Matthew Montross's North American Adventure: April 2013

Saturday, April 6, 2013

New Orleans

We arrived in Mandeville a suburb of New Orleans on Wednesday. We stayed at Fontaine Bleu State Park. Our drive was very eventful. To get to New Orleans, Louisanna we had to go through Florida, Alabama, and Mississippi. It was a very cold, windy, rainy day. The winds were 112 kmh they were strong enough to blow and break the Carnival Cruise ship’s ropes and it went free. We got to see this in Mobile Alabama as my dad was trying to keep us and the trailer on the road. We passed over many bridges and bayou’s (French word meaning slow moving river).

Our first stop in Mandeville was at Louie and the Red Head Lady a DDD(Diners,Drive-ins, and Dives) choice restaurant. We really liked their bread pudding with toffee sauce and fried green tomatoes. There was a map to show where people were from that had eaten at the restaurant and I made sure to add a pin on the map to show Kilworthy.

On Thursday, we made a trip across Ponchartrain Bridge a 30 mile causeway to New Orleans. The buildings were a mix of new and old architecture. We met one of my dad’s friends from highschool who is a professor at a university there. We ate lunch on Bourbon Street at Le Bayou. We had oysters, chicken and Andouille sausage gumbo, crab chowder, shrimp Po boy sandwhich, Cajun jambalya, crawfish etouffee, red beans and rice.

After lunch, we toured the street and went into a store that had lots of beads, unappropriate shirts, dolls, masks, voodoo dolls and mugs. We bought a mask, beads, and a doll for Grace. Next was our riverboat cruise along the Mississippi River. It stopped at the site of the battle of New Orleans. This battle was part of the war of 1812 between Canada and the USA. The battle was fought two weeks after the war ended but the soldiers did not know that because they did not have cell phones.

This is a statue of General Andrew Jackson in Jackson Square. He was the US hero of the Battle of New Orleans because his troops killed, wounded or captured 2000 British soldiers while the US side only lost 20 men. He would go on to become the President of the United States and his picture is on the US $20 bill.

New Orleans and Louisiana Facts

Mardigras happens every year a big party that celebrates food and fun. People exchange beads and listen to jazz music. Louisiana was named after King Louis XIV. Louisiana is the only state to not have counties it has parishes instead. Louisiana has a large settlement of Cajuns, who are decscendants of the Acadians who were driven out of Canada in the 1700s because they would not give up their French heritage and pledge loyalty to England. It is the birth place of jazz music which led to blues and later rock and roll. New Orleans is the second largest port in the US and the 3^rd largest in the world. The Fleur- de- lis is a popular symbol that is seen everywhere as it is in Quebec.

This is us in line at the famous Cafe du Monde. Here they serve Beignets (you say it "Ben-Yay`). These are a warm white sugary donut. They are really tasty.

This is my new aligator head I bought on the way to New Orleans.

For dinner we bought fresh crawdads )like a mini lobster and shrimp that had just been caught. It is crawdad season right now in Lousiana.

All for now, off to Houston!!

Panama City

Our first stop on the trip was Panama City. Panama City is the largest city between Tallahassee (Florida’s State capital) and Pensacola. It is located within Florida panhandle along the Emerald coast. It was a 7 hour drive from my Grandpa’s house and from Cape Coral it was 10 hours. Tyndall air force base is located in Panama City. While on the beach it was not uncommon to see and hear planes flying above us. A navy dive museum is located here as well with submarines and dive equipment.

We stayed at St. Andrews State park our campsite had an ocean view. Our fire pit area was surrounded by palm trees and Panama hat plants. It seemed like we were on a deserted island. We saw dolphins jumping outside our window! The park had a beach with a jetty. A jetty helps the beach sand from eroding and provides a safe swimming area.

There was an alligator swamp and many hiking, biking trails. The information center had many cool hands on experiences. I really liked a cute puffer fish that seemed to follow us as we walked around the aquarium. The center had many shells, butterflies, eggs, and stuffed animals native to the park. There was even a display showing how turtles hatch. The beach is 1.5 miles long with white powdered sand. Grace and I found many pieces of sand dollars and shells on the beach. We also saw a dozen dolphins jumping in the waves. The coolest thing we saw was a black tip reef shark that had been caught by a fisherman on the beach. We got to see its teeth they were very white and looked very sharp.

I bought this cool wave runner ball that when you throw it side arm on an angle it bounces on the water. It is very awesome! We played monkey in the middle.