Now that we're back from vacation and I have re-capped our New Orleans portion of the trip {here, here, here and here} I wanted to see how we did with our New Orleans bucketlist! Looks like we accomplished roughly 63% of our list. Did //
Bourbon Street
Toured the Garden district
Explored the French Quarter
Went on a swamp boat tour
Saw an alligator
Kind of did //
Eat Beignets - just not at Cafe Du Monde. We were never in the area at the right time
Tour a graveyard - Ty & Michelle did this.We saw a lot of it from the outside and saw videos they sent. So, we kind of were there too Did not do //
Ride a Street Car - bummed about this one.
See Jackson Square - it started pouring when we were in this area
Audobon Zoo - we went to the Audubon Aquarium instead. And it's a good thing because it rained quite a bit!
Ride the carousel - never made it to carousel gardens
While we didn't do all that we hoped, we still packed quite a bit into our New Orleans trip!
On Day 3 in Nola our group split up for a while. Ty and Michelle wanted to tour the WWII museum and we wanted to visit the aquarium. We weren't sure that the museum would keep Mason's attention, so we went with the safe place. The aquarium was beautiful, but fairly small. I couldn't figure out my camera settings inside and it was far too crowded to put much effort into it, so iPhone pictures it was!
When we came out of the aquarium it came a downpour! We found some covered seating and camped out until the storm passed. We had to go through a mall to get to our parking garage, so we walked around a bit. Mason doesn't remember ever going to a mall {country boy!} and wanted to check it out. We made a quick swipe and it was enough for all of us! We decided on Barcadia for lunch. The sweet lady from Brick and Spoon had recommended it to us the day before. We were under the impression that it was like a Dave and Busters, but we were wrong. It was a small restaurant with old time arcade games. The boys had fun playing the games, but the food was not that great. We were disappointed.
We left the restaurant and decided to walk around for a bit. We had paid for 4 hour parking and wanted to make the most of it. It was $25 to park and we had only been there a little over an hour. We accidentally found the Louisiana Children's Museum during our walk. From the outside it looked really neat, so we decided to check it out. Mason had a complete blast. His favorite was shopping at Winn Dixie, but my favorite was seeing him play eye doctor!
After the museum we all met back at the RV resort for some swimming and fishing! It was the perfect last night in New Orleans.
And that wraps up our time spent in Nola. And because everyone has been asking, I wanted to share our thoughts on New Orleans and what we liked/didn't like about it. Didn't like:
- narrow roads and tons of bridges that are jankity and look like they might fall at any moment. This was frightening when pulling a huge 42 foot travel trailer.
- New Orleans seems really dirty and trashy in so many parts of the city.
- The French Quarter was neat, but it was also really dirty. Nathan and I were both worried about Mason the entire time we were walking around. It just didn't seem kid friendly. And so many places reeked of urine.
- We saw a man dressed as a clown passing out balloon animals. A family had stopped and the clown basically threw himself into a photo with a little girl. When the family left without paying him for the picture he yelled at them! Like really loud with a few choice cuss words. How scary!
- It's so hot and muggy there! You will be drenched in sweat the moment you step outside. And because it's so hot it makes you not even want to deal with your camera and taking pictures. You just want to get to the next place {that hopefully has AC} as quick as you can.
- people working the shops weren't very friendly
Did like:
- The Garden District! It's so much cleaner and nicer and just so pretty,
- the history and the beautiful architecture
- the food
- Pontchartrain Landing RV Resort - so nice! I'd definitely recommend it if you're camping in Nola.
- The swamp tour was a blast and feels so far removed from the hustle and bustle of Nola.
I truly think Nathan and I would have enjoyed Nola more if we didn't have Mason. We spent most of our time worrying about him and trying to protect him from the busy city!
Up next on our vacation wrap-up...Panama City Beach, Florida!!
I'm back with the 2nd installment of our vacation recap! I am having to break it up by day because I took so many pictures! If you missed day one in New Orleans you can catch up here. Warning, another picture heavy post comin' at ya!
We decided to spend our 2nd day in New Orleans walking around the French Quarter and the Garden District. We didn't really have any set plans, just a few general things we hoped to see and do. We used Uber for the first time, ever. There were seven of us and we had two cars and the thought of having to find parking was daunting, so Uber it was. And it was perfect! She dropped us off right in the heart of the French Quarter, which was gorgeous. We didn't really know where we were, so we just started walking (and snapping photos).
We popped in and out of little shops soaking in all things Nola. Mason found some fun beads and a crazy mask which made him the ultimate tourist. I found a Nola shirt that I have been obsessed in love with. It says "Joy of Life" but in french and has the cutest arrows on it.
We came out of one shop to find the YouTube famous Grandpa Elliot singing his heart out. We stopped and listened to him for a while and then let Mason give him some cash.
We then made our way over to Bourbon street since we were so close to it. I mean, you can't go to New Orleans and not see Bourbon Street. I don't have much to say about Bourbon street because we stayed approximately 2 minutes. But I will say this, as soon as we stepped foot onto Bourbon it got 50 shades dirtier. And I would be lying if I said I didn't pull Mason in closer to me. It reeked of urine and it was not the cleanest place. It was lined with mostly bars and just didn't feel like a safe place to drag Mason through. We snapped a couple of photos and then left to find some lunch.
I started following an Instagram account called Eating Nola before we left for our trip in hopes of finding some amazing places to eat in Nola. After seeing some photos on this IG account we really wanted to try The Company Burger.
A photo posted by Follow My Snaps 👻 @eatingNOLA (@eatingnola) on
But sadly it was no where near us at that time. We were close to Gumbo Shop, though! It had been recommended to us by a friend and also kept popping up any time we searched where to eat in Nola. So we decided on that! It was amazing. Since I am not much of a seafood fan I played it safe and got the sausage red beans and rice. Oh my word, so delicious. It was a tad too crowded in there, but I think that's every where in the French Quarter. I can't believe I don't have any pictures of our meals.
Shortly after lunch (as in they basically had to run) Ty and Michelle wanted to do a Graveyard tour. They raced to make it on time and we trailed shortly behind. We just hung out and waited while they did the tour. It eventually started raining, so we camped out under some trees.
When the tour was over we called another Uber to pick us up and carry us to the Garden District. It started raining cats and dogs on our way over. We were all kind of wondering what we were going to do in the pouring down rain. Thankfully, our Uber driver drove us right up to a Starbucks. We decided to hang out there and let the rain pass. Once we felt that the rain was letting up we stepped out on to Magazine Street. But, wouldn't you know it started pouring again. We found some awnings and hid out for a while. An employee of a place called Brick and Spoon was across the street trying her best to get us to come over for free Mimosas. It was pouring and the street was a foot deep in water so it took some major convincing for her to get us over. But, she was adorable and so sweet and we were tired of standing out in the rain so we went over. She gave us a card for a free appetizer as well. We weren't starving so we just ordered our first beignets of the trip! Nathan, Mason and I shared some cinnamon sugar beignets and the rest of the family shared some bananas fosters beignets. We enjoyed those and our free mimosas! They were delicious. Jennifer, the sweet lady that got us to come over was so kind and wrote down some addresses to houses owned by famous people in the area.
The rain stopped so we carried on down Magazine street. We went into a few more shops before the guys found a cigar shop. They spent a bit of time in there while we just took in the sights around the shop. The humongous trees out front had beads hanging from them...so typical Nola, right?
By this time we were pretty much at the end of the street so we searched the list of famous houses to see if any were near us. Jay-Z and Beyonce's house was fairly close so we set off to find it. It was about 5 blocks over and it was huge in comparison to other houses in the area. Our waitress had told us it used to be a house where nuns and brothers (?) both lived. It sounded crazy to me, but it was New Orleans after all.
At this point we were all so hot, sticky and tired and quite frankly just over it. So we called another Uber. While waiting we watched the street cars go by! We went back to our resort for a little swimming and then some fishing. We caught an amazing sunset that night!
Stay tuned for day three in New Orleans which involves the aquarium, Barcadia and a Children's Museum.
Have you ever been to Nola? What was your favorite thing about it? Least favorite? I will be sharing ours soon.
