Our first night in New Orleans was quiet as we arrived fairly late and grabbed some food from the onsite restaurant/bar at the resort we stayed at. One of the nice features of this resort was a shuttle that dropped you off right in the French Quarter, which was great as we had no interest in riding the bike there and trying to navigate or find safe parking! Our first day had a bit of a damper put on it by cool, rainy weather. This gave us a good excuse to visit the National WWII museum located there which we’d heard good things about. Unfortunately everyone else in town had the same idea so the place was packed. But we enjoyed it nonetheless, and felt we could have spent more time but wanted to get back to the park on the shuttle to let the dog out.
Our second day in the French Quarter was more the typical New Orleans experience, starting off with a visit the famous Cafe Du Monde for coffee with chicory and beignets. The coffee wasn’t anything to write home about but the beignets were great. If visiting New Orleans don’t be put off by the long line, it moves quick as they are very efficient. Or visit later in the evening since they are open 24 hours! Following our snack we followed a walking tour of the French Quarter which ended near the French Market, a great place to grab a lunch and a drink. By then it was time to head back to the shuttle.
We hadn’t really felt we had the true New Orleans experience though until we visited after dark, so after taking the dog for a walk we hopped back on the shuttle and visited the French Quarter one more time, being sure to include a walk along the neon light covered Bourbon Street. We aren’t big partiers so the novelty wore off pretty quick and after a bit of gift shopping we were ready to head back again.
From New Orleans we were headed to Houston where we had tickets to see Death Cab for Cutie play 2 days later. We decided to break up the trip with a one night stay somewhere in between. We didn’t decide where to stay until that morning after doing some calling around to see what was available. We ended up at a nice little county owned park about 15 minutes off the interstate right on the Lousiana / Texas border. It was right on a peaceful river across from a wildlife preserve.
The next morning we headed into Houston fairly early, doing some grocery shopping en route. We didn’t want to be late for the concert. We ended up taking an Uber to the metrorail station and rode the LRT type train into downtown where the theatre was, leaving time to grab a pizza beforehand. The show was great as always, Death Cab always are top notch performers and the crowd was enthusiastic.
The next day we had the full day to explore Houston, but it was threatening rain so we started with the Science Museum. This was a great museum and we spent several hours there. We opted to buy the City Pass which included museum admission plus admission to the Aquarium, Zoo and Houston Space Centre (more on that later). After we left the museum we headed back downtown to the Aquarium, which was good but not great, only really enough to spend one hour.
The next morning we left our RV park early and drove back to the museum district to make sure we could secure a on street parking spot for the RV and trailer, which we managed without much difficulty. We spent a couple hours at the Zoo before returning to the RV to get Misty and take her for a walk around the very nice Hermann Park which surrounds the Zoo and museum. We had a picnic lunch here before heading onto our next destination of Gaveleston.
Unfortunatley we had an issue with the motorcycle trailer shortly after leaving downtown Houston and ended up stopping at a gas station to unload the bike, so Gareth could ride it the rest of the way. It was only about an hour but all interstate, not the most enjoyable riding. We got to Gavelston fairly early but were exausted from the ordeal and the first half of our day so we just hung out at the state park, where it was cloudy and not particuarly nice weather wise.
