A Day in the Big Easy

We had a very busy day today. The Rodgers family came out to meet us at the state park. They wanted to see the RV. It was all intact at that time- more on that later. We split up into boy and girl cars and headed into New Orleans to take the kids to the aquarium. To get there we had to cross the lake. That was pretty cool. It was really interesting to see so many of the places that we had heard about on the news during hurricane Katrina. The aquarium was fun, and I think all of the kids enjoyed it. After that we did lunch at the food court, then walked to Cafe duMonde for coffee and beignets-Yummy! We walked around Jackson square the the french quarter for awhile before we had to say goodbye to Kitty, Mel and Cecilia. They left us with good directions, so we managed to not get lost! We drove through the Garden district and saw some absolutely beautiful houses, then we ended up over in the area that had sustained damage in the hurricane. It was sobering to see the more affluent neighborhood full of newly redone houses, then to drive through a more low income area and still see absolute devastation.

We were very busy today, and managed to see a good deal in the city. This is a spot that we might have to put on our revisit list- we had such a good time with Kitty and Mel, and the kids got along well.

When we got back to our side of the lake, we ate a great dinner at a local place. We arrived back at the state park to see that they had gotten a great deal of rain while we had been gone. We also found the awning on the trailer destroyed. Neither one of us had thought about putting it up this morning when we left, and apparently a combination of high wind and water did it in. Coley had to completely take it off of the trailer, and I called the insurance company. Guess we will do without shade for the rest of the trip.

We ended the evening with a nature walk by flashlight on the boardwalk in the state park. I was pretty happy to NoT find anything "cool" lurking around. We are off to Florida tomorrow, and we plan on stopping off at Lambert's to eat on the way. We have eaten well so far!

The kids

Keeg thought the rays were cool

Do you think these little girls could possibly be spoiled?

Saying goodbye for now.

Not what you want to see after a fun day out and about.