Nov 29 – Today’s adventure was a visit to Vermilionville Historic Village to learn about early Cajun culture. Vermilionville was the named of this area before it became Lafayette. The word Cajun is a corruption of the word Acadian, the French people who were forced to flee here from Nova Scotia in the mid 1700s to get away from the British. All the signage here is in French first, then English.
Nov 28 – No trip to Louisiana can be considered complete without a visit to Avery Island, the ancestral home of the McIllhenny family, creators of Tabasco sauce.
Nov 26 – Now here’s a place I bet you haven’t been! In the town of Patterson on the road to New Iberia sits the Wedell-Williams Aviation and Cypress Sawmill Museum.
Nov 24 – Now that Jim’s conference is over, we’re going to see a little more of Louisiana. We jumped on a bus this morning to ride back to the airport, and pick up our rental car. We never rent cars when we travel internationally, so this was unusual. From this point onward, I’ll try share some things that you may not have in your neck of the woods.
Nov 22 – Although we’ve been in New Orleans for almost a week, we have yet to see the Mississippi River. It’s only a block from the heart of town on Canal Street, so we sauntered over to have a look.
Nov 21 – This is our day to head south to explore the Garden District, where the New Orleans rich moved in the 1800s to get away from the crowded French Quarter. It is here that Ann Rice lived and placed many of her Vampire stories, and here that Peyton and Eli Manning grew up.
Some of these historical mansions have plaques indicating their age and the style in which they were built. Many contain more than one style, and are considered ‘transitional’.
Nov 20 – Today we ventured beyond where our feet could take us, further north to City Park. Our mission was to master the transit system and visit The New Orleans Museum of Art.
Our hotel concierge showed us how to download the Le Pass app, which magically integrated with Google Maps. Type in your destination, and you pay right in the app. A single ride is $1.25, but we paid for a 24 hour Jazzy Pass so we could hop on and off as needed. The fare is the same whether you choose a bus or a streetcar, so who wouldn’t choose a streetcar?
Nov 19 – Another sunny day with a high of 80 degrees. Fine shirtsleeve weather, breezy and not hot enough to make you sweat. We walked through the French Quarter again today, taking note of the buildings that hug the streets.
Nov 17, 2025 – We usually use this blog to record international adventures, but a trip to New Orleans feels like an opportunity to experience a different culture, so I think it qualifies. Want to come along?
Jim booked us a direct flight, which takes about two and a half hours. Easy breezy! We left home in the afternoon and expected to be in NOLA for a late supper.
Without the excruciating details, let’s just say our plane did not pass muster, and the airline had to dispatch another from Louisiana. Our friendly representative cautioned, “I’d rather be on the ground wishing I was in the sky, than in the sky wishing I was on the ground.” Wise words.
Eight hours later, we were airborne at 1am. Our plan to hop on a city bus to get to our hotel had to be amended, as buses don’t run at 3am. One taxi ride later (the cabbie wisely quoted the exact same price as Uber) we were able to rest our weary heads. We are here!
July 17 – One more trip to the train station for our last journey south to the city of Mainz, also right on the Rhine River. We’ve had our own Rhine River cruise, without a boat!
Taking Our Time 