I LOVE Instagram. I love everything about it. It serves are inspiration in many areas and it lets me view the world through my phone! It lets me share my life and it lets me keep up with friends across the county. It was hard to narrow it down to five, but in no particular order, here are my five top Instagram feeds.
Friday Night Lights
I got to mess around with a Sigma 120-300mm lens tonight and let me tell you, it is a huge learning curve and HEAVY. Thank goodness for a monopod. SO with seven minutes to spare to get a blog post in for day three, here are a couple from tonight.
Throwback Thursday-Dog Edition
I have spent the last three years photographing some gorgeous labradors before they go in for training at Southeastern Guide Dogs. These are a few of my favorites from the last year.
Kiki
Nisey
Kiki
Penny
Wilder
Aja
Road Trip Part 3, Home
After a very quick trip to New Orleans, we headed home to Dry Prong. Yep, you read that right, I am the Village of Dry Prong. When I lived there, I think the population was somewhere around 325. I think that is slightly low, but that was what was on the road sign, so who really knows. Regardless, my family is still there and I love going home when I get a chance. I know, you’re going to ask, what the heck kind of name is Dry Prong? Well, way back when the village was founded, the family that settled there accidentally set up shop on the dry prong of Big Creek. The one that went dry every year. Probably not the smartest move if you wanted to build a mill, so the eventually moved to the side that had water all year, but the name stuck. My dad served as mayor for eight years, my mom served as alderwoman for twelve years, and my cousin, Shane Davis is the current mayor. Anyway, more on that in a bit, so we headed out of New Orleans, passing by the Super Dome. (Geaux Saints!), headed north.
This way to Dry Prong…we actually went up I-49 instead of 167. It’s faster because we don’t have to stop in all the little towns for stoplights….and speed traps.
It is not a trip home unless we stop for Shipley Donuts. When we fly in, Mom is usually waiting with a box for Amanda. We stopped at the Exxon station on McArthur Drive forome donut holes. Happy Amanda. (PS. I just found out that Shipley is building it’s first location in Florida…about 15 minutes from my house!)s
Of course, we had to do a coffee crawl in Alexandria. We hit up Crave and took a few pictures of the artwork downtown.
My sister took a day off from work and we headed to St. Francisville. It had been years since I’ve been there, but it is such a pretty town. It’s home to the famous The Myrtles Plantation. Known as one of America’s most haunted houses. My uncle has stayed overnight there and can attest to some very mysterious things happening. We didn’t take the tour, but we did get a few photos.
I love Louisiana towns and St. Francisville has the cutest bookstore named Conundrum Books. What could make a bookstore even better? Meet Buster the Bookstore Dog. Of course, we were missing our fur babies, so getting to love on a dog was a bonus.
-
- Amanda and Buster
-
- Bicycles
-
- Amy and Buster
Sadly, all too soon it was time to head back to Florida, and we headed out dark and early.
Taken sitting in my mom’s driveway as I cried like a baby. It was such a fun trip. The first part busy, the second part, not so much, just hanging out with my family. Amanda and I did the trip back to Florida in one day, driving straight through. Amanda drove the entire trip, despite me begging her to let me drive. Guess she didn’t want anyone driving her precious Minerva, not even her mother! I can’t wait to do it again, and we are already planning for the next trip.
A Much Overdue Post #2 from NOLA
I know this is much overdue, but school started, Hurricane Irma paid a visit and quite frankly, I still haven’t found a good balance for blogging, but I’m working on it. Anyway, when we were last together, I reviewed our fabulous hotel, The Old 77 Hotel and Chandlery. I loved it so much that I can’t wait to stay there again. As we had less than 48 hours in the city, we had to figure out what we wanted to do and see while dodging the torrential rain that New Orleans gets every afternoon. Amanda and I laughed and said that we were the only people who go to New Orleans and go the to Zoo. Yep, we did. We went to the Audubon Zoo. More on that in a bit, but we got into New Orleans late afternoon, so we had some time to rest and then head out to the Quarter before it got too dark. We were hungry so the main thing we wanted was dinner! I had a yummy polenta and grits at The Gumbo Shop on St. Peter. Amanda had etouffee and a drink. She deserved it after all that driving! (I’m going to apologize for some of the photos, the humidity was awful and causing all sorts of fogging that I couldn’t correct.)
After dinner, we wandered around the Quarter for a bit and decided that we both need a tiara.
We headed back to the hotel for drinks and we stopped so I could get a photo of Amanda by the Mississippi.
Funny story about that shirt. She got comments on it by several people including the maitre’d at the restaurant who gave us the history of whiskey in the US. On the way back, these two sassy ladies looked at her and said “Ok Miss Tennessee Whiskey!” Cracked us up but was so fun.
Back at the hotel, we stopped in for drinks at Compere Lapin where this adorable bartender made me his award winning cocktail, Page of Swords. It was a nice way to end a long day. We had a busy day the next day so both of us pretty much crashed when we got up to the room. 
The next morning we got up bright and early so we could eat breakfast and head out to the zoo. Right across the street is a New Orleans institution, Mother’s Restaurant. This is a perfect place to people watch, and I wish that I had more time to stay and just watch. By the way, no way are you leaving hungry from Mother’s.
After breakfast, we hopped into an Uber and headed to the Audubon Zoo for the morning. I had forgotten that New Orleans in July has approximately 1000% humidity. Despite the heat and the humidity we had a great time, and we even saw the newest addition to the flamingo family and adorable baby chick. (Click on any photo to enlarge)
And then my favorite photo from the day, a dragonfly on a branch.
Summer is rainy season, so we managed to stop at Revelator Coffee just down from the hotel for an iced tea for me and an iced vanilla latte for Amanda. This is a place that I could see being my favorite coffee shop in New Orleans.
Just as we got back to the hotel, the deluge started. We had great views for the rainstorm from our room. It actually made for a relaxing couple of hours. Well, until Amanda wanted to get a closer look and managed to bang her head on the window and leave a nice makeup print of her forehead!
Not wanting to waste any time and having one more shop we wanted to get to before we left, once the rain slacked up, we took off to the French Quarter to Papier Plume on Royal Street. I was on the search from my New Orleans inspired fountain pen ink and Amanda was just along to look at the pretty things. We found some musicians braving the rain in front of St Louis Cathedral. Once at Papier Plume I found my ink, and Amanda found a nice glass dip pen. The guy in the store was flirting like crazy with Amanda, which amused me to no end. Oh well, he got a nice sale out of it. We opted for one last iced latte and iced tea at French Truck Coffee before heading back to dinner at Compere Lapin. Here’s a lesson for you. Brave the rain, life is too short to miss out on anything because of a little bit of rain.
We headed back for dinner at Nina Compton’s Compere Lapin and I managed to get one photo of Amanda when she wasn’t looking. I’ll have a full review in a later post, but if you are ever in New Orleans, you must have at least one meal here. The Soursop dessert is one of the best things I have ever had.
Amanda waiting for the elevator.
Alas, the next morning it was time to say good-bye to our short stay, but before we left, we had to make it to Cafe Du Monde. As neither one of us was ready to walk to the French Quarter location, we headed a block up to the Riverwalk to that location. It was much closer and air conditioned with a great view of the Mississippi. We are planning a longer trip the city for next spring when it is cooler and I have plans to make it a photographic tour. Between the short visit, and the rain, I didn’t get to as many places as I wanted, including listening to live music, but we had a fabulous time. I can’t wait to go back the city that care forgot.
