Travel

Boston

D175D673-45D3-42F6-B837-53E6309F0EA3 This is a little how we felt when we arrived in Boston! Well Reuben did in any event, at the end of a day of non stop walking in high heat and humidity. Don’t you love it how kids just feel as if they can recline anywhere?

We only had one day to explore Boston, so we set out on a walking tour (with some Uber rides between some sights), to see what we could achieve. This is Reuben again below powering up for the day with some snacks and a stick for possible bear encounters!? Who knows?? (It’s dangerous out there in the urban jungle).

70FC9AC0-FC3E-4A37-83E3-8D19F305BC48 Our first stop (and quite close to our accommodation) was  Harvard University. We made a quick stop here to look at the buildings and to check out the medical school, of interest due to Murray being a doctor.

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Harvard Medical School

After this we caught an Uber ride to the Boston Tea Party Ships and Museum. This was the highlight for me, as the museum was excellent, with so many interactive exhibits and skilled actors in period dress who guided you through it all. Visitors were invited to take on a character and participate too. The 1773 protest here over unfair taxes (the Boston Tea Party) set in motion the events leading to the Revolutionary War.

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Re-enacting throwing the tea into the harbour

After lunch in the museum we headed off to the Boston Common (America’s oldest public park) to begin our time of walking the Freedom Trail. Adjoining the Boston Common is the beautiful Public Garden where we took some time out to take a ride on the historic pedal powered Swan Boats.

The Freedom Trail, covering four kilometres, is very rich in history and architecture, but I think to truly appreciate it you need a lot more time than we were able to dedicate to it. We used the Lonely Planet Guide for interpretation, but to fully immerse yourself in the experience you would need to have the time to go inside each building. Pictured below are some of the highlights from along the way.

After we’d thoroughly exhausted ourselves, stomping about in the heat (and shopping for an extra suitcase to cart all our souvenirs home), we just had enough energy to venture into the leafy streets of Beacon Hill for a delightful dinner at a small Italian Bar (which was really crowded, but cheerfully seated us, kids and all and suitcase in tow at the bar).

Next stop New York, New York!

Travel

Marvellous Maine

We arrived in Maine and checked into our prebooked accommodation at the beautifully named Starlight Lodge at Rockport, only to discover that there were only three beds in the room, not the five we needed. No problem, as the manager was very accommodating, removing two of his camp beds from his mobile home and putting them in our room for us. After that, it was straight off in search of the lobster rolls for which Maine is so famous. We found a great little place down on the Rockport harbour where we could sample some local seafood delicacies.  We met an elderly couple from Philadelphia (at the restaurant pictured above), who looked at our family with an almost palpable wistfulness  – we brought back memories of their holidays abroad with their now grown children. We encountered a lot of Americans vacationing in their own country as we travelled about. Without exception they were exceedingly friendly, helpful and curious about us, wanting to engage in conversation.

We were becoming a little travel weary, being close to the end of our trip and so decided upon what an online travel article by Virginia Campbell from New England Today called the prettiest walk in New England. It also stated : Its not a long walk – about two miles or so – but it has great variety. The walk binds together two of New England’s most beautiful villages, Rockport and Camden. As one kind of loveliness slowly changes into another, the walk progresses the way a story does, from beginning to middle to end.  It was indeed a lovely walk, past very beautiful houses, gardens and bucolic farmland. The sun was shining and it was one of those days when you feel so blessed to be alive.

We found a cute little cafe overlooking the harbour with great coffee, a resident cello player and an on-site bakery  to begin our journey. We liked it so much, that we returned the next morning for Portia’s birthday breakfast. Reuben coped with the boring parts of the trip (shopping and cafes), as usual by propping himself in the doorway to read. Once we arrived in Camden we had a lovely time poking around the attractive little shops, enjoying the harbour, sampling more Maine cuisine, and going on a harbour cruise, which unfortunately was largely obscured by the sea mists for which Maine is known.

Once we had finished our harbour cruise, it was getting late and little legs were tired, so we caught an Uber (so easy and convenient when travelling) back to Rockport. And so ended our delightful day exploring a tiny picturesque corner of Maine. Next stop Boston!

 

Travel

Charming Chester

967F8740-5A6D-4B5B-BF5A-8C32E55AA205The 1824 built Airbnb house pictured above (with Murray and the girls in the foreground setting out for a day exploring), is where we stayed in Chester, Vermont. Such a classic American beauty! I’ve always wanted to stay in a grand house like this (and yes, we had it all to ourselves). One of the highlights of the house was playing hide and seek with the kids.  The house had a basement (very foreign to us in Australia), and two separate attics accessed through trapdoors and hidden staircases. Something I’ve only ever read about in Famous Five novels!

Airbnb is often a good option for our larger family, being more affordable than the two motel or hotel rooms we usually need. This was definitely the case when we were travelling in Europe, but not so much in the States as their rules allowed for us all to bunk down in the one cheap motel room (usually including breakfast). The rooms usually had two double beds and a pull out sofa bed for us all to share. We just got away with this due to the ages of our children at the time, but as they grow older, it won’t be quite as feasible. Another great thing about Airbnb is that apart from the space to spread out, and the chance to cook for yourself, it enables you to experience living like a local.

By the time we got to Chester we were a little road weary after covering some big distances in a relatively short period of time. We made the decision to park up the car and spend the day relaxing by watching a movie at the house and by exploring the cute little town of Chester on foot. There was some amazing architecture (as pictured above) to gawk at. Walking downtown from our house was a lot of fun, however our outing coincided with torrential rain. In spite of that, we were undeterred and walked about for half a day becoming completely drenched. Water was sloshing out of our shoes with every step! I’m sure the locals thought we were kind of mad and the shopkeepers probably didn’t appreciate the little puddles we left on their floors. It took several days to dry out all our shoes afterwards and I did have a niggling thought that maybe I was an irresponsible parent when my seven year old was splashed by a passing truck and fell over in a huge puddle as we were running along the pavement! Nevertheless we continued!

We found a great little “made from scratch” restaurant downtown and had a lovely lunch. The owner was kind enough to gift us with some jars of produce made by local farmers that we were able to bring home as souvenirs. There was a huge antique mall (with very reasonable prices) to browse through, as well as a pie shop where we bought a huge apple pie to eat after dinner at our Airbnb house. I’d been dying to try one of the pies the Americans are famous for and it didn’t disappoint!

There’s an interesting graveyard to poke around right in the centre of town, with some graves from the civil war and a public tomb built in 1850. This was for use when the ground was frozen solid in winter, and you had to wait for the big thaw to be buried!

5805DF4C-2281-4B8C-B7D3-81310C30827F It was nice to take a break from driving long distances, even if just for the day. All too soon we were back on the road again, heading this time for Maine. Before we left Vermont we made a quick pit stop at a nearby village for a maple creemee – a delicious soft serve ice cream made with locally farmed maple syrup. It was totally delectable and is something the kids still speak reverently about or try to recreate by mixing up maple syrup with their ice cream!

Do you have any fond food travel memories? Do you prefer Airbnb or hotels/motels when you travel?

Travel

Niagara Falls

B3E5B747-B158-42ED-B515-98F78E0A4B79 This amazing natural phenomenon was not high on our list of must sees, but since it is so famous and we were going right past we included it on our itinerary. The falls are incredible and very beautiful, but equally as amazing is the fact that huge high-rise buildings are built almost literally around the edges of the falls. Most of our waterfalls in Australia are tucked away in remote and reasonably inaccessible national parks, so to visit here with all its urban infrastructure was quite eye-opening. We chose to stay on the Canadian side as the views of the falls are better and it was fun to visit another country, even if for only one day!

95AEFFBA-1AA9-40F7-B736-2B4EA4653A46 This is the breathtaking view from our hotel, which we booked solely for the views. The reviews of all the affordable hotels with fall views were disappointing, mainly due to being constantly crowded with huge queues for the elevators and the included breakfast. This was certainly our experience, but it was a small price to pay for the luxury of being able to see the falls from your bed! They are spectacularly lit up with fireworks every night at 10pm throughout the summer.

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An enjoyable way to experience the falls is to take a boat cruise to the rapids just below the falls on the Maid of the Mist. This departs from the American side, so you have to have your passport handy to cross the Rainbow Bridge from Ontario into the state of New York. The boat cruise is particularly enjoyable for children, as you get so close to the falls you would be soaking wet if it wasn’t for the provided poncho.

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The twin cities of Niagara Falls are not particularly attractive and have that rundown, shabby feel that seems to afflict most border towns. It is also a commercial, touristy area lacking in soul and authenticity. Having said that, we were certainly happy to have visited and engaged in our own spot of commercialism by spending a couple of hours shopping at one of the outlet malls. These malls are one of the joys of travelling in the US – you can purchase designer items at a fraction of the original price. Another joy was visiting IHOP (International House of Pancakes) and allowing our resident pancake lover the delight of eating a huge stack of pancakes for dinner!

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Travel

Mackinac Island

 It’s unanimous! The whole family agreed that visiting this island in Lake Huron, Michigan (which is so big, it’s like an inland sea), was the highlight of our trip. I was inspired to visit here by reading a post on Mackinac Island by Kelle Hampton.  Kelle visits on a family holiday each year and takes the most amazing photos. Well, what was so good about it? I think it was the combination of natural and manmade beauty, coupled with a great sense of freedom to ride with the wind in your hair without being troubled by a single car. Cars are outlawed on the island (and have been since 1898), so all transport (even of goods) is by bicycle or horse and cart.

There is an eight mile circuit road around the island which is incredibly fun to cycle. The weather was quite overcast and rainy on the days we visited, but even this did nothing to dampen our enjoyment. The girls and I completed two circuits, we loved it so much! There are also very intriguing roads going off through the heavily wooded interior of the island. The boys went off exploring here on a mission to find the skull cave in the afternoon. There is nothing quite like the freedom of riding a bike with the wind in your hair (something we’ve largely lost in Australia due to our draconian bicycle helmet laws). Heck, you don’t even need to wear a helmet to ride a motorcycle in the US!

The manmade beauty comes from the well laid out streets with some incredibly cutesy houses. Some of them are hotels and probably the most imposing of them all is the aptly named Grand Hotel, where we booked lunch as a package with our ferry tickets from Mackinaw City. Lunching at the Grand Hotel with its lavish interiors and sumptuous setting was well worth the price tag. We felt like we were in a Gatsbyish inspired movie. Even the kids were in awe of their surroundings and the food was fabulous! In case you were wondering, Conde Nast Traveler “Gold Lists” the hotel as one of the “Best Places to Stay in the Whole World”.

But wait there’s more! Being lovers of history, and war history in particular, the boys were excited to discover that there was not one, but two forts to visit after lunch, where you could even see cannon and rifle firings. Mackinac island was very strategically located for the North American fur trade and the British and Americans battled over it many times. The girls and I spurned the chance to visit the forts (much to the boys disgust), and went shopping instead in the very enticing little boutiques. Fudge is a big thing here, and I must say it was delicious!

I really wanted to stay in one of the old hotels on the island, but this proved too expensive or not practical for our family size. Instead we booked the very reasonably priced and centrally located Bicycle Inn and were glad we did. We had two nights on the island and were sad to leave this idyllic place to get back on the road again, however Niagara Falls was calling!

 

Travel

More Laura Ingalls Wilder Goodness . . .

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I’m sure Laura wasn’t really ruining my tolerant husband’s life, nevertheless it was a good joke when we found this book in our travels. Our next major destination after Rapid City was Mackinac Island in Michigan. It’s a long way between these two points, but low and behold, when I used a ruler to find the midway point between the two it landed on Pepin (which just happens to be the birthplace of Laura Ingalls Wilder). I was so excited! I planned an overnight stay in Stockholm, a little village close to Pepin in Wisconsin. I prebooked all the accommodation for this trip as it can be hard to accommodate six people travelling together in peak season. 

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The beautiful Spring Street Inn where we stayed for the night was the only place on our whole prebooked trip that didn’t require credit card confirmation. I emailed the owner (with the very intriguing address of sippi river drifter), who replied that I was in the book for 19 July and just to turn up. When we did turn up around 9pm, the inn keeper was sitting outside having a jam session on the ukulele, playing our favourite tunes! It created a very welcoming and attractive atmosphere.

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Harbor View Cafe

Our Lonely Planet guide alerted us to the fact that there was a great slow food cafe (hard to find in the US), on the shores of Lake Pepin. Sometimes we dwardle a little (well, a lot really), in our travels from A to B, but once I told my husband about the restaurant he was very focused on getting us to Pepin on time for dinner! It was a big day, given we had 627 miles or 1,010 kilometres to cover. I’m happy to report we made it and dinner was sensational! Once again they were interested to see Aussies off the beaten track and the restaurant owner and chef were very interested to read the write up in the Lonely Planet about their establishment.

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Lake Pepin

We had very little time in this area (Stockholm had some beautiful little shops which sadly were closed by the time we arrived and not yet open by the time we left), but I’ve put it on my list to revisit should we ever return to this neck of the woods. The Mississippi River (which we followed and crossed over a lot of the way here) was misty and mysterious with tangled vines and overhanging vegetation covering much of its banks. It stirred some early memories of watching Huckleberry Finn at the drive-in as a child and made me really want to return to explore more, as well as to read Huckleberry Finn for the first time. The village had free bikes to borrow, which were fun for an early morning ride to poke around a bit.

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Free book library near our accommodation

Before we hit the road again we stopped at the Little House Wayside where you can visit a replica of the house described in Little House in the Big Woods. The house is located on the plot where Laura Ingalls Wilder was born in 1867 and is now surrounded by farmland, but was a dense hardwood forest when Laura was born. There is enough natural vegetation left to imagine just what it would have been like back in 1867. It was amazing to stand on the very spot described in the books and also to see Lake Pepin which is referred to often. I felt very blessed to be here and to visualise the places that had lived in my imagination as a child.

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Travel

Close Encounters in the Wild West

 

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Devils Tower in Wyoming

In preparation for our trip my husband, Murray, watched Close Encounters of the Third Kind with the kids. This is one of his favourite movies, so he and the kids were excited to see Devils Tower which is featured in the film. I’m not a lover of science fiction, so I couldn’t bring myself to watch the movie, but nevertheless I enjoyed visiting this iconic landmark and doing the walk around the base.

After visiting here we headed off for lunch in Deadwood, South Dakota which Murray (quoting Ben Kenobi), described as a “wretched hive of scum and villainy”.

Deadwood (such an awesome name), was settled illegally in 1876 by gold miners and is a real Wild West town. Gold of a different kind powers the town today (there are at least 80 casinos here, including one owned by Kevin Costner). Whether you like gambling or not, it has paid for the restoration of the gold rush era buildings on Deadwood’s well preserved streets. It’s a fun place to wander around and every day during summer actors reenact shootouts on Main Street (pictured above), which are very atmospheric and entertaining to watch.

Adding to the overall lawlessness of the place is the fact that both Calamity Jane and Wild Bill Hickok are buried here in the Mt Moriah Cemetery. Just a few weeks after arriving in Deadwood, Wild Bill was gunned down while holding a poker hand of aces and eights, forever after known as the Dead Man’s Hand. The cemetery is built on a very steep hillside and is a fascinating place to visit.

The next day before leaving South Dakota for our journey east, we made a visit to a Minuteman Missile (this was a weapon in the American nuclear arsenal). For thirty years one thousand missiles were kept on constant alert during the Cold War. They were “hidden” in plain sight on the Great Plains.

And this last picture below is just a piece of travelling trivia! This pram contains two dogs who visited all the tourist sights with their owners and even came to breakfast in our motel kitted out in the pram! Have you seen any curious sights such as this in your travels!?


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Travel

Mount Rushmore

C37BFCC9-6139-48C1-B6A6-D614311EDC5CIt was a dream come true to visit Mount Rushmore and it did not disappoint. I was amazed by the scale of it and the likeness to the four presidents (George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln). The Americans have a real reverence for their past presidents that is both touching and quite foreign to us as Australians.  I was also inspired by the vision and nerve to take on a project like this and succeed.

5221A5AA-4CDE-43B5-97F4-BB850F416670 We also visited the Crazy Horse Memorial, which is still a work in progress and when finished will depict the Sioux leader on his horse pointing to the horizon saying “My lands are where my dead lay buried”.  The memorial is a moving tribute to the Native Americans’ dreams and plans for their land and their country prior to colonisation. Dreams which now will be difficult to realise.

We spent the rest of the day touring around the Black Hills. There’s heaps to see here and we really only just scraped the surface. Lots of Americans holiday in this area, so there are lots of activities for families. We had time to go zip lining which was too terrifying for some, but lots of fun for others!

8C23D5ED-9EF6-4AF1-AABC-CF3907E6AC3DAs we were driving through the Black Hills a very loud flash flood warning sounded on all of our devices simultaneously and was repeated at five minute intervals. It was so loud it sounded like it was coming from a loudspeaker! This was very alarming as we had no idea how we should react to the warning. Should we stop the car or keep driving and where would we go? Not knowing what else to do we kept driving, except when the hail became so heavy we had to pull over!

CF7A60F1-DFA0-4918-B03A-10D3EC95392EThe hail was so heavy and fell so fast that it looked like snow lying around everywhere. We were very glad we didn’t wash away in our car and managed to get back to our base in Rapid City safely!

Rapid City is a fun place to hang out, with a bit of a cafe culture (something we didn’t encounter much of in our travels) and a great place to walk around and do some shopping. It also has lifelike statues of most of the American presidents dotted throughout the city, which was fun for the kids.  Although not really alike, it was the city most similar to our home town, meaning we felt really comfortable here.

I’m taking a break for the next few weeks for school holidays, but will be back to finish off this epic road trip soon! Have a very happy Easter x

Travel

Badlands and Bad Motels

243CD3B8-4226-4C40-A23E-DB68508FAFA4After leaving Kansas City we headed northwest en route to Mount Rushmore. When my husband and I compiled our “must see” lists before deciding on our itinerary for the trip, Mount Rushmore came out on top.

We made an overnight stop on our way to Rapid City, South Dakota (our base for visiting Mt Rushmore). It was here that we encountered our only negative accomodation experience of the trip (which was all prebooked, due to there being six of us travelling in peak season). Suffice to say, I stayed awake a lot of the night trying not to touch the doona cover when I rolled over or to think about the grime encrusted, once waterlogged carpet, all the hair in the bathroom and the chicken nuggets mashed into the air conditioner!

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The Corn Palace in Mitchell

There’s a few unusual attractions out in the middle of America which puzzled me when reading up on the area before leaving for the trip. Really, what is a corn palace and what on earth could be something called Wall Drug?

Turns out the Corn Palace in Mitchell, South Dakota is really fascinating. 300,000 ears of corn are used each year to create the murals on the outside of the building pictured above. It all began in the late nineteenth century when several cities on the Great Plains constructed crop or grain palaces to promote themselves and their products. The original corn palace in Mitchell was built in 1892 and the one you see today was rebuilt in 1921. It’s currently used as a multi purpose space hosting exhibits, proms, stage shows and basketball games.

Just as we were leaving Mitchell for Rapid City, I looked down and discovered my engagement ring wasn’t on my finger! We immediately turned the car around and I started praying I would find it. I certainly didn’t want to travel halfway around the world, only to leave a very significant item of my personal history in the Corn Palace in Mitchell! God gave me a real peace I would find it. I felt led back to the bathroom where I upended the unemptied paper towel bin to find my ring at the bottom. Half a million people visit here each year and it was well over an hour since I had been in the bathroom. God is so good!

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My engagement ring safely united with the others, back on the road!

The next place of interest along our route was the Badlands National Park. We didn’t have enough time to stop here, so just took the detour off the highway on the Badlands Loop Road. It’s a really interesting, alien looking landscape which could be the set of a Western movie. We were hoping to see some of the bison that roam the park, but they proved elusive on the day we were visiting.

The very cute and humorous prairie dogs were a big hit with the kids. They can be seen in abundance and there are even places where you can stop and feed them peanuts.

EF58530B-387E-46D6-8CD5-499E58319299Our last stop for the day was Wall Drug. When I first heard the name, I was really puzzled.  What was this place – somewhere you could see drugs stashed in a wall, as some kind of peculiar and offbeat tourist attraction? It turns out that Wall is the name of the town and Drug is short for drug store (what we would call a chemist in Australia). Who would have known? Anyway, Wall Drug came well recommended by the guide books and did not disappoint. It was actually one of my husband’s favourite places on the whole trip. It’s a bizarre collection of outlandish and somewhat tacky, larger than life entertainment as well as a large shopping mall with a western theme. Somehow, it all works to create an enjoyable and fascinating experience. It’s also a good place to buy cowboy boots and other souvenirs.

The story behind Wall Drug is really interesting. It was established in 1931 by a young couple who struggled to get enough business, until they thought of offering free iced water to travellers on their way to the newly opened Mount Rushmore monument. Their business took off from there and is still in the same family today. You can still get free iced water and the coffee is only 5 cents. Billboards advertising Wall Drug have become a bit of an attraction in themselves, as they stretch for at least 1,000 kilometres along the highway leading up to Wall.  They can even be found throughout the world, announcing the miles to Wall Drug from famous locations.

Have you come across any unusual tourist attractions in your travels?

Travel

NOLA

48F4DAD2-95B3-45C6-B4DE-FA12A4FDC29FBoy this place was amazing! NOLA (New Orleans, Louisiana) really got under our skin and we could have parked up and stayed a while. We travelled here from Miami via the swamps and sink holes of Tallahassee (a place which has a pace the Lonely Planet calls “slower than syrup”). We were a little confused and thought this was the place Bobbie Gentry sang about in the famous “Ode to Billie Joe”, but that was actually the Tallahatchie Bridge which we crossed later in our trip through Mississippi.

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The sink holes of Tallahassee

We arrived into New Orleans in the late afternoon and went straight off to explore the streets of the French Quarter where we were staying. Although you have to use a parking garage and the streets are very narrow, it’s easier to navigate than you might think in a car, as all the streets are one way. The French Quarter is where it’s all happening! It’s great to be in the heart of it all and to listen to the amazing music wafting from every street corner. We stayed in a great little apartment hotel called the Quarter House (a historic building once owned by a free woman of colour). We loved staying here and it was very affordable – Summer is the off season down this way. I did however, see a mouse in my very elegant room on the second floor -probably escaped to higher ground during the flooding from Hurricane Katrina! It was all part of the raffish charm of a place where decay and opulence cosy up together.

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The charming courtyard pool at the Quarter House

We did lots of walking and gawking – the architecture is amazing and there are interesting people and shops to look at everywhere. (And if you are tired of walking you can read in doorways just like Reuben, pictured below). The food is also amazing – creole and cajun cuisine make for some exciting tasty dishes, which were fun to try. There are cocktails to go (a novel concept for us Aussies) and of course we had to try the Bourbon Milk Punch (it’s delicious), one of New Orlean’s signature drinks. It’s also great to visit Cafe du Monde which has been serving up the very tasty and decadent beignets (sugar coated fritters) since 1862 – it’s fun to visit this cafe and partake in a bit of this history. NOLA has quite a debaucherous reputation (and I’m sure it lives up to it, if you’re looking), but we didn’t encounter anything disturbing.

The next day we headed out of town, along the mighty Mississippi (whose moods dominate this place), to visit one of the plantations. There are a lot of them clustered along the River Road and it was hard to choose just one to visit (that’s all we had time for), but in the end we settled on Oak Alley. We were not disappointed – the grounds are amazing and the history of slavery was sensitively and well presented. There’s a cafe here that sells delicious made from scratch Southern food and you can wander through the exhibits on the grounds with a mint julep in hand. A number of well known movies have been filmed here.

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Oak Alley

After we got back into town we headed to the garden district to stroll around the streets on a walking tour recommended in the Lonely Planet. There are some amazing houses and some fun shops to poke around in – we even bought some hats made from Australian wool! The garden district is also home to the famous Lafayette Cemetery No 1 where people were entombed above ground due to NOLA being below sea level. It was closed when we arrived, but we were still able to peer through the gates.

Back home that evening we couldn’t resist exploring some more of the French Quarter. I loved the corn motif on the Cornstalk Hotel pictured below (maybe I’ll look into staying here if I ever visit again). The corn motif was also used on a fence in the garden district. NOLA is really something quite unique and is like a little slice of Europe ( although of course with its own very distinct characteristics) in America.

Before we could leave town and follow the Mississippi north to Memphis, we were conned by our war history loving son into one last stop at the National WWII Museum in downtown New Orleans. It was well worth a visit, as the displays are amazing.

My roadtrip recount is about to head north up through the Mississippi Delta and I’m going to take a break from regular posting until school holidays end in early February. It’s time to have some down time with the kids (school ends tomorrow – eek)! I’ll pop back in before then to share some inspiration for the festive season – my favourite time of the year!