What do you do when your daughter moves home, you both have the summer off before you both return to the classroom and you need a break? You take a road trip to Louisiana with a two day stop in New Orleans, that’s what! After our trip to TSA Nationals, Amanda and I were both ready for a break. After talking with my husband, we decided that it would be cheaper to drive, spend some time in New Orleans and then drive to central Louisiana to see my parents. We decided to take Amanda’s Mini Cooper instead of renting a car, and after a little bit of planning…meaning, I set up a hotel and made reservations for dinner one night, off we went the morning of July 9, 2017. We left ridiculously early in order for us to have most of an afternoon and evening in New Orleans. Amanda insisted on driving, as it was her car and she’s a little bit of a control freak about who drives her car, and I was totally ok with that.
See…early.
Just outside of Ocala, we made out first Starbucks stop of the day. Iced tea for me and an iced caramel macchiato breve for Amanda. I got to talking with the nice barista while waiting for our drinks and she asked where we were headed, and I told her that we were doing a mother/daughter road trip and she wished us safe travels and gave me a gift card for the next stop. Wasn’t that sweet?
About three hours after we started, give or take ten minutes, we see the sign to head westBy the way, the drive from Tallahassee to Pensacola has to be the most boring stretch of I-10 ever. When I did this trip last year, I thought I was going to fall asleep during this stretch. There is NOTHING except for rest areas and the occasional off ramp to get gas.
See ya Florida, on to Alabama where we passed this sign. Wonder if I could find some shrimp in Bayou La Battre
So what do you do when you have a 10-ish hour drive? You sing…badly to movie soundtracks, Broadway soundtracks and Spotify…I’m going to warn you…it’s very off key, but we had a great time. 😀
One of the coolest things on this stretch of I-10 is the George Wallace Tunnel that goes under Mobile Bay. It’s also where a huge bottleneck happens, so it took a little bit for us to get through it. Amanda was a little freaked out driving through it. I agree, though, if you think too much about exactly where you are, you start to get nervous. And yes, we blew the horn as per tradition.
After one last Starbucks stop and a potty break outside of Biloxi, we drove into some torrential rain just outside of New Orleans, but once we got through Slidell and onto the bridge over Lake Pontchatrain, it was smooth sailing to our hotel.
You can see New Orleans in the distance. The trip wasn’t bad at all. Amanda wouldn’t let me drive, so I just rode along and kept her company. It is a weird experience to be the parent and not do ANY driving, especially on a trip that long, but I teased Amanda and told her that it made up for all the driving I did for her until she went to college! She just pursed her lips at me then laughed. In the next post, I’ll have a review of our hotel, the Old No. 77 Hotel and Candlery plus some photos from our first evening in New Orleans.
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