Last Day in the Big Easy

After our first couple of days in New Orleans and then a couple more days in Jackson, it was finally time to head home. Our flight wasn’t until Monday afternoon, so Michaela and I had time to soak in a little more of the Big Easy.

We started the day with beignets from Cafe du Monde. If you’re keeping track at home, we were in New Orleans for four days and went to the cafe three times. Michaela enjoyed peering through the back windows, where you can watch the workers make the beignets.

Then we wandered through the French Market before stopping by Lafayette Cemetery No. 1.

It’s small but interesting. I was fascinated by how old some of the tombs were, and how they continue to receive new generations of the various families.

The cemetery is across from Commander’s Palace, the famous restaurant (that opened in 1880!), but it’s very hard to get reservations and they didn’t have a table available for us for hours. Instead, we ran back to our hotel, checked our bags at the bell desk, and grabbed a last bite to eat at a local diner. Our waiter, Peanut, was charmed by Michaela and gave us free fries and her two complimentary scoops of ice cream. Needless to say, she was charmed by him, too, after that. Then it was off to the airport for our return trip home.

While passing time playing Uno, Michaela saw a little boy and said he went to her school. I told her she was crazy, but she insisted. I told her to go ask him and sure enough, he does! Turns out that they (the boy, his two siblings, and parents) live a couple of blocks away and had been in Louisiana visiting family. They’d been on our flight out, too, but we didn’t know it. The boy’s mom said that when she went to take her son out of school early, the school secretary said that another family was also going to New Orleans. What a small world to have us then meet in the airport on the way back!

Mike picked us up at the airport and it was officially back to the real world. I can’t say enough good things about this trip. We travel a lot, but this was the first time Michaela and I had taken a trip just the two of us (outside of us flying somewhere where Mike already was, and then the three of us vacationing together) and it was really special. Michaela is a good traveling companion and I really enjoyed having this time together with her. I can’t wait to do it again!