New Orleans

A few weeks after St Louis, we went to New Orleans. Also a very cool, very historic place to visit.

We were there for a 3-day weekend and although it looks overcast, we did not escape the Texas heat for this trip.

Here are some things we saw:

Old Cemetary. People have to be buried above ground because of the high water table.

There was a hugh mix of old and new tombs.

There were also a bunch of Voodoo tombs covered in X's and random "gifts" in exchange for some luck.

This is the steamboat Natchez. You can take a ride on it and listen to Jazz while eating dinner but like everything in New Orleans, it costs about $50. So we stuck with the live jazz in the streets. It is everywhere!

We visited the Bayou

Experienced some culture

And we ATE! We ate a lot.

We got to sample beignets from the famous Cafe Du Monde

We tried the original Mufaletto from the Central Grocer

And of course we tried some real Southern food

This was my favorite, gumbo and a garlic oyster po' boy from Liuzza's by the Track. We had some pretty amazing turtle soup and catfish from Mandina's

This beauty is called a shoe sole. Its heaven. But not even this shoe sole could wake up Matt by the end of our trip. 

The last night we drove to Baton Rouge to check it out. The drive was pretty. The highways are crazy. They go over the water for miles and miles. Right through the swamp.

St. Louis

Okay. Rewind about 4 months or so and here is what we did on our day trip to St. Louis, MO

 Even though it was summer the day started out wet and a little chilly. The Mississippi River had flooded  and we were wishing we had brought coats.

We visited the arch first. These tiny circles are what you ride up in. They each fit five people snugly and it takes about 4 minutes to ride it to the top and 3 going down. Those minutes seem much longer when you are crammed in there with three Germans who seemed convinced we are going to fall to our death but speak very little English so they couldn't be consoled.

The view from the top:

After the arch we went to Union Station.

Then fast forward to the end of the day. It had finally warmed up (a little too warm, if you ask me) and we made it to our last stop: The City Museum

I really can't put this place in words. None of these pictures do it justice. But its basically this maze/playground for kids and adults. They have several different environments made out of recycled materials that you'd find anywhere from the school cafeteria to the side of the road.  You can clime on everything and find secret passageways to other parts of the building.... I really cant make this sound cool, can I?

 For example... this is one of the environments. You reach this point after climbing through a maze of caves. You can hear this creepy organ (its actually an organ from an old theater in New York) directing your path. Its slightly off tune and echoes through the space.

You can see where the old, historic building ends and the newer part continues. It still has the window-washing lift on it.

Then you start to make your way up these old air duct things up ten floors of more mazes and random things until you get to the top and slide down this ten-story spiral slide.

The roof has an amazing view and a bunch of crazy slides and many more things to climb on. Most of which make you feel like you are hanging off the edge of the building.

Looking off the roof you can see the outdoors part where you can climb on/over a couple airplanes and crawl through a wire tunnel a few stories above ground.

Ferris Wheel on the roof. Went a little faster than I remember Ferris Wheels going.

I think the Ferris Wheel had a better view than the arch!

Here's matt climbing on this thing. It's way taller than it looks, I swear.

We flew home that evening, exhausted. St Louis was the city that I was most surprised by. So much history and a ton of fun stuff to do. If you ever go there, check out City Museum!