Hey kid, you're supposed to fasten your seatbelt! We're on our way to New Orleans. This was our longest and probably most difficult flight. Ezra only slept for about 45 minutes and he was upset for what seemed like an eternity (but was probably only like 15 minutes).
We spent our first day in New Orleans in the French Quarter. Once we got past Bourbon Street it was pretty interesting. We ate lunch at Napoleon House and met up with some old friends of mine from graduate school. Also, I should note, the weather was fantastic, the perfect temperature and not to humid.
We waited in line for beignets forever at the famous Cafe Dumont and ate them in the park right next to the river. The doughnuts were fantastic. If only Shanna would have let me eat more.
On the second day we went to the Audubon zoo which was fantastic. The exhibits were all done really well, especially the Louisiana swamp exhibit. No trip to the zoo is complete without a trip to the petting zoo. Ezra knows the routine.
The weather was perfect at the zoo and many of the animals were pretty active. We happened to be in the right place for giraffe feeding time. After the keeper got set up and let the giraffes go to the food some of them galloped toward us. Very cool! As an aside, Ezra can now say "Giraffe".
It's exhibits like this that made the Audobon zoo so cool (especially the Louisiana exhibit). I should also note that the food there was excellent. My only complaint about the zoo is that the signage for the individual animal exhibits was somewhat lacking, more information would have been nice. By the way, I think Ezra's favorite this time was the house mouse (which was done up like a pantry cabinet). I had to pry him away.
Ezra's first carousel ride started out well.
On the way to breakfast on Magazine street we stopped at Lafayette cemetery no. 1. As you can see, Ezra wasn't as creeped out as I was. A stop on the self guided walking tour of the garden district we were planning on doing later. Most of the graves are done in a Latin style above ground. We were told that this is not due to flooding, contrary to popular belief.
Ezra behaved about as well as could be expected on our self guided walking tour of the garden district. As usual, Shanna took the brunt of the abuse.