Our Hotel

I am going to post a little at a time about our trip b/c I have SO much to do today, as you can imagine, all of us being gone since Saturday. This is the hotel we stayed at. The Hotel St. Marie. We stayed in the French Quarter, about a block from Bourbon Street. It was an older hotel, but was very nice. I have so much to say about this trip. These are the main points that stuck out to me thought. #1 Absolutely BEAUTIFUL architecture. I was amazed. I never realized New Orleans was that beautiful. I felt like I was in Europe. It is a totally different world down there. I had kinda a bad impression going down there. And, the first night, b/c Bourbon St was so close, that is where we went. It was an eye opener, and there were SWARMS of people. I found out later it was b/c there had been an Essence Music Festival there, and the locals told us it is very wild that weekend. Most everyone had cleared out by Monday, and it was much calmer. Even with all those people though, I felt safe. There were policeman EVERYWHERE on Bourbon St. I felt safer there than on the quieter streets just b/c I didn't see the policeman there. But, by the end of our stay, I felt safe everywhere. It is just overwhelming at first, and I had preconceived ideas after all the news reports during Katrina. #2 The people from New Orleans are SO NICE. Anyone will just start talking to you. We had the best service there than we have ever had anywhere. That was so nice. #3 July is NOT a good time to go there, simply b/c you have to walk everywhere you go. I would really like to go again in a cooler month. #4 I will say, it was nice to breath fresh air after leaving. In the French Quarter, all their dumpsters are on the front sidewalk, as they don't have back alleys, and the smell was very strong. And, I also have a new appreciation for Arkansas's no indoor smoking law. Anytime we travel to another state, I realize just how nice it is to not breath cigarette smoke in a restaurant.

We had a great time. It was so nice to get to do this together. I could do a whole post on the difference between traveling with 3 kids, vs no kids. The whole time I kept saying, "if the kids were with us....it would be like this..." Even just the ride down there was so calm and relaxing. Usually I am a horrible car rider. I just want to climb the walls. I realized on this trip, I think the kids could be a reason for that! LOL The trip down there and back both seem to go very quickly. I was, though, so ready to get back to our kids. And they even said they were ready to get home when we got there to pick them up. That is the FIRST time we have ever stayed away long enough for them. Usually, when we go to pick them up, we are greeted with them saying, no, I don't want to go home yet! They were totally o.k. with us going without them. They couldn't wait to get to Monticello, and Leah said on the way home that they got to have their own vacation, while we were taking our own vacation!

This 2nd pic, we did not take. We got this off the hotel's website. It is an awesome picture though!
This was the view from our hotel. We were higher up than a lot of the roofs.
Here is our dorky selves in the elevator.