Mother - Daughter Weekend

March 16th - 19th

For the past 2 years, mom and I have taken a Spring Mother/Daughter trip. In 2010, we went to New York City, 2011 it was Orlando/Epcot Center and this year it was New Orleans.

New York City 2010

Orlando 2011

We had so much fun. This year we met in Richmond to fly down to New Orleans together. The trip down was fairly uneventful. We got in kind of late so we immediately went to our hotel and when to bed to prepare us for the next few days.

Our first stop on Saturday morning (St. Patrick's Day) was breakfast. Everyone has to have breakfast at Cafe du Monde's at least once while you are in New Orleans so we decided to go there. The line for a table was long (like normal) so we headed over to the take out line to get our breakfast and find a place to sit else where. The take out line was really long but some how when we got to the end we were luck enough to run into a guy taking orders from the back of the line. We quickly ordered, too a seat on a little wall and waited for him to come back. It was great, except I ordered wrong. It was already starting to get hot and I wanted to get us frozen cafe au lait's but I just ordered cafe au lait's and they were very hot when they got to us. That was ok, they were still really good.

We were right by Jackson Square so we sat and watched some street performers for a while before walking around the square and checking out all of the art.

We decided a tour of the French Quarters would be a great way to get a lot of the history of the city so we headed over to 1850 House Museum where we found a tour given by Friends of the Cabildo. We were given a tour of what an 1850's home would look like in the French Quarter and then a very nice gentleman (we called him "The Dentist") gave us a tour of the French Quarter with a stop at his 400 sq ft living space and everything! He was great. We learned so much from him. (He was a dentist before Katrina when everything he had was washed away.)

 After the tour, we were starving so we headed to find food. We decided on a place that we had gone to breakfast the last time we visited there. It was in Diners, Drive Ins and Dives, called The Old Coffeepot Restaurant. We shared the sampler so we could try a little of everything. It was very good. But I think there breakfast was better.
We decided to go exploring after we ate and Pat O'Briens was right down the road. We had so much fun, mom had her first Hurricane. We found a table to hang out and talk and people watch for a little while (one table and only one chair we had to share). It was St Patrick's Day so they gave us green hats and drank a "Fuzzy Leprechaun".

After our trip to Pat O'Briens, we decided to head back to the hotel. But not without walking down Bourbon Street. It was such a memorable day.

Sunday morning we headed out for breakfast at Cafe Fleur De Lis. I really enjoyed this restaurant. They have really good biscuits. Then we headed to go shopping. We didn't have too much luck but we did find a few treasurers. We walked around the French Market. I loved the little shops, live music and fun food and drinks. After a few hours of shopping we stopped for lunch at The Gazebo Cafe. The food wasn't great but the ice cream daiquiris was great!

After a quick stop at the hotel to drop off our shopping purchases, we headed to Mardi Gras World. I loved this place! It is so amazing to see how they make all the Mardi Gras floats and so much more. We learned so much about the meaning of Mardi Gras.

After Mardi Gras World, we headed to dinner at Magnolia Grill before heading back to the hotel to call it a night.
Monday morning we grabbed breakfast in the hotel before catching the St. Charles Trolley to go to the Garden District. It was a fun trip on the trolley and such a neat area. We took a great Garden District Walking tour. But before the tour started we spend some time hanging out in a local coffee shop, Still Perkin', reading and catching up on emails. I really enjoyed our tour guide and the tour. Our tour guide was very opinionated and definitely spoke her mind which didn't go over well with everyone. She gave us a lot of history and showed us a lot of famous people's houses. But my favorite part was the cemetery. They are so crazy different.

Sandra Bullock's Home

Bob Dylan's Old Home

John Goodman's Home

Nicholas Cage's Old Home

After our tour we walked down to Juan's Flying Burrito for lunch before heading to the airport. Loved, loved, loved this restaurant. It has such a great atmosphere, very fun. The food was great and they even have cupcakes! We got the "car bomb" cupcake for the road and it was so worth it.

We had an amazing trip to New Orleans and I had so much fun spending the weekend with my mom. I can't wait for next year.