These last two days have been exciting, fun, busy and exhausting all at the same time. We spent time seeing the sights & sounds of New Orleans and time enjoying the sights and sounds of Fontainebleau State Park.
Yesterday was New Year’s Eve. We spent the day in The Big Easy aka New Orleans. We started our day early by heading into NOLA around 7am. It takes us about an hour to get there from our campsite and we wanted to be one of the first in line to get some delicious beignets and café au laite from Café Du Monde. It was worth the early wake up call. The beignets were delicious and the coffee was just what we needed to start our day (even if we had already had 2 cups before arriving!).
We finished at Café Du Monde, then figured out the streetcar system to get us to our next stop, the The National World War II Museum. The museum is huge and it is, in my opinion, a must see when you are visiting New Orleans. We spent most of the day there, and honestly we probably could have taken even more time. Noah was in heaven. He is obsessed with all things WWII. He was running from display to display before I could really even stop to read about them. He was most interested in seeing the guns, ammo, jeeps and planes. I find WWII fascinating. The simple fact that the US was coming out of the Great Depression and had only the 18th ranked military in the world at the beginning of it, yet came out victorious (along with the Allied forces) in the end is amazing to me. The pure will and determination of the American people fought that war.
As I said before, we could have spent more time at the museum but it was New Year’s Eve and we thought it would be best for us to get out of the city before dark (and we were dodging rain showers to get back). The New Year’s parties were starting and the entire Jackson Square area was blocked off for Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve show. Not exactly a place we wanted to have the kids after dark, so we hopped a streetcar and made our way back to the truck and back to our campsite. We found a good seafood restaurant to eat at on the way and, of course, had to make a stop by Wal-Mart on the way too. We spent the evening watching Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve and rang in the New Year with the East Coast at 11am before collapsing in bed.
Friday morning, New Year Day, we were up bright and early to see what 2021 had in store for us. We had planned on staying at our campground all day and we stuck to that plan. We started out with a big breakfast of bacon and pancakes. Johnny and I then went on a 3.1 mile run to run off all those calories we had just consumed. And, as if that wasn’t enough, we then took the kids on a short bike ride then a 3-mile hike. Needless to say, our feet and legs were hurting just a bit.
Last, but not least, you can’t forget the traditional New Year’s Day meal. Just because we were away from home does not mean we were going to take our chances on luck and money for 2021! We cooked up some black eyed peas (for luck), collard greens (for money) and cornbread for a late lunch/dinner. We finished the day enjoying the beautiful sunset over Lake Ponchertrain.
We have one more day left to explore the NOLA area. We plan on spending tomorrow in the city, seeing as many sights as we can.