{Road Trip) Day Seven - Mississippi and HOME

We kicked off our last day of traveling with a visit to my great uncle's (my grandmother's brother) farm.  He still lives on the same land that once belonged to my great grandfather (my grandmother's father) on the outskirts of Ocean Springs, MS...

Uncle L is in his 80s, yet he still farms his land every single year.  He always sends us home with loads of fresh produce...  Unfortunately, this was the first year ever that deer got into his crops and ate every last thing that he was trying to grow!  He is pretty amazing and a very generous soul.  He never made a living farming (he was a builder), but just enjoys it!

This was a great stop for the kids who got to run and run and run...something that they needed to do having been traveling for so long!

Uncle L took the kids down to the creek to see the fish...

and Grandma got some special time with her namesake, Bug...

I can't think of a better way to conclude our CrAzY family road trip...

When we pulled into the driveway a few minutes shy of midnight and over 2800 miles later, I was thankful to be home and for a superfun week spent with my family!

More {Road Trip} 2012 Fun

Day One - Memphis, TN

Day Two - Arkansas

Day Three - San Antonio, TX

Day Four - Houston, TX

Day Five - On the Road to New Orleans, LA

Day Six - New Orleans, LA

{Road Trip} Day Six - New Orleans, LA

Having added a couple of detours to our trip on the way to New Orleans, we decided to extend our trip one more day in order to have a little bit more time in New Orleans and more time to spend with my grandmother in Mississippi as well.

This morning, we got up and headed out to grab some beignets for breakfast at the famous, Cafe du Monde...

YUM!

After breakfast, we caught a carriage ride and took a tour of the French Quarter...

 

After our tour, we wandered around and made our way down Royal Street.  We were thrilled to see that one of the galleries that we visited on our last trip (almost 10 years ago) was still in operation and that a favorite artist of ours was still painting...  Hubby surprised me with this Ricardo Lozano print for our first wedding anniversary (paper) back in 2004...

Though it wasn't in the budget this time around, hopefully we can add one of his originals to our collection one day!

After strolling around, we headed over to Johnny's Po-Boys for a late lunch.  

We scored seats on the gallery above...so fun! 

We left town mid-afternoon and headed out to the Chalmette Battlefield, the site of the Battle of New Orleans...

before making the short trip over to my grandmother's house in Mississippi...

definitely the MOST important stop on our crazy road trip!

Can't believe that this lady will turn 93(!!!) in just a few more weeks!!!

Looking forward to spending a little more time with her tomorrow...

More {Road Trip} 2012 Fun

Day One - Memphis, TN

Day Two - Arkansas

Day Three - San Antonio, TX

Day Four - Houston, TX

Day Five - On the Road to New Orleans, LA

Day Seven - Mississippi and HOME

{Road Trip} Day Five - On the Road to New Orleans, LA

Last night, we drove pretty late into the night (make that early into the morning) and made it to Lafayette, LA.  After grabbing breakfast at the hotel, we headed into town to stop for an ice cream snack.  Strange for a Sunday morning right after breakfast?  Yes, it is...  BUT, today we celebrated Pops' birthday from afar at Borden's Ice Cream, the last retail location in the United States...

After we were completely sugared up, we decided that we needed some spice, so we headed out to Avery Island to tour the Tabasco Factory...

After loading up on sauce and other gifts & treats, we finally headed on to New Orleans...

First, we stopped in to collect our NHP stamps at the New Orleans Jazz National Historic Park...

This was like no other National Park office that we had visited before...  By the end of the first song, someone had gotten both B and L on stage and B had found his true calling in life (L, not so much!)...  No joke...the child was thoroughly enjoying himself dancing on stage to the music!

Oh, I am sooo glad that I got some good videos of this...  :)

After the song ended, we headed off to Jackson Square so that B could see yet another one of his beloved U.S. Presidents.  He has a special interest in Andrew Jackson since it is believed that he was born in South Carolina...

By the end of the evening, B had developed his "business plan" for at least the immediate future, obviously heavily influenced by both his "jazz experience" from earlier in the day and his observations made from walking around the French Quarter...

"Daddy, may I have your hat?  Do you play an instrument?  Could you please play your instrument while I tap dance?"

Oh my goodness, the things he comes up with sometimes!

We headed to Gumbo Shop and were treated to dinner thanks to B and his talents (just kidding!) and discovered that little M must take after her grandpa (my daddy)...  She gobbled up every last bit of her red beans & rice!

That dish was always a favorite of my dad's and my grandmother used have it ready to go as soon as we arrived every single time that we came down to visit growing up...

After dinner, we walked around a bit more before calling it a night and both B and L LOVED catching the beads that "magically" fell from the sky...

Sticking around for one more day...

More {Road Trip} 2012 Fun

Day One - Memphis, TN

Day Two - Arkansas

Day Three - San Antonio, TX

Day Four - Houston, TX

Day Six - New Orleans, LA

Day Seven - Mississippi and HOME

{Road Trip} Day Four - Houston, TX

Ever since my first trip to Houston (and my first trip to Texas, actually) back in January, I have wanted to go back and really visit the city.  After coming home from that trip a bit disappointed that I didn't get to see much of the actual city (our hotel was out by theGalleria mall and a $50 cab ride just to get downtown), I did some research and found more than one reason to go back and take the whole family.  You might think Downtown Aquarium OR Houston Zoo OR Space Center Houston, of course, but it was actually this place, that piqued my curiosity most...

Yes, a parking lot chock full of ginormous busts (and some just the heads) of the U.S. Presidents!  In all honestly, I actually found out about this sign first...

and then about the heads...  So, I knew that we would just have to take our B one day.  Well, that "one day" came today and B was literally beside himself.

"Where's my head, Mommy?  I'm going to be President one day."

Oh me, oh my...

"Mommy!  Look, here's number 33!"

I think that he even found his favorite, James K. Polk...

at least, I think that one is him?

B literally wanted his photo taken with every...  single...  one...  I kid you not, that we took more than 50 photos in this parking lot and as we were leaving he just wasn't satisfied...

"Mommy, I don't want my picture taken with just half of the Presidents (it was physically impossible for us to get to them all), I want my picture taken with ALL of them..."

Like I said, "Oh me, oh my"...

Oh, and you think that the heads are huge?  Check out The Beatles...

After this CrAzY stop, we grabbed lunch at a lucky find, Freebirds World Burrito, a neat motorcycle-themed burrito place...

(they even had motorcycle handle controls to dispense salsa at the salsa bar)

and headed out to Space Center Houston, of course!

I'm going to have to dedicate an entire post to it (since this one is already about like the parking lot from earlier today, "chock full of ginormous busts of the U.S. Presidents!"), but here are a couple of highlights from our afternoon...

Finally, we couldn't leave Texas without giving the old Whataburger a whirl...

Goodbye, Texas!  We've definitely had a BIG time!

More {Road Trip} 2012 Fun

Day One - Memphis, TN

Day Two - Arkansas

Day Three - San Antonio, TX

Day Five - On the Road to New Orleans, LA

Day Six - New Orleans, LA

Day Seven - Mississippi and HOME

{Road Trip} Day Three - San Antonio, TX

What a day!  We had originally planned to travel to the Dallas/Fort Worth area to visit both the Dallas Zoo (I told you that we love us some zoos!) and the National Cowgirl Museum and Hall of Fame, but while on our way, Hubby and I decided that we would really rather head down to San Antonio since neither one of us had visited The Alamo before.

So, we reprogrammed our GPS and hit up The Coffee Shop Cafe for lunch instead of (our originally planned) dinner...

B was really hoping that we would run into "Dubyah", since it is said to be one of his favorite spots (close by to his ranch in Crawford), but alas he had to settle for this cardboard cutout version instead!

After lunch, we headed south.  Again, I am ever thankful for my little ones that take perfect naps in the car...  They were all 3 o-u-t within half an hour and slept the entire way to San Antonio.  With about an hour delay passing through Austin (awful traffic!), we arrived in San Antonio with just enough time to spare (and I felt like we were in our own AT&T "road trip" commercial as Hubby whipped out his ipod and cranked up "Ballad of the Alamo" by Marty Robbins).  We woke up the little ones, parked the car, and (all but) sprinted up the street to The Alamo.  We ended up with about 20 minutes to walk around before closing time at 7:00pm.  Thank goodness for extended summer hours!

We were surprised to learn that 2 of the 4 commanders in the battle were from South Carolina!

Afterwards, we headed down to explore the River Walk.  Though it was super crowded, we really enjoyed this area of town.

Though very different, it reminded me a lot of Venice.  I mean they have river boat cruises verses gondola rides and of course they have cars driving above, but the bridges we very quaint and reminded me just a little bit of Venice...just a little bit...

We grabbed dinner at a Mexican spot along the river and decided that though it was late, we would go ahead and take a river boat cruise...

It ended up being a real treat.  We got a good history overview of the city (and of the river) as our guide navigated the waters and pointed out all the important sites to us...  The cool breeze was a welcome change as well!

We enjoyed our short stop in San Antonio...  Headed to Houston tomorrow!

More {Road Trip} 2012 Fun

Day One - Memphis, TN

Day Two - Arkansas

Day Four - Houston, TX

Day Five - On the Road to New Orleans, LA

Day Six - New Orleans, LA

Day Seven - Mississippi and HOME