New Orleans to Houston - Day 2

I woke up the next morning to Brian working with the phones. He had spoken to the guy at the magazine and had finally gotten things straightened out. The only problem was that we were going to have to redo all of our tests in New Orleans before leaving for Houston. 

We got ready and left the phones in the hotel room to send what data they had collected the previous day while we went and ate breakfast. We stopped at M's Coffee and Cafe which was this cute little place a few blocks from our hotel. Brian had a yummy looking breakfast burrito with hot chocolate and I enjoyed an egg and bacon biscuit with some orange juice. The food was delicious and surprisingly cheap and we were in good spirits when we left.

After packing up all of our stuff plus the phones and checking out of the hotel, we started off by going to Algiers point. This time we made our way to the bridge and crossed over without any problems.

We ended up stopping next to a cemetery for our first testing location. Bodies are buried above ground in New Orleans and it was very fascinating to walk through and see all of the various tombs and vaults. The graves ranged from horizontal rectangular boxes to small building-like vaults. Some of the graves were very ornate while others were very plain.

We headed back over the bridge to the main city to finish the rest of the tests. While crossing back over we got see some good views of the city.

The French Quarter was our next stop and it looked totally different in the daylight...not as creepy.

There were horse and buggies carting tourists around the area. Actually, they were mostly mules pulling the buggies. I wish we would have had time because I would have loved to have taken a ride.

We got to see more of the architecture of the city. I really loved the balconies lined with planters and baskets.

We stopped near this statue of Joan of Arc to do our testing. I went on a little walk around the place while Brian sat with the car. When I came back, the car was surrounded by a walking tour group. I joined the group and the back and listened to the tour guide talk for awhile. Once they moved on I was able to get back in the car.

We saw more brightly painted buildings. This one below is a hair salon, but a lot of houses were painted just as brightly.

The testing day went much smoother this time. The phones were fully charged and working. We had no problems with them at all. We did run into a few hitches as we were driving though. There was a few areas of road construction and one road we were following was blocked by a ditch witch. It was a little frustrating, but thank heavens for a GPS that re-configured routes for us as we dodged these areas.

On one of our stops back near the zoo, we got to watch an older gentleman putting on old-school roller skates. It was entertaining to watch him put them on and hitch up his britches before he started rolling away.

We saw a statue of General P.G.T Beauregard, who was a general in the Confederate States Army and also fought in the Mexican-American War.

More palm trees!

We nicknamed our GPS "Paulie." We had a love hate relationship with her.

We finished up all the tests around 4:00 pm, which was later than we would have liked. After revisiting all of the same sites a second time we decided that New Orleans was now Old Orleans. We still had a six to seven hour drive ahead of us.  We left New Orleans by way of the causeway across Lake Pontchartrain. The lake is 20 miles across and the road sits fairly close down to the water. It just kept going and going and about halfway through you lose sight of land on either end. It was really cool.

On the other side of the lake, we stopped for gas and got some fruit and deli sandwiches at a nearby grocery store. At the store I found a big old pile of shrimp on ice. Brian started licking his lips, but I didn't see what was so appetizing about them! hahaha

The drive across New Orleans was fairly uneventful. We had planned some detours to the Baton Rouge Temple and into Baton Rouge itself, but because we had to retest all of the phones we ended up skipping those stops. The view along the way consisted of the freeway we were on lined with tall, green trees. It reminded me of driving in Oregon, except that there were no traditional looking evergreen trees. There was a mix of large deciduous trees, and evergreens with tall, skinny, bare trunks and rounded tops.

Along the way, I looked at the GPS and it said Iowa (city) was ahead. I teased Brian and told him that we had been driving the wrong way all this time and we were about to cross into Iowa State. He was really confused and worried for a minute until I told him I was kidding. I thought it was funny, even though he didn't think so. I took a picture of the Mississippi River as we drove over it.

There was one point in our drive where the trees opened up and we crossed through a swamp. The water was so high with a few trees growing out of it here and there.

We got to see a beautiful sunset in Louisiana.

We made it to Houston around 10:30 pm where we checked into the Crown Plaza Hotel. I could tell when we were in Texas, even though it was dark, because it was immediately flatter. There were still trees and buildings, but the trees weren't as tall and there was more sky visible. We were both exhausted from the long day of driving, but it had been much better than the previous day. I helped Brian set up the phones for the night, where they all worked perfectly at sending their data over the internet connection. Yay! Even though the day hadn't been that exciting, it was still a good day with the phones working and seeing Louisiana as we drove across her. I was glad to be moving on, but kind of sad at the same time. I really enjoyed our time in Louisiana and wanted to see more.