Last Minute BUSY trip

 While my dad was visiting we decided at the spur of the moment to take a trip.  We pack a LOT into our little weekend trip.  Monday was Memorial day so we had an extra day.

First we headed down to Jackson, Mississippi.  It was a nice opportunity to talk to Kiah a bit about government, since it is Mississippi's state capitol.

While there we found a graveyard that had a small monument to the Unknown Confederate Soldier.  There were quite a few unknown soldiers buried there.  There were also so VERY old graves.  Not to mention the number of headstones you could no longer read or were just plain missing.  We also saw the biggest Crepe Myrtle tree I think I have ever seen.  I didn't get a picture of it... which really is too bad.  It was at least 2 ft around.  which is HUGE for a Crepe Myrtle.

 As we were driving by the Capitol I was monument of some kinda.  So we stopped the car to get a look.  I couldn't believe it.

Next we drove down to Lafayette, Louisiana.  We stayed in these awesome cabins.  They were called the Bayou Cabins.  It was actually on Dirty Jobs when Mike Rowe went and made Cracklin there.  They had an awesome breakfast in the morning.  And I could hardly understand what the cook said, his accent was so thick and Cajun.  Just like you would imagine in your head.  Each cabin was lined with chunky Christmas lights.  We played cards on our screened in porch.  AWESOME.  In the morning it was Boudin, eggs, beignets, YUM.

The swamp out back

Some of the cabins

There was stuff everywhere to look at a play with.  Here you see a decaying boat and a trike

Part of a hammock and a swing set

A bike and some farm equipment

We went on a Swamp Tour.  We saw so many animals.  So many I don't even know.  We saw flamingos, alligators, herons, egrets, all sorts of stuff.  Our tour guide was a bit full of himself, but we did learn a lot.  I would LOVE to go again sometime.  There were several tour guides I saw giving tours in the same area, Lake Martin.  This guy was not our tour guide, but seemed like he gave a good tour.

This picture makes me laugh so much.  There is just something so silly about it.  Maybe the ridiculousness of the life vests.

I can't remember the name of these birds.  But Chris took a bit of video when the guide was talking about them.

  

Can you see the birds.  They hide very well!  I can see 2 in the picture below.

Here is there nest a few babies down in it.

a Dragonfly landed on Chris' leg.  They were everywhere and the main reason there weren't mosquitoes!

Next we headed to New Orleans to have some fun.  We checked-out the aquarium.

 We also took a carriage ride through the French Quarter.  Our tour guide was amazing.  He knew so much... or at least I think he did.  I had a heck of a time understanding him and I think I faired better than most since I had practice with Eli and his consonant deletion.

Here is a short video of our tour.  I chose this one because it was the easiest to understand since he was explaining a bit a the famous song "House of the Rising Sun"

We watched some street performers.  This was a bit of their pre-show warm-up

I got this picture of the St. Louis Cathedral as the sun was setting

Had some beignets at  

We also toured The St. Louis Cemetery.  I really wanted to do that.  We saw the Voodoo queens crypt.  OOOOOOH....scary!

We then headed to the Laura Plantation. A Creole plantation.  This is where Br'er Rabbit was first recorded.    It was very interesting hearing about a creole plantation.  Now I want to take a tour of some other plantation and Antebellum houses to learn more of the differences.

The creoles painted their houses in vivid color as compared to a typical antebellum house which is white.  It may be hard to see, but this one is yellow, salmon, and turquoise. 

It was fascinating.  We bought the book so I could learn more.  This plantation has some of the most information about it since one of the later creole owners wrote e memoir for her daughters after she sold the plantation and moved as far away from her creole roots as she could at the time, St.Louis.  I also bought the Br'er Rabbit booklet.  I love those stories!

On the way home we followed some of the Natchez Trace.  We also got a bite to eat!  We had so much great food on this trip.  Got to love that creole cookin'.

The crawfish are a small, small, small portion of the yummy vitals we had.