New Orleans, Part I

Whew! So much vacation to tell you about!

Seriously, it's a lot, so I'll be posting in batches. This week we're uber-busy catching up at work and prepping for a batch of houseguests.

We had a great time. My now-one-year-old niece is the cutest ever, and I got to spend lots of quality time with my parents and my sister and her husband. The one downside was the weather--it POURED every day. But we were still on vacation, rain or not, so whatever.

The 24-hour drive there and back was grueling, as usual. Our ability to do that kind of balls-out driving is going to be severely limited soon, we're both just too old and creaky to be able to do it for more than a couple more years. But we were able to bring back a carload of goodies (Abita beer, gator sausage, Zapp's chips, etc.), and for close to 3,300 miles in driving, we spent $239 in gas. Way cheaper than two plane tickets.

I've already posted about the swamp tour; I'll be cross-posting from Broke Foodie throughout the week, as I write about all the restaurant experiences there. Stay tuned.