Days 6-8: Louisiana

On Monday morning we were off to Louisiana. Our next campground was the Sun Outdoors resort in Ponchatoula. We picked this campground because A) it had good reviews, B) it had a good pool, and C) it was an equal distance from both Baton Rouge and New Orleans. The drive from one campground to the other was only about 1hr 20min, however we needed to return our rental car in Gulfport, and then pick up another near our next campground, the whole ordeal took over 2 hours. I had considered just keeping the one van for the entire week, but returning it back to Gulfport would have added an hour to the drive home, and since that is precious time we decided to swap cars.

We got to the campground around noon, and I was very happy to see that our spot would be level. I think we would all label this campground as OK. It did have a great pool area, and some good kids amenities like mini golf, but the overall grounds weren't great. We arrived on the day after Easter and the office said they were packed over that weekend and it showed. The whole campground was pretty messy. We were early for check-in and they did let us over to our campsite before the scheduled time, so you could argue that they didn't have time to clean up the campsite or campground, but there was no way they were going to get it in good shape that afternoon. Despite the messiness it would turn out to be a good spot. One last note on the campground is that it did have a nice lake with a little beach and cabins all around it, however we all speculated there was decent potential for gators. So no lake for us!

We had originally planned on hitting up the pool on Monday and going to Baton Rouge on Tuesday. The forecast Monday afternoon called for scattered thunderstorms so we decided we would drive over to Baton Rouge then instead. The kids weren't thrilled about getting into a minivan and going on a 50 minute drive, so we baited them by offering them control of the music and Chipotle for dinner.

There were several reasons we wanted to get to Baton Rouge. First, it's a state capital and Allyson and I always try to check those out, second we wanted to check out LSU, and third Natalie has a random love for the Garth Brooks song "Callin' Baton Rouge". When we hear it we all sing together to the part of "Hello, Samantha dear I hope you're doing fine" which is something Sam does NOT like, but the rest of us do.

When we got to Baton Rouge we went to LSU first. We drove through campus a bit, found some parking and then just ran around some green spaces they had. It was another really nice campus. All around campus they had these "Live Oak" trees that were very pretty. Also, this main green space had a really neat military memorial honoring all of their alumni who had passed in each war since WW1. Sadly, there were quite a few names which was hard to explain to the girls.

After the main campus we had to check out the football stadium, which naturally had an exhibit next to it with an actual tiger, because why not? It was hard to get a good photo of the tiger, but the one below shows Julia and Sammy getting along so it is equally as magical and probably rarer than a tiger in an urban setting.

When we got back in the van Caroline said she wanted to go to school at LSU. I turned to Allyson and softly said "mission accomplished". Now neither Allyson nor I care if any of our kids go to LSU, or a similar school. Actually, I don't care if my kids choose not to go to college. The point of checking out places like these universities is to get the kids to understand that there is more to the world than Cleveland, Ohio and one way to experience it would be by going away to school.

On our way out of town we drove by the Capitol, which was cool because it did not have the traditional capital building shape. We then hit up Chipotle and made it back to the campground for the evening.

On Tuesday we headed across Lake Pontchartrain to the New Orleans. To get there from our campground on the north side of the lake you take the Lake Pontchartrain Causeway Bridge. It turns out that this is "the longest continuous bridge over water in the world", which of course was a fact Allyson and I found very interesting and the kids simply did not care about. After a couple miles the fascination fades and you are left with whatever is left of the 24 mile drive across it. Thankfully the speed limit is 60 mph most of the way.

After crossing the bridge we drove through downtown, past the Superdome, and over to the World War 2 museum. This is something that I was a little iffy on trying. I myself would love to go to a museum like this where I could spend a whole day and try to read everything. I knew it would be a challenge to get through it with the kids, but despite some very minor issues they all did very good in the museum.

The museum itself is awesome. It spans several buildings that are all connected which was cool, and all the exhibits and displays were really neat. They did a nice job covering a war that had so much content given that you had a war in Europe and essentially a whole different war in the pacific. Walking through the museum I was really taken back by two thoughts: 1) wow! we lost a lot of Americans in WW2. The total (405,399) is a number I've obviously heard before, but every time you see it you think "man, that's so many people!" What a reminder of how awful war is. And 2) I cannot believe our country fought and won two separate wars at opposite ends of the world at the same time. That is really incredible to think about.

Samantha did a good job lightening the mood in the area on the Pacific Theater. Here, they had a mockup of a Destroyer control room, and off to the side they had phone for issuing commands. Sam was awestruck at first and then confidently walked over and picked up the phone to say "Hello, this is Gabby's Dollhouse" which I found hilarious.

After the museum we shifted gears completely and went over to the French quarter and checked out Bourbon Street. Thankfully, we weren't the only parents walking their children through one of the debauchery capitals of the country. We got lucky and found parking on the street and walked less than a block to a really cool outdoor cafe called Cafe Beignet right on Bourbon Street. We sat down and listened to some live music and of course ordered some Beignets.

Now, I'm going to offer my controversial view on beignets..... they ain't that special. There, I said it. I mean there is a novelty to it all since it's this New Orleans delicacy and all, and if I was back in town I would order one again. But given the choice between a fresh beignet and a fresh donut, I'm taking the donut, hands down. They were just bland, and the texture wasn't good. We got two orders, one with chocolate and one with powdered sugar. There was so much powdered sugar on these things that I had to knock it off and then still be careful not to inhale the remnants. All that said, if you go to New Orleans, I would still recommend getting them for the experience.

I think the consensus was that the French Quarter was a neat place. It smelled like a toilet everywhere (which each girl commented on), and there were a lot of flies, but even those factors couldn't take away from the unique culture of the area. What a cool part of New Orleans.

After the beignets we headed back to the van, drove back across the bridge the kids didn't care about, and got back to the campground to hit up the pool.

After the pool we cooked out and got the younger kids ready for bed. Once they were settled Allyson and I went outside with Caroline and Natalie for a campfire and some s'mores. The Gulfport campground didn't have firepits, so this was the first place we'd get to do a campfire at which was nice.

Wednesday ended up being our last day in Louisiana. We had originally planned on leaving for home really early on Thursday morning after dropping off the rental car. However, the enterprise we got it from did not offer that as an option, so we had to return it between 8am and 6pm. That meant we either needed to wait and get on the road 8am Thursday or return it Wednesday evening. We decided that we would spend the day at the campground, and then start heading home Wednesday afternoon and possibly make the entire drive back in one shot. So we spent Wednesday morning and early afternoon at the pool and playing putt-putt before packing up to head out.

Louisiana was a lot of fun. We only got to experience parts of it but what we did see was great. New Orleans is a really neat place, and Baton Rouge was cool as well, especially with the university there. After our first night there we got to put on our last state sticker for the trip, which is number 22. It's really wild to see how many states we've stayed in so far