Having a Baby

So I gave birth on Monday to my lovely son Jack. In light of that I’m going to take this week off.

See you next week!

The Places I’ve Been: Chicago and the Badlands

Two quick stops left on our epic road trip to report on. The first stop was in Chicago.

We left Kalamazoo under three inches of snow. Luckily the storm was moving East and we were heading West. We arrived in Chicago around 9:30am and went to the Field Museum. They had two special exhibits going; Real Pirates and The Aztec World. I really wanted to see the Real Pirates exhibit which would cost a little extra. As we walked in to pay our admission a museum employee came up to us and asked us if were interested in seeing the special exhibits. We said yes and he said if we became museum members we’d get a discount on the tickets and could go in to the exhibits right away. We’d also get a sweet tote bag. I’m a sucker for tote bags so we signed up to be members. It was $10 cheaper to get into the exhibits, we got our tote bag, free coat checking and a discount at the gift shop, which would come in handy when we went to buy our magnet.

We went to see the Real Pirates exhibit first. It was really interesting to learn about the emergence of pirates and see that a lot of what we think of as “pirates” is not correct. Pirates of the Caribbean have it all wrong! Being a pirate was more a political stance than one of rum and whores. There was a lot more freedom on a pirate ship no matter the color of your skin or your origins and the getting rich part was nice too. The exhibit focused a lot on one pirate called Sam Bellamy and his ship the Whydah. It actually starts out as sort of a sweet story. Sam falls in love with this girl, but her father thinks he’s not rich enough for her to marry him, so he goes off to get rich and ends up a pirate. He never ends up with that girl though so it gets sad along the way.

The exhibit was awesome for adults. But I don’t think there was enough there to keep the kids occupied.  There was a lot of reading and less hands on things.

After we were done with the pirates exhibit we went and browsed through the Evolving World exhibit and saw some fossils. After that we went to The Aztec World. That exhibit was crowded with high school kids with questionnaire worksheets, so we went through that one a little quickly. After the Aztec exhibit we went and looked at the lions from the movie Ghost in the Darkness. They were neat but not as big as the living lions had been.  You had to know that part of the lion skins had been made into rugs and there was still enough left over to make stuffed lions then that made it a little more impressive.

We looked at a few birds, bugs and mammals on our way to pick up our coats. We bought our magnet and had some lunch before we left Chicago. A word of warning if you’re going to be driving through Illinois on I-90; have a lot of cash and change with you.  There are tolls everywhere, even on some of the exit ramps. We were fine for awhile, but eventually we had to stop at a truck stop to get cash out of the ATM so we could pay the tolls.

That day we drove all the way to South Dakota and stopped in Sioux Falls. The next day we drove to the Badlands National Park. South Dakota was by far the most boring place to drive through. It’s mostly I-90 that’s boring. There’s nothing out there, just flatness. Once you get off I-90 though the scenery picks up a bit and once we got into the Badlands it was beautiful! The Badlands works just like Joshua Tree, there’s a little booth you pay at to get in and there’s lots of places to stop along the way. There are also camping areas and nature walks, so we stopped a couple of times to stretch our legs and take some pictures. We drove through the rest of the park admiring the rocks and scenery. We had some lunch at Subway before stopping at the legendary Wall Drug. It was basically a drug store with lots of souvenirs and a backyard play area which was closed for the season.

After browsing around and buying some magnets we headed off to Mount Rushmore.

So there you have it! Our whole trip told out of order, but in it’s entirity. Next week, I’m not sure what I’ll write about…

The Places I’ve Been: Gettysburg & Niagara Falls

After leaving DC and before heading to Niagara Falls, Jordan and I made a small stop at Gettysburg. He really wanted to see the battlegrounds and was on a huge history kick, especially after spending so much time in DC. From the time we’d left Texas to then I’d never felt so steeped in history, it was really amazing. I love Seattle and know the rich and dynamic history it has. But this city is so technological, it has a very looking toward the future feeling that the history gets gravely overlooked, except by tourists who go on the Underground Tour.

So we left for Gettysburg around 8:30am. We stopped at the visitors center to get a map, and a magnet of course. Have I mentioned yet that we are collectors of magnets? Every time we go on a trip we always try to come back with a magnet from that place. We got quite a few on this trip.

After paying for our magnet and looking over a few displays at the packed visitors center we got back in the car to follow the route for the auto tour. We only did part of the auto tour. The full tour can take between two to three hours depending on how often you stop to read plaques. We drove through several battlefields and stopped at a few landmarks.

We drove into the little town of Gettysburg and had lunch at a restaurant called The Avenue.  This place was delicious! I would highly recommend it to anyone in the Gettysburg area. There are tons of food choices, it’s a little small, but that adds to the ambiance. The staff is really nice and very helpful. I had some yummy sweet potato fries, for the first time ever, and Jordan tried corn fritters.

After lunch we climbed back into the car and drove to Niagara Falls. This is when our trip became international! We arrived on the Canadian side of the falls around 7pm. After checking in to our hotel and resting for a bit we got back in the car and drove down to see the falls lit up at night.  It was pretty, but difficult to see from the car. We would have parked and walked, but parking was really hard to come by and we weren’t willing to pay for parking for a quick glance at the falls.

The next day was going to be our big falls day. We had breakfast at The Continental Pancake House. The pancakes were delicious and we were two of the first people there, so the service was awesome.

After breakfast we headed to the falls.  They were really breathtaking. I had no idea what to expect. I’d never really seen them before, except once in a movie, but it was only the briefest of glimpses.  They’re huge and beautiful! It was such an amazing feat of nature. Our plan was to ride the Maid of the Mist tour, but once we got there we saw all the boats out of the water, which had huge chunks of ice floating in it. It seemed they were closed for the season, as were many of the walkways. So we didn’t get to see the falls up close and personal. But we still had a really nice day.

We walked for a long while admiring the falls and did some souvenir shopping. Jordan had learned about ice wine which we’d never heard of before. That part of Canada specializes in ice wines, so we went in search of that as well.

We found it at Pillitteri Estates Winery. It was cute place with wine everywhere! Seriously, there were huge floor to ceiling shelves full of wine. I’d love to go back and do a whole wine tour through that area; we passed at least five other wineries before arriving at Pillitteri Estates. We purchased a couple bottles of ice wine and then started to make our way back into the states.

Our goal for the day was to make it to Kalamazoo, mostly because we liked the name and wanted to stay there. We went to bed that night with the news warning us of snow coming our way.

So our trip is nearing an end. There are two more places I have to tell you all about. They will probably be combined into one blog post, since they are more like stops along the way rather than big time destinations like New Orleans, or Washington DC. After that I’ll probably have a son, which should open the door for a whole new set of topics.

The Places I’ve Been: Texas

Before this trip I had been to one city in Texas and that is Houston and I hated it. So when I realized we’d have to drive through and stop in Texas, since it’s so freaking huge, I wasn’t terribly excited.  Jordan has family in Texas so I thought it would be fun to see them, but other than that, I wasn’t too excited about this stop.

We left for Texas right after exploring the Carlsbad Caverns.  I was a bit tired from walking so long, so I’ll admit, I slept through most of West Texas.  Jordan kept himself entertained by listening to talk radio and attempting to take photos while he drove.  Apparently West Texas is the worst part of Texas to drive through. I woke up and began to prepare myself for the dull scenery of nothingness. I took over driving and Jordan promptly fell asleep. I looked around and while some of the scenery did leave something to be desired, there were parts of Texas that were quite woody and beautiful.  It was sort of fun to sit there and try to imagine what was coming around the corner, more flat nothing or a random wooded area, full of green.

I meant to trade driving duties with Jordan before we hit San Antonio so I wouldn’t have to drive in city traffic, but I got in a groove and suddenly we were in the city. We went through San Antonio to San Marcos where Jordan’s family lived.  We arrived at about 8pm so it wasn’t too bad of a drive.

We sat up with Jordan’s Aunt Michelle, and Uncle Mark for awhile talking about the drive and life in general (we hadn’t seen them since our wedding, oh around 4 years ago). A couple hours later we crawled into a nice warm, soft bed, a relief after two days of camping in New Mexico.

I have to say we did a lot of eating in Texas. I can chronicle the day by what we ate. We got up around 10am and headed out to breakfast at the Cracker Barrel. I’d never heard of it before, but after our first encounter in Texas we saw Cracker Barrel’s along the freeway quite a lot. Dolly Parton is their spokesperson and there’s a little gift shop attached to the restaurant. Every choice on the menu is huge.  Most breakfasts came with grits and biscuits in addition to whatever was featured. Jordan and I probably could have shared, but we chose poorly.  We each had our own breakfast meal and I tried grits for the first time in my life. I probably won’t eat them again.

After our huge breakfast we went to the Alamo, which is in the middle of San Antonio.  For some reason I thought the Alamo was in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by that nothingness I talked about earlier.  After I got over the fact that this fortress I’d heard so much about was in fact in the middle of the city and fairly small, compared to what I had in my head, we rented a couple audio tours and did the tourist thing for awhile.  The funniest thing about the Alamo is there are signs here and there asking people to be quite and respectful of this sacred place, but it was one of the loudest places we’d been on our trip.  It was like the signs weren’t even there. I’m not talking a dull murmur; there were kids running around, people shouting across the room, it was loud.

But no matter! We walked around listening to our audio tours which were so chock full of information I don’t think I remember a thing I heard on it. But I’m glad I went, learned about the Alamo and attempted to retain something, even if I didn’t.

After we returned our audio tours we walked along the Riverwalk. Riverwalk is basically shops and tons of restaurants lining a natural river.  It was nice and cool in there and I was just starting to relax when Mark announced it was time for lunch.  I knew by the clock it was time for lunch, but I was still stuffed from breakfast.  We picked a BBQ joint and this time Jordan and I shared a meal. We still had a ton of leftovers. After lunch, we walked through the lobby of the Menger Hotel which opened sometime in the 1800’s. It had a few display cases full of little artifacts and pictures.

We walked back to the car and headed back to Michelle and Marks for a couple hours. I swear we were only home for perhaps an hour and a half when it was time to leave again and go get dinner with Mark’s kids. Jordan and I glanced at each other before we left wondering where we were going to put this meal. I thought maybe since we were driving quite a long ways to meet them and were told it was a fairly popular restaurant we’d be a little bit hungry by the time we ordered.  I was wrong. It was perhaps another hour before we ate, but I probably could have gone to bed that night and not eaten again.

For some reason Jordan and I got separate meals again and ate only a little of each. Everything at this place was deep fried. Including all the veggies, everything was deep fried. After dinner everyone insisted we get dessert as well so Jordan and I shared that. We left and took a tour of the water park Schittlerbahn, which is a very popular attraction in the summer, but now was totally deserted. We headed home after that, Jordan and I wondering if we’d ever be hungry again.  That was the first time I’ve ever gone out to eat for every meal.

The next morning we were heading out to New Orleans, but before we left Mark and Michelle made us a big breakfast. Surprise, I was still not very hungry after my day of eating out, but I had some of the breakfast they made. Then we drove to Molton, Texas where Jordan’s great great great grandpa Jackson Crouch is buried.  We found Jackson, his wife Sara, and 7 year old Orin. There was also Lydia Moore – Crouch, and one other daughter. We hung around the cemetery for a good while. Jordan and Mark found a separate cemetery where they think the slaves were buried. The headstones were much simpler and most of the time not made of stone. It was a neat old cemetery in a tiny little town.

All in all, I’m glad I went to Texas again. It’s such a big place to say you don’t like it because of one city is a pretty ignorant thing to say. I’d be interested to go back and visit Austin. Mark and Michelle said Austin is really eccelectic, lots of weird people there, so it might be fun to check out. It’s too bad that Jordan gets asthmatic whenever he goes to Texas. While we were in Texas, for two days, he started to cough a lot and got really wheezy. It’s really strange, once we got to Louisanna, after a day Jordan was fit as fiddle again. My hubby’s allergic to Texas.

The Places I’ve Been: Washington, DC Part 2

Our second day in DC took us to the Arlington National Cemetery. The weather that day could not make up its mind.  It was pouring down rain when we left, then got a little sunny, warm and muggy, only to rain again two minutes later. We browsed through a small Women in War exhibit, saw John F. Kennedy’s grave and the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. I liked the unknown soldier best. We got there just in time to see the changing of the guard. There were also some neat exhibits set up indoors. After browsing around the cemetery for awhile we left to go get some lunch.

We hopped on the Metro and took it to Chinatown where we thought there was a Subway, but we couldn’t find it.  We ended up having lunch at Five Guys.  It’s a burger joint that is only on the East Coast and it was delicious! The burgers were excellent and the fries were awesome!

After lunch we went to the Portrait Gallery. We stayed on the second floor mostly, looking at President portraits and American Art. After Jordan had seen the famous portraits of George Washington he wanted to see we went to the gift shop.  I’d been looking for a gift for my sister, who was house and cat sitting for us, but hadn’t been able to find anything.  For some reason this gift shop had about ten things I could have gotten for her, but everything was really expensive.

We took the Metro back, by a different route.  This one took us by the Pentagon.  We didn’t get out and look at it, but we went under it in the subway tunnels. We got our car from the Cemetery parking lot and drove to Georgetown where we hoped to find a coffee shop with free Wi/Fi.

We drove for a bit until we saw a place that said Espresso! all over it.  We parked a few blocks away and walked back to the “coffee shop.” We walked in and the place was totally deserted.  There was one person inside and she was the waitress.  She handed us menus, which said at the top that they had free Wi/Fi.

Once she came back I started to order a decaf latte, but they didn’t have decaf.  So I got milk.  Jordan got some ice cream and a regular coffee then asked if the Wi/Fi was working.  She looked at him like he was crazy person until he pointed to the little note at the top of the menu.  Then she shook her head and told us it wasn’t working.

So after we wasted some time and money there we left, still in search of a latte and Wi/Fi.  We came across a little coffee shop called Marvelous Market.  I ordered my decaf latte and Jordan set up the computer at a table.

The latte I got was the worst one I have ever had in my life.  There was no lovely foam, just huge bubbles. The milk was burned and the shots were over extracted.  I suppose living in Seattle has made me a coffee snob, but honestly it was the worst latte I’ve ever had.  Jordan drank most of it, I took a sip every now and hopeing it would get better.

We stayed at the coffeeshop for awhile before going in search of dinner.  We weren’t really hungry since Five Guys was so filling, but we ended up in a little bar in Georgetown.  We ordered some food and didn’t really stay long.  We got back to our car to head back home to plan out the last week of our trip.

The Places I’ve Been: Washington DC Part 1

Washington DC was a big deal for Jordan.  He really wanted to stop here and I did too, but this was really Jordan’s thing.  He loves history and talking about it, so this was a big deal for him.  I was excited too, because you always hear about DC and it’s really an amazing place.  We stayed in DC for two full days so I’ll have to break this post up a bit.

We arrived in DC around 8pm.  We were staying with Peter, a distant relative of mine and he had dinner all ready for us when we arrived. After dinner we hopped in Peter’s car and he showed us around the city a bit.  That was great because Jordan got a feel for the streets and where things were.  He’s much better at retaining that sort of information than I am. One thing I noticed about drivers in DC, they’re very aggressive; there’s no hesitation when they’re about to cut you off, they just do it.  But there’s not a lot of honking or angry yelling. That was interesting for me living in Washington State where it’s all about hesitating and waiting.

After our little car tour of the city we went back to Peter’s house, settled down in our room and went to sleep. The next day is when all the fun began.

We left Peter’s around 9am.  We drove our car to Union Station where we could park all day for $19.  We walked to the Capitol Building and took some pictures, then we started to make our way to the Smithsonian Museums.  We stopped by the Botanical Garden on the way. There were dozens of beautiful orchids and the air was so thick and fragrant.  It was really lovely in there.

The first museum we went to was the Space & Air Travel Museum.  It was interesting, but not my favorite.  They had some interesting exhibits but as a whole it wasn’t really my thing. After that we went to the Natvie American Museum for some lunch.  Jordan had some frog legs, which were alright, but not very filling and I had a huge “Indian Taco.” It came on fry bread and was topped with buffalo chili.  It was really delicious. Especially the fry bread.  Jordan went and got a piece for himself.

After lunch we stopped by the Smithsonian Castle for a gander at Mr. Smithson’s grave. We didn’t stay long, because our next stop was one of my favorites, the National Museum of Natural History.

I love natural history museums. I could spend hours in them, there’s so much to see and learn.  I love it. This one had some really amazing fossils and dinosaur exhibits.  We bought a couple of tickets to see the Imax movie “Dinosaurs in 3D: Giants of Patagonia.” Our show wasn’t until a bit later though so to pass the time we went to the National Archives.

The line for the “sightseeing side” of the National Arachives was practically around the block, so we went around to the research side. We signed in, which was a very in depth and lengthy process. We finally got in to use the computers, and started researching our families.  I had a hard time because I don’t know where my grandparents were born, so I made some guesses to see what would come up. I got a few things, but nothing I didn’t know before. Jordan had a bit more luck, but I was getting bored, since I didn’t really have anything else to look up and felt silly typing in the same names.

We signed out and went back to the Natural History Museum and watched our dinosaur movie.  It was interesting, but very archeologically based. There wasn’t much recreating of the dinosaurs world, which was what I was expecting. But it was still fun to see.

We walked to the Washington Monument and admired that for a bit. We couldn’t go up because it was too late in the day, they’d already closed up.  But we stood at the base and stared up at it. It’s amazing the size of it.

From there we walked through the World War II Memorial and down the Reflection Pool towards the Lincoln Memorial.  This was one of Jordan’s big highlights.  Lincoln is one of his heroes, so he was very excited to see this. After reading his speeches, which are engraved upon the walls we started to walk towards the White House.

Along the way we came across a pedi-cab, which is basically a bicycle with a seat behind it. We took that the rest of the way to the White House because I was getting so tired. It’s pretty awesome how pedi-cabs can weave easily in and out of traffic, which was pretty awful at that time of day. Our cabby was really nice and had some interesting things to say about the city. He was nice enough to take us all the way to the visitors center.

We made our way to the South Lawn and took as many pictures as we could before our camera died. After admiring the White House we trekked past the Department of the Tresury towards our dinner choice.

There was a large crowd outside the restaurant. It would be about an hour wait. We had chosen the Old Ebbit House, which is the oldest saloon/restaurant in DC. Based on that fact and the fact that I didn’t want to have to try to find another place to eat we waited.  We ended up waiting about an hour and a half. Apparently it’s a very popular place. It was worth the wait though. The food was delicious and the atmosphere was charged with enthusiasm and happiness.

After dinner we took a cab back to Union Station and to our car. We drove past the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial to see them lit up at night.  We made it back to Peter’s house and fell into bed exhausted.  I tried not to think of the next day and how much more walking we were going to be doing.

The Places I’ve Been: New Mexico and Carlsbad Caverns

Jordan and I took this trip without really knowing where we were going to stay for some of our destinations.  We brought along sleeping bags and a tent so we could camp in a few places along the way.  The only place we camped was New Mexico and wouldn’t you know it; it was freezing. Our first stop in New Mexico was in Las Cruses. We camped at a KOA there, which was pretty nice.  They had showers and nice little campgrounds. The ground was cushy with grass so sleeping wasn’t so bad there.  It was cold, but I managed to get a bit of sleep that night.  We were up around 7am and made our way to Roswell.
Roswell is the most overrated place I’ve ever been.  I was sorely disappointed. You’d think that with their reputation they would capitalize on that fame with museums, cafe’s and the like. Not at all.  It’s as if the little town is trying to forget anything ever happened.  Besides a handful of crappy t-shirt shops, the one UFO Museum and a cleverly named coffee shop there was absolutely nothing remarkable or even campy about this place. Jordan was looking forward to having an alien burger or something along those lines, but nary a themed cafe existed in the town of Roswell. The museum was interesting enough, but not child friendly at all.  There was tons of information, but it was all in the form of plaques on the walls. I’m glad I went so I encourage others not to go.  Not because it’s terrible, there’s just nothing really to see.
We wanted to go see the Carlsbad Caverns that same day, however we’d had a bit of a later start than we’d planned and we got lost in Roswell.  How we did that I have no idea.  Once we reached the Carlsbad KOA, got our tent set up (in 40 mile per hour wind I might add) it was past the time they were letting folks down, so we got the oil in the car changed and browsed around a Wal-Mart. I’m not usually a frequenter of Wal-Mart, but it was the only place we could find that had a lube shop open. We were punished for it anyway, by our oil change taking two hours.
We finally left with a happy, well oiled car. The wind wasn’t blowing nearly as hard when we got back to the KOA, but it was getting colder by the second.  I bundled up in everything I could but was still awake by around 5 or 6am.  The biggest difference between this KOA and the first was the ground.  Las Cruses, as I said, had some nice springy grass that was halfway tolerable to sleep on, especially with the blanket I folded under my sleeping bag.  The ground in Carlsbad was hard as a rock.  Even setting up our tent was difficult, not only because of the wind, but because we couldn’t get the stakes in the ground without pounding them in with a rock.  I tried my folded blanket trick again, but it was still uncomfortable. The ground was ridiculously hard and it was much colder with a slight breeze blowing every now and then.  I probably got about 4 hours sleep at the most that night.
The next morning we got up and went off to the Carlsbad Caverns.  These caverns were something that had been added to our itinerary only a few days before.  While we were staying with my friend Danielle in Palm Spings we watched an episode of Planet Earth on Discovery Channel.  It was the one about Lechuguilla Cave. Jordan found out we couldn’t actually visit Lechuguilla Cave, but we could go see the Carlsbad Caverns.  So we added that to our trip.
The Carlsbad Caverns are so beautiful.  We arrived at the park just as the cave entrances were opening to the public. The tour we were interested in taking was full of course, but there were other options.  We rented a couple of audio tours and took the elevator down about 750 feet.  We could have taken the natural entrance hike, but it’s a pretty steep and strenous hike, so I thought being with child and all, I should opt for the elevator.
The caverns were amazing.  They were specially lit, by a broadway lighting designer to highlight certain formations.  It was so interesting and helpful to have the audio tour.  It paced the journey out really well and I didn’t get tired out even though I knew we were down there for quite awhile.  We were some of the first people down there, so it was very quiet and still.  You could hear the water dripping into little pools, other than those tiny pindrops of water it was silent. It was so peaceful and relaxing to be down there virtually alone.  There were a few rangers here and there that would spout off information if you asked and three other people who’d come down in the elevator with us. But other than that, it was just us.  After we’d been down there for at least an hour or so more people began coming down and it got a little less peaceful, but we were on our way towards the end anyway.
The caverns are difficult to describe, it’s really something you have to see.  Here’s a few recommendations if you go. If you can, get on a tour, there were some really neat looking tours that have you crawling around on your belly. Those tours looked really neat, unless you’re claustraphobic. In that case rent an audio tour and take the elevator down.  The caves are really spacious and open so as long as you don’t think about the fact that your 700 feet underground you should be ok! Go early. You miss a lot of the crowd and get the caves and formations to yourself for awhile. Don’t be afraid to take pictures. There are some really amazing things in these caves and you could end up capturing some beautiful things. If you want to show up better in your pictures wear a white or light colored t-shirt or sweatshirt. Also take a jacket or sweater down with you, it’s chilly and damp in the caves.
We spent a ton of time in the caverns. I was sure Jordan wanted to set up camp and just live down there.  This more than made up for our crap trip Roswell the day before. So New Mexico had a saving grace for us and it was 700 feet below ground.

The Places I’ve Been: New Orleans Part 2

After our lunch on Bourbon Street, Jordan and hoofed it over to Royal Street.  This was a street I loved!  It was closed to traffic so there were tons of street performers and the shops were along this street were really cool. This street had a really neat artsy feel to it especially with all the different musicians around.  We found one in particular that we really liked called Sour Mash Hug Band. We bought their CD and listened to it repeatedly on the way home.  The thing with this band is their music is so unique you hear something new in it every time, which is fun for me.

We browsed along Royal Street for awhile before going and checking out Faulkner’s old residence, which is now a very crowded bookstore on Pirate Alley.  We didn’t stay too long since we had no intention of purchasing anything. It was also very narrow and there were at least five people in the place.

After leaving Faulkner’s place we caught the street car to the Garden District. This place was amazingly beautiful.  The Garden District has all the huge mansions and impeccable landscaping.

We stopped by Anne Rice’s favorite bookstore (according to our travel book) Garden District Book Shop. They had a display of Anne Rice novels and her autobiography. Other than that it was a pretty well rounded little shop. We left there and explored the surrounding neighborhood.  We saw Archie Manning’s house, and stopped at a small art show that was taking place on a huge front lawn. We took several pictures of the decorative facades and architecture.

After a long day of walking I needed to recuperate so we went back to the streetcar to return to our hotel for a nap.

By the time we woke up it was getting close to dinner time so we hopped on the River Front streetcar to Esplanade Road and walked fifteen blocks to our dinner choice. Which happened to be closed. So we walked fifteen blocks back through cute and peaceful neighborhoods.  This was probably the most interesting walk for me.  We got to see the places where the regular people lived, like small families.  What was also interesting was the fact that some houses were still in disrepair from Hurricane Katrina and some were fine. Some house still had the spray paint marks from rescue teams. You could see that the neighborhoods were repairing themselves, but there were still signs of damage and neglect. What was also interesting was the fact that on this walk alone we saw about twenty cats.

I don’t know if everyone in New Orleans just lets their cats in and out as they please, the fact that we were in a neighborhood area instead of a city type area, but the cats were seriously everywhere!  That was fun for me because I love cats and was starting to miss my own by this time in the trip. So it was good to see all the felines out and about.

We made it back to the streetcar and waited for a good ten minutes for it to arrive.  We took it back to the French Quarter and had some dinner at the Crescent City Brew Pub.

Dinner was good, but dessert at this restaurant will be forever etched in my mind.  This was the restaurant at which I first tried Bread Pudding. Oh. My. Goodness. This Bread Pudding was amazing! I think it was the most delicious dessert I’ve ever tasted. I could have sat there all night eating their Bread Pudding.

We walked back to the hotel and crashed for the night.  Before leaving the next morning we got up early and went to Cafe Du Monde one last time to enjoy a delicious breakfast of their coffee and Beignets.

The thing I loved most about New Orleans was it’s flexibility. I believe there is something for everyone there. I can’t wait to go back and experience this city all over again!

The Places I’ve Been: New Orleans Part 1

(Note: My hubby just read this and said it sounded like I didn’t like New Orleans. I liked it a lot! It was one of my favorites. That’s all.)

New Orleans was another favorite stop for both Jordan and I. I’ll be honest it took me a day to get used to New Orleans and here’s why I think that is. We’d been to all the familiar places first; Oregon, and California. The places that weren’t very familiar with such as Texas and Arizona we stayed with friends or family.  New Orleans was my very first experience with the deep south and it was the first time we were back in a “big city” with tons of people all there for the sole purpose of partying.  We also arrived in the city around 6:30 or 7pm right when everyone starts coming out. Jordan also drove us through a few busy streets so I was a little intimidated. There were people everywhere and they were all loud. We were also arriving one day early in New Orleans and were hoping our hotel had a room open for the night.So I think that is why I was so anxious that first night in New Orleans.

The hotel did have a room open.  It was a smoking room on a smoking floor. I was less than excited about that, but at least it was a bed.  The room smelled better than the elevator or the hallway. But it was still pretty bad. Jordan did manage to get me out of the hotel and to a restaurant for dinner. After dinner Jordan of course wanted to walk around, perhaps go to Harrah’s casino, which we’d walked by. Alas I was still uber paranoid.  I’d been reading our guide book all day saying how dangerous New Orleans was at night, how even the cemeteries were dangerous in the day unless you were with a tour group. My hubby lovingly gave in and we walked back to the hotel to go to bed.

Luckily the next morning we got to check out of our stinky smoking room and into our non-smoking room. I was also feeling much better, now that the sun was up and it seemed a more subdued group of people were out and about.

We began our day at Cafe Du Monde for beignets and chicory coffee. This cafe is open 24 hours a day, is open air and very popular. We arrived around 8:30am and it was packed already.  We had a tour to catch so instead of sticking around we got our order to go and ate in Jackson Square; a gorgeous park of sorts that sits in front of the St. Louis Cathedral. It’s a peaceful little place full of green and makes a stunning place to take photos; especially with the Cathedral spires as a backdrop. When we were thoroughly covered with powered sugar we explored the French Quarter a bit on our way to the meeting place for our tour.

We were going on the Cemetary & Voodoo Tour. It got very high ratings in our guide book and was supposed to be creepy.  Even though our tour was during the day I was excited for some creepy stories. Alas that is not what we got.  We got a history buff tour guide. So even going through the cemetery we got no stories of scary sightings or any Anne Rice references at all. We got all history, which was interesting to be sure, but not what I was looking for.
Our guide left us at an authentic active voodoo temple. And that my friends was the lamest part. The temple was tucked next to this new agey voodoo shop and priestess, I’m pretty sure, was just a bit senile. She went on and on about what? I have not a clue. I think she just strung words together and hoped they came out sounding alright, because she really made no sense. And I’m not talking about ‘Wow that’s so deep’ it doesn’t make sense. It was more along the lines of ‘Sorry was that just a sentence?’

So after her “introductions” out in the courtyard we went to her temple which was really a small room crammed with stuff. This stuff had lots of other stuff tucked into it. By stuff I mean cigarettes, rolled up dollar bills, Mardi Gras Beads, seriously just crap. There must have been $400 in ones tucked all around the room.  There were statues everywhere, and tapestries on the wall, but none of it made sense because she wouldn’t describe what it meant. She asked for questions but when she was asked one she wouldn’t answer it, but go into another long spiel that was utterly incoherent. Perhaps all the herbs and things have gone to her head or maybe she was high, but I couldn’t wait to get out of there, because I was so damn bored.

After leaving the “temple” we went off to have some lunch on Bourbon Street. Yes, the legendary Bourbon Street! Where the people are all drunk and girls take their tops off for cheap beads you could get at any costume store! I wasn’t that excited really.  I’d always wanted to go to New Orleans but never around Mardi Gras time. I think that would be too insane for me. After seeing Bourbon Street in the daylight I don’t think I ever want to see it at night.  First I think it was trash day because everyone had their garbage cans and bags lining the street. It was a pretty warm day so they were sitting there waiting and reeking to high heaven. Not only that, but this street just has a glaze of disgusting that I think permeates it all the time. Every shop we saw was a club, a tiny souvenir shop or selling sex.  It was really an awful little street that I hope to not patronize too often in the future. However the cafe we found there was alright and the weather was warm so it was difficult to complain.

Since I seem to have a lot to say about New Orleans perhaps I’ll stop here and continue our adventure next week.

The Places I’ve Been: Savannah, GA

Savannah, Georgia was the one place on our trip where Jordan and I browsed through homes for sale.  We loved it.  I think I loved it a bit more than Jordan and the area we’d want to live in was a bit pricey. A lot of people ask me why I loved it so much.  I really can’t explain why. We drove into town and the feel of the place was different from the other places we’d been.  I’d had a lot of fun at many of our other destinations but Savannah is the one I think back to most and go to first when telling folks about our trip.

We arrived in Savannah at about 11am. We had no real plan for the place so we stopped at the visitor’s center where we picked up a map and hopped on a tour. The tour was the best way to see Savannah if you’re unfamiliar with the town and didn’t have a lot of time to spend there, which we didn’t.  The tour gave a great overview of the historic district and the riverfront. After the tour we had a better idea of where we wanted to go, and what we wanted to see.

We had some lunch and toured around Savannah on foot, stopping at a couple bookstores, Flannery O’Conner’s house and the oldest tree in Savannah.

That evening around 6:45pm we went on a ghost tour.  I chose this tour because the one in New Orleans really wasn’t what I was hoping for.  The Savannah tour was perfect. The tour mainly focused on the Sorrel-Weed house in the Historic District of Savannah.  This house has a very sordid past. (For the story on the Sorrel-Weed house go here.)  The show Ghost Hunters on the Sci-Fi channel came out and inspected the house and said it was one of the most haunted houses they’d ever been too. The tour also took us to a few other places nearby including the graveyard, but my favorite part of the tour was the house. I wished we could have gone upstairs to the bedrooms, but alas the house is  lived in part time by someone, so I suppose they need some amount of privacy.

We were feeling particularly creepy so to top of our evening of haunts we had dinner at the Moon River Brew Pub, which is reputedly haunted as well. We asked our waiter about it and he confirmed it with a couple personal stories. By this time it was pouring down rain so we basically ran back to our hotel after dinner.

Like I said I can’t explain why I loved Savannah so much.  We were only there for a day, but from the moment we arrived it had that heavy historic feel of an old town.  I loved the feeling of spirits floating about as if nothing has changed; just as eager to stay in Savannah as I was.