Woke up in Metairie, just outside of New Orleans.
We had breakfast at City Diner in Metairie. City Diner’s specialty are pancakes the size of pizzas, and they aren’t kidding. For $8 you’ll get a short stack (3) of pancakes, each one about the size of a medium pizza. Susan, Mason and Morgan all worked on the pancakes (with some sides of eggs and bacon) while I dove into a giant bowl of shrimp and grits. There was something else in my grits, and after re-checking the menu I saw they also offer shrimp and grits and crawfish, which is whatI think I ended up with. Oh well — when in Rome, right?
After breakfast we headed over to the famous Saint Louis Cemetery in New Orleans. I’ve never seen an above ground cemetery like this so it was fascinating and a bit creepy. The kids had an unofficial contest to find the oldest grave and they found several from the 1800s.
By the way, if you ever want to practice your photography skills, head to the nearest cemetary. It’s hard to take bad pictures there, and pretty easy to get good or even great ones if the light is in your favor. I did not bring my good camera with me but was still able to get a couple of neat shots.
Our next stop was Mardi Gras World. This place deserves (and will receive) its own post, but this is one of the places that makes Mardi Gras floats and all the awesome figures that go on them. Some of the figures were ten or fifteen feet tall, maybe taller! The tour was $65 for the four of us so it wasn’t cheap, but that includes a movie, a guided tour, and finally unrestricted access to the 250,000 square foot warehouse. I could have spent another hour or two wandering around in that warehouse! I took probably a hundred pictures that I will share later.
After the Mardi Gras World tour we skipped over to Barcadia, another arcade/bar combo. I am getting a bit jaded when it comes to these places. There wasn’t anything wrong with the place and the staff was more than pleasant. The food was okay but expensive for lunch (burger combo for $12.50). We enjoyed the games although we had to pull Mason off of the Donkey Kong machine after murdering the high score there. The selection of games was good with Tron, Spy Hunter, Missile Command, Star Wars, Dig Dug, and several other classics.
After eating it was time to drive again. Susan mixed up her days and instead of facing a five hour drive we were looking at nine hours. It began raining on us in New Orleans around 2pm and continued until we stopped in Florida around 10pm. It was so overcast that the vew of the ocean during our drive wasn’t that great (we hugged the coast the entire time). The longer we drove we began seeing flooded roads. At one convenient store we were warned that the bridges in our path might be flooded out. We were also warned to watch out for bears (we saw signs warning us of the same). Fortunately we were able to make it through to our hotel in time to crash for the night.