We had big fun on the Bayou!

As most of you know, Melissa is spending a few weeks with us before leaving for Brazil. We’re having fun with her down here. Anyway, she wanted to see New Orleans before she left, so we went down there this weekend.

We left home on Friday afternoon and drove to Covington and checked into our hotel. It’s a fairly long drive, so we didn’t get there until about 7:30 or so. Not a problem. After dumping our stuff in our room, we took a drive over the 30 mile bridge across Lake Pontchartrain and into New Orleans, and Bourbon Street.

As you can imagine, Bourbon Street on a Friday night is something to see. I think Melissa had a good time.

We had a great dinner, enjoying the local Cajun cuisine, then we wandered Bourbon Street for a bit, then back to the hotel.

The next day we headed back to New Orleans. Once there we stopped off at the Metairie Cemetery. It was pretty cool. Melissa liked all the mausoleums.

After that, we headed to the Bayou. We’d signed up for an airboat tour of the swamp. It was a lot of fun. The swamp has it’s own eerie beauty that’s difficult to describe. Maybe the pics will help.

Here is a picture of the type of boat we were on. That was another group that went out when we did.

It was a bit loud at times, depending on how fast we were going. The ride was fun and the breeze kept us cool. The drivers sure knew their stuff. I would have been totally lost in the maze of waterways in the swamp, but they all seemed to know exactly where they were going.

We toured the swamp, saw the flora and fauna. Of course, there were my favorites, the gators. Here are some pics.

Yeah, I love the alligators. After we’d been out a while, we came across this huge gator. 13 feet long. Although, you’ll see from the pics, he was quite friendly.

For some reason, our guide liked to feed them all marshmallows. They seemed to really like them!

On our way back we saw this pretty cool cemetery. I guess even folks on the bayou need them too.

We had a great day. On our way back, we made a little detour to see the Baton Rouge temple. It’s one of the smaller temples. Reminded me a lot of the Bismarck temple in North Dakota.

We had a great time. It’s a long drive between New Orleans and Shreveport. We didn’t get home until after midnight. It was well worth it. Hope ya’ll enjoyed your summer. I hear it snowed yesterday in Utah. It’s still warm down here. Ya’ll come out and visit sometime!