The weather is a bit cooler than we would want for a southern vacation but it's still close to 20 degrees and sunny so we can't complain. We woke up early so that we could go to Cafe du Monde as soon as it opened before we left for our swamp tour. Cafe du Monde is New Orleans' version of the first Starbucks but much older as it was established in 1862. Kerry and the kids are already familiar with it because Disneyland has replicated it as part of their New Orleans Square area where you can get beignets and mint juleps. Callie was very excited to try out beignets from the source and they didn't disappoint. Warm, fluffy and lots of icing sugar. We'll go back at least one more time.
The next item on our agenda was a trip to the swamp. Carter had a few items on his list of things to do and it included a swamp tour. We walked down the waterfront to catch a bus that took us out to the swamp. We checked in at the tour office and found they had an albino gator. Albino gators don't last long in the wild, not just because they are easy to see but also because they don't do well in the sun. This isn't a good for a cold-blooded animal who needs to sun themselves to get moving in the morning. This gators name was Sugar, and she took so long to move we didn't think she was real at first.
We had considered doing an airboat tour, but I didn't want to have to wear sweaty earmuffs and I think we made a good call. The swamp boat and the air boats all started from the same location and the airboats were very loud. It was quite cold on the day we went so the alligators were mostly hiding in the mud and we only saw a couple of them. I'm pretty sure the airboats were scaring them away before they even saw them. I had thought the airboats would be able to go places we couldn't, but I think they just went to the same places we went but faster.
The highlight of the trip was the gators followed by the swamp cows. (This was all we actually saw.) At one point our guide threw out a marshmallow for the gator to hunt. The cold weather was apparently impacting him. He swam slowly toward it and made one halfhearted attempt to grab it but in the end the marshmallow got away. I think we saw five gators in total and learned a lot about floattantes. It seemed to be our guides favorite word. I think he said it over 100 times.
After our tour bus dropped us back in the French Quarter we wandered around a bit and checked out more of the area including Canal Street. There is a distinct difference between the business district and the French Quarter, and it's separated by this street. On one side you have skyscrapers and a modern downtown and on the other the majority of the buildings are one or two stories tall interspersed by a few older styled more modern hotels up to 5 or six stories. Apparently, it was in the 1960's that preservation of the existing buildings finally took hold and new hotels are no longer allowed in the French Quarter boundary.
By now we had told Carter about his surprise activity. While searching for New Orleans items online Kerry noticed that there is an NBA team here and they just happened to be playing the lakers while we were here. Carter was very excited to get to watch his first NBA game. He and I walked to the Smoothie King Centre from our hotel. Our seats were upper deck, but it was still a nice view of the game. The game itself was notable for the wrong reasons. Records for 3 pointers by the Lakers as well as their largest ever lead at half time of 40 points. Still a fun time.
No comments:
Post a Comment