New Orleans

So after a great time with our friends in Houston, we headed home by way of New Orleans in Louisiana. Here is the lovely state border sign:

We stayed 2 nights there as Tim's Birthday gift, and so had a whole day to wander around New Orleans, see some sights, and have some new experiences. Here are Myra and Tim sharing lunch on the River Walk.

We then took North America's oldest continuously running trolly car over to the French Market.

Myra had a great time riding the trolly.

Here is a shot of the French Market. Apparently it is the oldest existing market in North America, and had been built on the site of a Native trading site, so there has been a "market" at this site from well before they kept records.

We then found our way to a French cafe that has been serving coffee and beignets (french doughnuts) since the 1860's. I'm pretty sure its the oldest restaurant we've ever eaten at. It was a very tasty experience, and there was a trumpet player serenading the patrons with New Orleans styled gospel music the whole time as well, which only added to the cool experience.

Lots of great, historic architecture here. There is the iconic St. Louis Cathedral next to Jackson Square:

Great big, sweeping, trees in the square:

And cool buildings in the French Quarter that you really don't see in other parts of North America - or at least I haven't - perhaps Quebec has a few things like this?

A nice paddle wheeler, river boat cruise ship

Anyway, that was a lot of our day there. Lots of walking and seeing cool architecture, and historic places. We had a fantastic Creole dinner at "the Gumbo Shop". We then found a cookbook by them, so picked that up to learn to make some tasty food. We heard some great music as we were walking around, but since we had Myra with us we couldn't really go to any of the joints in the evening.

The next morning we left early and drove across North America's longest bridge: The Lake Pontchartrain Causeway. Talk about long!

A great place to watch the sun coming up, however:

On the way home we added Mississippi and...

...Arkansas to the list of states we've been through.

Anyway, we drove through some more crazy storms on our way home, and we were glad when we finally arrived home in Elkhart. It was a great trip. We're really glad for the chance we had to go visit our friends, to see where they live, work, and experience life. It was also great to have some family time again, just the three of us; our last road trip as a threesome, since next time there will be a fourth person in the car. :-)