Day 3 - New Orleans (Part 2)

After our swamp tour we went to Dat Dog in the Garden District to try an alligator sausage (and duck and crawfish sausages too!):

Then we did a self-guided walking tour of the historic Lafayette Cemetery No. 1:

"New Orleans Home for Incurables." This is a communal grade for individuals with disabilities that were abandoned by their families.

This is the judge that ruled in the historic Plessy v. Ferguson ("separate but equal") case in 1896. His ruling was overturned in 1954 in Brown v. Board of Education. We were just a few miles from William Frantz Elementary School (still in operation), where Ruby Bridges was integrated into an all-white school in 1960. There's a good children's book about it by Robert Coles, and a famous Norman Rockwell painting.

 From there we went to the French Quarter for a couple hours:

Jean Lafitte Blacksmith Shop (now a bar)... one of the oldest buildings in New Orleans. The bathrooms are said to be haunted. It is the oldest bar in the U.S., and it's on Bourbon Street:

We popped into a voodoo shop, because we watched Princess and the Frog the other day and wanted to see the Shadow Man.

You can see Jackson Square in the background, with St Louis Cathedral in the middle, flanked by the Cabildo on the left and the Presbytere on the right. (See below.)

This is the backside of St Louis Cathedral. You can see the  "Touchdown Jesus" statue through the iron bars.

The Cabildo was built in the late 1800s. It was headquarters of the Louisiana Supreme Court, and it's where the Plessy v. Ferguson case was heard. It's also the site where the Louisiana Purchase was signed. It's now a museum.

The Presbytere was built in 1791 and is now a museum too. We got there too late in the day to check out the permanent Hurricane Katrina and Mardi Gras exhibits.

We got fresh beignets at Cafe Du Monde... (Think Princess and the Frog.)

...And ate them overlooking the Mississippi River.

Day 3 - New Orleans (Part 1)

Our big splurge this trip was a 90-minute swamp tour in Jean Lafitte Park:

(Jean Lafitte was a famous pirate)

Day 2 - Mississippi and 4th of July Fireworks

While on our way to Liberty, we stopped to see the ruins of an antebellum mansion that burned down after the Civil War. The fire started because of a party guest's cigar (#smokingisbad):

From there we went to a Blalock family potluck, and checked out Great-Grandpa's store and the family cemetery in Liberty:

Heidi with Uncle Melvin. We got to talk with all of mom's living uncles--Melvin, Carl, Aubrey, Merrill, and Bert--and several aunts and cousins (Carla, Carolyn, Gay, Noralyn, Jocelyn, Shari, and the Mudgetts).

Uncle Mark and his family were there too. (Brandon and Lori aren't pictured; Katie is on her mission.) The kids especially enjoyed playing with Ashlee.

That night we watched a 4th of July fireworks show on the Mississippi River in Downtown Baton Rouge. We had a great view:

Day 1 - Dallas and Monroe

The first stop on our trip was Dallas. We met up with Grandma and Grandpa Ellsworth at the temple, and then we went to Chuck E. Cheese for lunch:

We did a lot of driving that day. We stayed the night in Monroe, Louisiana, where we went to dinner with Heidi Baker's brother Lyle and his wife Marcia: