We decided to catch some rays for spring break this year, so we headed down to Orange Beach, AL for the first part of our trip. (It's right next to Gulf Shores if that rings a bell.) Orange Beach has really nice beaches. They're wide and flat with white sand that ends in dunes. We rented a condo, so it was nice to have a place with a kitchen and all the comforts of home. We spent a lot of time on the beach, and went back to the condo for the occasional snack or daiquiri. Outside of the beach, it's really touristy, with a lot of tee shirt shops and mini golf and the like. You can get an idea of the place by the big, purple octopus picture.
The weather was really nice - in the high 70's and sunny - so we were able to lie on the beach all day. I only got in the water a few times; however, since it was pretty cold.
After three days on the beach, we headed over to New Orleans. We stayed in the Quarter again, and went to a lot of our favorite places, but we always try new things when we go down there too. This time we went for a carriage ride which took us on a cemetery tour. We saw Marie Laveu's tomb, but the best part of the tour was just slowly clip-clopping through the Quarter, imagining what the city felt like a few hundred years earlier, and sipping on a bloody Mary from Lafitte's Blacksmith Shop.
We tried a few restaurants when we were down there, notably Antoine's and Galatoire's. Both are really old places. Antoine's was founded in 1840 and they're famous for oysters Rockefeller, and a few other recipes. Again, it had that old New Orleans charm of a time that has long past. I could imagine getting off of a steamboat, and stopping into a place like that for dinner.
A lot of the last set of photos is from the St. Patrick's Day parade. We encountered it by accident last year, and it was so much fun we decided to catch it again this year. New Orleans has so many facets to it. This wasn't the genteel Southern facet, but rather the rowdy Bourbon Street facet.
That's what I like so much about that city. One minute you can be having a quiet drink at Hermes, and a block away, you can step into a mini Mardi Gras with beads flying and music blaring.
It was fun...here are some pictures of the trip.
