Day 1 - Wednesday, June 8
The trip started out at the USS Alabama Battleship in Mobile, AL. I believe this is where Debbi got lost when she was little...
We then drove on to New Orleans and checked into the Clarion on Canal Street. Hm. If I had had anything to do with it, we would not have stayed there. It was an okay location some of the time, a little seedy most of the time. The room looked okay but was run down and not all that clean. By the way, I was NOT the only one who had these complaints about the rooms!
The first impression we got of the French Quarter was Bourbon Street at dusk.
Ick. The stench was horrible! And of course we got to enjoy seeing all the seedy bars and strip clubs. Fun. We walked a little farther and ended up in a much nicer part of the French Quarter down by the French Market, had an okay dinner, found an Irish bar and went back to the hotel after a drink or two.
Day 2 - Thursday, June 9
Day 2 started early because the group went to the CG station for the game and briefing. The spouses decided to walk down to the French Market together before we met up for lunch and the D-Day museum. The walk downtown took us about 1.5 hours (usually about 20 minutes) because one of the spouses has two little girls who jumped and skipped the entire way. They were just too cute! The flea market down at the French Market was nothing special but fun, nevertheless. It started raining and was drizzly so we took the street car back to the hotel and met up with the various husbands either at the hotel or at the museum.
The museum was a little overwhelming for me. Lots of pictures of dead soldiers and very depressing. Jake and I didn't stay long and headed back to the hotel. After Jake took a little nap we headed out again to explore some more of the French Quarter and get dinner.
We went to the Red Fish Grill for dinner. What a fabulous choice! I haven't had such a good dinner at a restaurant in such a long time! I had the mahi-mahi and salad and loved everything from the first bite. Wow. Jake really liked his bbq oysters and soup, as well. Yum! After dinner we took a group historic carriage ride around the French Quarter and had a great time. It was the perfect time of day for it. Right at dusk with a cooling breeze coming of the Mississippi.
Jake had a carrot for Andy the mule and Andy chose that moment to slobber all over Jake's hand.
Day 3 - Friday, June 10
The day started off with the Chalmette Battlefield...
...and continued with a swamp boat ride. We saw a bunch of alligators up close, lured by marshmallows :)
We ended the day with a visit to the Audubon Aquarium and another yummy dinner.
Day 4 - Saturday, June 11
We left New Orleans right after breakfast with the intention of getting home as early as possible to pick up the dogs and save a little money. We ended up going to an outlet mall off I-10 which I spied on the way down and spending a little MORE money :) All of my nieces and nephew profited from the stop at the outlet mall...
The pups were excited to see us and got a bath right when we got home. Filthy pups after 4 days at the kennel playing with so many other dogs all day long!
So the trip ended up being a lot of fun. There are more pictures at the top right of my blog.
