulous rate for our 2 nights there. We stayed at the Ambassador hotel and this is what our room looked like:


The hotel was actually a coffee warehouse during the Civil War (or the 'War of Northern Aggression' if you're from around here!) It was converted into this cool hotel and you can see that the original brick walls and some exposed beams are visible. It's definitely not like a chain hotel, although I doubt there's a right angle in the place. It was fun.

The train ride was quite an experience as well. I traveled on trains a lot when I was little and we lived in Europe but haven't been on one since then. Eric had never been on one and neither had Ethan. It was fun. There is lots more leg room than on an airplane. There is a dining car that you can walk to and have a sit down meal at which was fun. My favorite place on the train was the lounge car which was full of windows so you could see the landscape rush by.




There were, of course, frequent blowings of the train whistle, and several stops between here and NOLA but all in all, it was a relaxed way to travel and it cost about the same as what we would have spent in gasoline.

Traveling to a place by train, however, means you don't have a car when you get there. So we walked...a lot. It was all good though. We had a map and Eric's phone for GPS purposes and I really don't think we walked more than a mile in any one spell. Ethan wasn't a fan of the walking. Once we were into the French Quarter, though, this wasn't really a problem because whenever he began whining too much, we'd stop and have an icee or duck into a fudge shop. Problem solved :)

We got there Monday evening, got checked in and settled. Then we headed out to look for supper. We wound up walking a lot and then settling on a super good restaurant called Gordon Biersch Brewery. Very nice, very yummy, very expensive. On Tuesday the plan was to walk over to the Audubon park where the Aquarium is located and see an IMAX movie about dinosaurs. This was OK. Not great. We had brought our umbrella which was fortunate because after the movie was over, it was raining, only a little. We wanted to walk over to St. Louis Cathedral and take a look at that. As we walked, the rain got stronger and stronger. We sheltered in a gazebo on the Riverwalk with some friendly homeless people. When it let up a bit, we ran a little way further to a big pavilion where folks were boarding a steamboat cruise. WE were there about 30 minutes. Here's what that was like:

notice the icee


We braved the rain again to head to a mall just to get out of the weather and maybe get a snack or something. We wound up browsing a bit and having some fries while the storm made it's way through. We came out of the mall and could see the cathedral.



Our actual destination was the Louisiana Children's Museum and this was probably our longest hike. But the rain had cooled things off and there was a small breeze. Walking through the French Quarter is really interesting. The architecture is so different than anything around here.

After a stop at a candy shop to get a chocolate alligator (of all things) we completed our hike to the museum. This was the highlight for Ethan. He had a ball.

Here he is raising himself on a pulley And making a giant bubble
And seeing through a bug's eyes
We had supper after the museum and headed back to the hotel to relax. It was a full day. The next morning we had breakfast in the hotel and then relaxed and watched soccer until it was time to go to the train station. We walked there. Had lunch then Eric and Ethan played in the station (it's nice to have a bouncy ball from time to time. You never know when you'll need one.)

We arrived home, met Mom, Dad and the kids at the Jackson Station. We went to church then home to BED! Who knows where we'll take Jaylie. Isaac is already asking if he'll get a 4th grade trip next year...I said maybe a 'finishing Middle School trip'!

Hope everyone is having a good summer!