Road Trip - Day 8

Not many photos taken today--it was a travelling day, and one where I actually got to drive for the first time. Ha! And I must say...I much prefer riding shotgun. Much easier to take all of the sights in, document, read....those sorts of things.

Anyways, last night was a bit of a rough night, so morning didn't find me personally very happy to see it. Sam of course was thrilled, "I go pee!...and thwow wocks." Yup. Sure. Fine.

My awesome husband nobally offered to take the kids back to the playground and museum for a few hours...if I wanted to pack up in silence or anything like that... Ha! So I did what any mother of young children does...NOTHING. Okay, I packed a few things up and did some planning of our schedule, but really, how often do you mothers of young'uns get to sit alone in the forest??

I wouldn't say Russ was exactly thrilled when he got back, but he got right to work helping me finish everything up. He's such a great guy. We got everything loaded up and we headed out to New Orleans.

We assumed the kids would pass out since Russ ran them that morning, alas, nope. So we did experiments and games and rocked out to some music. And we finally got to the Louisiana border.

I really would have liked to have taken more photos while we were driving. I'd never seen the "bayou" before and was amazed. Like, we were driving along on the interstate, which was essentially a super long bridge, and the bayou was underneath us. There were lots of houses built along these waterways--it looked like little neighborhoods, even like city blocks. But each house was literally on the edge of the water and each had it's own dock, like a sidewalk going out to your car, but at the end was their boat. Crazy.

Anyways, there was a lot of water and lots of bridges.

That big bridge to the left is a train bridge, and we're just coming across a giant bridge.



So our original plan was to stay at a KOA Campground in the city so we'd be close to everything (I figured it would be a change of pace from being in the woods as well). Well we pulled in and oh my...we turned right around and headed for the nearest state park. The KOA was not a pretty place to be, we'll just leave it at that.

So we ended up at the Bayou Segnette State Park. Although it was frustrating trying to find the unmarked, hidden campground for 40 minutes, we eventually found it and after driving around, found a spot that was right next to the toys, bathrooms, laundry, and wi-fi tower. PLUS there wasn't a soul in sight. That's my kind of campsite!

So the kids immediately jumped out of the car and headed for the toys while we set up camp. We later broke out the screen tent because the bugs were getting pretty bad (surprisingly the first time since leaving NC!).

Brooklyn said we needed to make a volcano. It's a good thing I carry a stash of baking soda and vinegar.

Another thing that happened as soon as the sun went down was that all of the nightlife emerged! I noticed that there were large chunks of wood on top of all of the garbage cans, and now I know why! We saw 10+ rabbits, 1 opposum, and 4 armadillos (which were pretty tame, obviously.). The kids actually chased one armadillo down the road. Brooklyn got so close that she said she touched it and it felt rough, not smooth like she thought it would feel like. Crazy kids.

Russ roasted sausages and corn on the cob for dinner and Brooklyn was the official Marshmallow Roaster, and she took her job incredibly seriously, making sure everyone was taken care of and had enough marshmallows.

By then, the kids were covered in filth, so off to the showers again...and then straight to bed. I think I'll follow suit.


Tomorrow: Off to taste our first beignets tomorrow morning and then high-tail it to the Children's Museum. Woo hoo!