New Orleans

Well we spent 8 9 10 doing what we do best: eating.  Like you would expect anything less from us.  We had breakfast this morning at Brennan's and definitely had a first for us: dessert with breakfast!  Yes, although we all had delectable breakfast meals

(eggs benedict, eggs hussard, cheddar cheese and ham omelet, and fried shrimp were our choices)

we had to try the bananas foster, as Brennan's is the first place to ever serve the sweet dessert.

Michael got to participate in the "show"

Here Mario, one of our servers, cooks up all 4 (yes, 4) of our bananas foster.

Our afternoon plans of swamp touring were squashed, thanks to a severe thunderstorm hovering over New Orleans.  We found some other swamp things:

Yeah.  Um.  Almost?

And then we had dinner at Cafe du Monde.  Coffee and beignets for dinner sounds just about right for us....

Not a very busy day, but we had fun bumming around the french quarter.  Plus, we have to rest up for a college tour tomorrow.  And then ice cream!  Haha!

Victoria

PS
Possibly my favorite sign from today...

...autographs, maps and weapons??? Sounds like a trifecta to me!

Catching up! 8/7 and 8/8

    Dallas was great! We got in late on the 6th and spent some time with friends who lived next to my parents in Rocky Hill, N.J. it was great to see you Norma and Eno. They live north of Dallas in Mckinney,Texas a lovely old Texas town.


   Michael fell in love in Dallas. Norma and Eno are the proud 'parents' of Kit, a 3 year old Keeshound. He played and played with Kit. I know this will not help us keep his wanting a dog on the back burner, but he did have fun.


    We took a tour to downtown Dallas and the site where JFK was shot. It was high on my list of things to do. I was really taken back to my 9 year old self sitting in math class taking a test when 'the news' came in. The book depository tour is interesting and self guided with headphones and a mini transmitter. It was unsettling seeing the exact spot where the shots rang out.  Michael was not as interested but once he sees it on the History channel it will become 'real' for him.

Fun for us to head back to the car and cool off from the 107 degree weather!

Norma and Eno then took us to dinner in McKinney for some genuine TexMex dinner, FABULOUS. The food tour continues! Funny thing when Norma mentioned Victoria was from California and Abby, Michael and I from New Jersey the waiter gave me a high five and said 'Tastykakes'! He had been a  trucker and spent time in Bordentown, N.J, Crazy....

     Leaving Dallas early this morning heading down to Houston, sunny and hot. Lunch is another Mexican meal, Fajitas, nachos and a new treat Puffy Tacos! NOT low cal. Abby and I shared and yummy. we loved them.

Now the reason for going through Houston was just around the corner from Lupe's Tacos...


The National Funeral Museum. It had a big exhibition on the Pope and Presidential funerals. Many different hearses, all kinds of coffins, and different rituals surrounding death and dying. It was really interesting.  A bit creepy, but interesting just the  same.

We are now settled in at the Dauphine Orleans Hotel in New Orleans, La.  it is lovely. and we are exhausted after a very, very long day in the car.
                         Night, Elizabeth

Where did we go?

So, we were off line last night, so you missed our potential blog about the Grand Canyon, Four Corners and Santa Fe.  In short, the Grand Canyon was a big hole in the ground...

Four Corners "monument" was closed...

And we didn't get into Santa Fe until 11 pm and I found us the sketchiest hotel on the trip thus far (no pics of that!)

Today we wandered into Texas by way of Amarillo, Wichita Falls, Fort Worth and Dallas, ending in McKinney, a lovely suburb north of Dallas.  We had a looooooonnnngggggg day in the car and have battled locusts

(take that picture and sprinkle in some live ones and add them INTO the store where we stopped--gross!) and the mother of rain/thunder/lightning storms (at least for this Cali girl, who has not seen lightning in 5 years!)

Anyway, we're going to enjoy our time in Texas and hopefully be able to blog more soon!  For now, here's a picture of Abby and Michael's favorite part of Texas, Kit!

 Victoria

P.S.
Our pictures from yesterday and our pictures from today!

Waking up in Vegas and moving it into Arizona

We had the best intentions of making it into New Mexico today, but fell a bit behind schedule (already!)  It turns out that the fountains at the Bellagio do not start until 3 pm on weekdays, so we decided to hang around Vegas until we saw the show.  We stuffed all of our things into the trunk (again; we're getting quite good at it!) and then had the lunch buffet at the Bellagio.  It was pretty good, even with no crab legs! Some of our gluttony at the end of the post, because I'm having trouble with the internet connection in AZ.  Anyway, we walked through Paris and then Caesar's Palace.  Hopefully we'll be able to upload the video later (if only for Ryan Butler...)  So we finally got on the road about 3 hours behind schedule and cruised over the Hoover Dam, making reference to the classic Matthew Perry movie, Fools Rush In, before we stopped for the night just short of the Grand Canyon.  I'm going to end there because we're hoping to see sunrise at the Grand Canyon in the morning!  Wish us luck!

Victoria

Vegas Day 2

After all the walking and extreme heat here in Vegas the four of us slept in, I mean really slept in. We all got up and moving so we could hit our next road trip food stop!
I really think this is a Travel Channel food tour. Hash a Go Go, Bacon Waffles. We are so excited....ha ha. BACON WAFFLES are NOT on the lunch menu as an option, they are on with fried chicken. Michael had the biggest egg scramble with all kinds of goodies in it served in an iron skillet! Victoria and Abby shared the bacon waffles and chicken. I thought I would have a 'safe' BLT. that was six inches tall.
 Back at the hotel it was time for the pool (s). Hot tube, wave pool, swimming, and lazy river. We LOVED the lazy river. Even with out a tube loads of fun floating along with the current. We stayed in for hours. It was a bit cooler today only about 100 so it was possible to even lay out in the sun for a bit.
Time to get ready for our next show, tonight we saw the Cirque show Elvis....we were so excited. Well, we were a bit disappointed. It was not the show we saw last night....and once again the lights were an issue. That was very frustrating....
 Dinner at the Hard Rock Cafe on the Strip was low key for us, I think we are all pretty tired, we have crammed in a lot over the last few days. Victoria is out for some much needed time with her friend Courtney from California who just happens to be here in Las Vegas.
Elizabeth

See all of the pictures here

Los Angeles to Las Vegas

First of all I would like to say that I only sent 3 more boxes home after packing and 2 of them were the $11.70 priority boxes (or would have been, if I had gotten the flat rate boxes--I'm so annoyed that I picked the wrong ones!)

Okay, so this morning we ate at the Griddle Cafe in LA on Sunset.  It was pretty delicious.  Abby and Michael had the 'Tis the Season (pumpkin pancakes with butterscotch chips) and Mom and I had the baked potato omelet.  MMMMM.


Then the family went to Venice Beach and hit the road to Las Vegas.  Thanks to the GPS, we went pretty far out of the way before we got back on track (the Magellan wanted us to go all the way down to San Diego to go up to Vegas... and I listened for quite a while, until I smartened up)  Anyway, we got into Vegas around 6:30 and settled in a bit before hitting Love at the Mirage.  Everyone loved Love!  I was glad, since we had to shorten our California experience to get to Vegas in time for tonight's show--it's the last one before their vacation.

My only issue with Love was its lack of disclaimers for the strobe lights it uses.  Not to get too much on my high horse, but as a family with a member who has epilepsy, it's nice to get a heads up that there will be significant light effects.  You know what's no fun?  A seizure in the middle of vacation fun.  Thank god we made it through tonight, but if any one else has an issue with epilepsy or strobe lights or any combination, be warned that Love can be pretty flashy.

Okay, off the high horse.

We walked down the strip after the show and Mom finally got to see the Chihulys at the Bellagio, which was great! I think she enjoyed seeing the sculptures, since she missed the show at the Grounds for Sculpture!

Alright, it's now 1:30 am and Michael just got out of the bath (his second of the night!) so I think I'm going to get ready for bed and go to sleep!

Check out all of our pictures here. 

**For some reason, the pictures won't upload on to the blog tonight--sorry!

Night all!

Victoria

First Day on the Road!

Just a quick post before we all crash for the night......in our high end hotel on the Sunset Strip!

Of course, the original plan was to leave Oakland by 6:00 am, but we all secretly knew that wasn't going to happen. The-little-Subaru-that-could couldn't actually hold all of our stuff, so a few bags were cut from the 4000 mile trip to NJ and mailed home. It took two extra hours to get all of the necessities in the trunk, but by 8:00 am, we were rolling! Our completely packed trunk is shown here:

The next six hours down to LA went slowwwwwwwwly. Very slowly.

4 people + a very small station wagon + all of their junk = little leg room and a very tense car.

Thanks to a quick stop for some animal-style In 'N Out cheeseburgers and fries (Michael was not a fan, making him immediately disowned from the family), a portable DVD player (to keep Michael entertained so we don't kill him!), A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers on CDs (surprisingly all about the Bay area), and our goal to see license plates from all 50 states (we've seen 32, so far), we were able to make it all the way to LA in one piece.

We walked up and down Hollywood Blvd, seeing the Hollywood sign, the Kodak theatre, the walk of fame, and Michael's favorite celebrity of all time: Robert Waldo! Never heard of him? Michael would be glad to fill you in on the entire life story of this guy, who was the tallest man to ever live.

Dinner was at El Chollo, aka the first place in America to have nachos! Thanks, Courtney, for taking us!

The Santa Monica Pier was a little too foggy and cold (and crowded) for our liking, so we headed back to the hotel early to relax and ready ourselves for the four hour drive to Las Vegas tomorrow!

See all of the pictures from our day in LA here.

- Abby