Avery Island, Louisiana

After New Orleans, we headed west and made a quick stop at Avery Island, LA where the McIlhenny Co. makes Tabasco sauce. As soon as we got out of the RV, we could smell the Tabasco in the air.

We toured the factory (too bad it was Sunday so we didn't see the production line running) and of course, we went to their store. We tasted their sweet and spicy ice cream and the jalapeno ice cream not to mention all of the different sauces, salsas, and spreads.

Kait and Andrew at the Tabasco factory.

There were quite a few interesting tidbits we learned about the McIlhenny Co. For example, did you know that the pepper mash ferments for 3 years in oak barrels they get from Jack Daniels before they mix it with vinegar and bottle it? When they can't use the barrels anymore, they chop them up and sell them as spicy wood chips for your smoker. Also, Avery Island is on top of a huge underground mountain of salt (they think the dome is bigger than Mt. Everest) and they mine that salt for the factory. Pretty neat stuff.

We like seeing how things are made. Don't know why. We just do.

New Orleans, Louisiana: Day 3 and The Food

On our final day in New Orleans, we walked all over the French Quarter, we ate some great food and took a paddle boat ride on the Mississippi River.

We wanted to make the most of our last day in New Orleans so we left the RV bright and early Saturday morning and found a public parking lot in the French Quarter. We set off on foot to wander around the city and do some shopping. There are so many unique little shops in the French Quarter and of course, as in any tourist spot, there are some not so interesting shops too.

But let's face it, it all comes down to the food doesn't it?! There is so much good food to eat in NOLA! Like beignets and cafe au lait from Cafe du Monde:

I opted for a shrimp po' boy while Tom ate some jambalaya, gator sauce piquant and some red beans and rice:

It was a lot of fun to look around and watch the kids' faces when they saw weird people on the streets. There were a lot of street people trying to make some extra cash by acting like statues or playing music or just acting strange.

At one point later in the afternoon, we were trying to find a restaurant we wanted to go to and we took a turn down Bourbon St. I didn't realize we were on Bourbon St. although I new we were in an area with a very different energy - you could feel it as soon as we walked around the corner. Thankfully, it was still early enough in the day that it wasn't too crazy yet. Although, Andrew did call it the "freak street". LOL

Even though parts of New Orleans isn't really kid friendly at certain times of the day, I wouldn't hesitate to bring your kids if you are visiting the area. There were lots of other things for us to do with the kids.

For example, we went to the Art Museum and looked at the gardens and the Christmas lights:

And we took a ride of the last authentic steam engine paddle boat running on the Mississippi River, The Natchez.

New Orleans turned out to be a new favorite place for us! It may be even better than Bar Harbor, Maine!

New Orleans, Louisiana: Day 2

After exploring the city, we wanted to explore the bayou so we took a swamp tour with Cajun Encounters Tour Co.

It was cool and rainy the day of the tour and we didn't know if we would see a lot of animals but it was so beautiful and peaceful it didn't matter.

Our guide explained that the cypress trees and the other vegetation get a little gray and washed out in the winter but I thought it was beautiful. He also said that the bigger alligators go into a hibernation and won't be seen until June when there body temperatures get back to a level when they can eat again.

He said when it is warm, you might see snakes (34 varieties to choose from, yeah.), gators, birds, wild boars, raccoons and nutria. Luckily (or should I say, "Thank you Jesus!") since it was so chilly, we didn't see any snakes. We did see a few raccoons, a heron, a nutria (which are like a mix of a ground hog and a giant rat) and one small gator.

He's hard to spot, but the gator is swimming by in the center of the pic.

A nutria. (Notice his nice orange teeth.)

A hungry raccoon hoping we would throw him some food.

A heron resting on a log.

Here's an interesting tidbit to help you during your next trivia contest...Did you know a marsh is a meadow which is under water and a swamp is a forest underwater?

The swamp was unlike anything we have seen before. I'd like to come back when it's warmer so we can see how lush the trees get and how big the gators are!

New Orleans, Louisiana: Day 1

Wow! New Orleans is an amazing place. We can't wait to come back here.

Tom was really surprised by how much I liked the city and I guess I was too. I think I was a little brainwashed by the Hollywood depiction of NOLA. I thought there wasn't much more to New Orleans than Bourbon Street and spicy food.  Boy, was I wrong.

We stayed at the French Quarter RV Resort which is just on the outskirts of the French Quarter. We were close enough that we could have walked to the FQ if we didn't have the kids.

The first day we took a guided city tour so we could get our bearings and see as much as we could. Then we could decide what we wanted to go back and see more of.

We saw lots of historic buildings and monuments:

Lots of beautiful homes (this picture doesn't even scratch the surface of the beautiful homes and architecture in the city!):

We also visited the areas of the city that were flooded when the walls broke after Katrina. (It was interesting and heartbreaking to hear a local's version of what happended versus the media's interpretation.)

Many of the houses in the Lower 9th Ward still have the X's that were spraypainted on the front of the houses during the rescue and recovery searches after the floods. Don, our tour guide, explained that the top of the X had the date the house was searched, the left of the X were the initials of the team who did the search, on the right was the number of animals found and the bottom number was the number of bodies found. Needless to say, it was chilling to see those numbers still on many of the houses to this day.

I was amazed by how many homes are still boarded up while others (some right next door) are being lived in and others look completely refurbished. Don pointed out many empty lots that used to have old homes, businesses and even entire schools that were simply washed away in the flood.

We also stopped in a cemetary. Since New Orleans is below sea level, they have to bury people above ground. These cemetaries are built like little cities and some tombs hold several genrations of a family.

I especially liked the tombs with angels watching over top:

There was so much to see and do in New Orleans you quickly learn to 'laissez les bon temps rouler' (let the good times roll)!