We headed from Mobile to New Orleans where we stopped for the night. Josh and I had both been to New Orleans separately but had never been together which is why we decided it's where we should stop. When we got there, we checked into the hotel and quickly hopped into a cab and headed to Jackson Square. It was so dadgum hot! I mean, I grew up in the South but my goodness. I can't remember the last time I had sweat through my clothes. We ducked into a small cafe for a drink and break from the heat when Rea spotted the horse drawn carriages. And because her daddy is such a sucker for her sweet face, he ponied up and spent $90 for all of us to take a 30 minute ride in the blistering heat around the French Quarter. I am glad we did it. Rea was so happy and it was kind of neat to hear all of the history about the area from a knowledgeable person.
After the carriage ride, we were all hungry and just done, so we cabbed to our dinner selection for the night--Mahony's Po Boys. Delicious. Pretty sure I devoured my sandwich in less than three minutes. Following the meal we decided to walk back to the hotel. It was a little over a mile and we had the stroller, so why not. We got to see a large part of the Garden District, which I loved. I love a good historic home. When we finally made it back to the hotel, we all showered and passed out!
The next day we booked it to Austin, Texas...but not before having some beignets at Cafe du Monde! We got to my brother, Trey's house just before dinner time. I felt horrible dropping in....Chelsea had just had knee surgery that morning. She and Trey insisted that she was fine and wanted us to stop, so we did. Trey cooked steaks on the grill with asparagus on the side. It was so yummy after eating all of this food on the road to have a home cooked meal. It was also awesome to get to hug Trey's neck before he headed off to Beijing for the World Championship meet (he won the US trials while we were in Ohio). Around 9, Loyal started to melt down so we said our goodbyes and headed to the hotel.
Day three we drove all the way to Albuquerque. That was a really long day. We were tired, Josh was sick and driving across Texas is just depressing. I'm pretty sure we all slept really hard that night.
Day four was not supposed to be our last day. Originally we had planned to stop in Kingman, Arizona. But we were just so ready to get home, that we decided to just suck it up and drive the 13 hours home. Somehow we made it and it actually wasn't so bad. I have never been so glad to see the front of this house!
