Heading Home

We are now in Dallas Texas waiting to get our flight home, yesterday we drove 550 miles and at least eighty of it was through the swamps and Bayou country. It was a long exhausting day and we were happy to see Dallas and a nice hotel room with HOT SHOWERS. 

See you all back in Australia after we fly direct from Dallas to Brisbane........Premium Economy.

Still New Orleans

Some of the photo's that were left out of the Pardi Gras parade for you to see.

We also went to this great place called "Howl at the Moon" and listened to the Pianos which has many piano players that have two playing one after the other for their set then two more come in and relieve them so that there is always someone playing...it was great.

New Orleans

We are now in New Orleans and as I am writing this I am in the downstairs area that is available for Internet connection and unfortunately it is so loud as this weekend and right at this moment New Orleans Saints are playing in the playoffs against San Francisco 49ers and the staff and their family's are here watching the game in the same room. Every time they feel its a bad play they all yell......there must have been allot of bad plays so far as they don't sound very happy.

We have been on a couple of tours while we are here the first one being the graveyard tour.....was really hoping to see a Jazz funeral but none were happening. The graves are built up not dug down and the process of family tombs was really interesting.

This is the grave of the Voodoo Queen and these are offerings left by visitors.

In the afternoon we went on a horse and buggy tour of the Garden district to see all the old mansions.

Yes these are private homes and they all seem to have "Carriage House's" attached that the teenagers often move into or sometimes they are rented out....be rather cool to live in one of them.  Many Hollywood stars own houses here as its a quieter life here for them and as long as they stay away from Bourbon Street they are not hassled by the locals

It was absolutely freezing and I must admit I thought it would be a bit warmer here as we are right o the Gulf of Mexico.  The only bad thing here is there is no HOT water in this hotel and its just luke warm so with the really cold weather I cant wait for a long hot shower when we get to Dallas tomorrow night.

We are staying in the French Quarter of New Orleans and we are only one block from Bourbon Street and we have really been having fun and last night we were lucky enough to be here for Pardi Gras which is a smaller version than Mardi Gras. It was great to see the floats go by and they through strings of beads to the crowds to try and catch.....I caught about 20 or so and they will be great to add to my dress up box for the Grand Kids.

We have done lots of shopping and have plenty to show for the trip. Tomorrow we head out to Dallas and we are flying out in 2 days.............so sad it has come to an end........

When we fly out we have requested an upgrade to Business class so please everyone cross your fingers and toes so that we get granted the seats.........

Today we drove over Lake Pontchartrain via the Causeway and it is the longest bridge about 28 miles long from memory....sort of weird to just drive out into the wide blue yonder...............

Off to Jacksonville

We left Louisville very early....8am....one cold and frosty morning after scraping the ice off the windscreen and headed down to Cave City just near Bowling Green Ky. There was a light snow laying on the ground and it was very pretty but cold in the wind.

We went to see 2 caves in an area that has the largest cave system in the world.....of course we didn't have time to see much of it but what we saw was beautiful.

And no that's not a spider its an 8 legged cave cricket.

That night we stayed in a Wigwam and near froze to death. I placed all the blankets from the 2nd bed in the room onto our bed and I wore my thermals..... top and bottom..... and my Grannie Flannie's and my warm sox.

The next day we headed down through Tennessee and we kept seeing these signs for Ruby Falls over a hundred mile stretch. We also saw a sign for a Armory so we stopped in there so Grant could feel the testosterone flow through his veins.

It is a lot warmer in Jacksonville and we have bee down to St Augustine for some shopping and I think it is a great place with shops that sell things you can't get anywhere else. Grant has bought a Panama Hat the same style that Sean Connery wore in one of his movies.

Visiting Louisville

We drove to Louisville (Luuuvllll) and as Grant had been feeling unwell I drove for a while. We arrived at Frankie's (Toms other half sister's house) and all of the family were there and we celebrated our second Christmas. It was a great day and I had never seen so many presents. 

 We all had a lot of laughs and we opened presents from 2pm through to about 8pm that night.  The next day we went for a drive around Louisville and headed over to a consignment store (sells 2nd hand clothing) and it was a high end store. Grant bought me a genuine grey fox fur coat for my anniversary and it is beautiful and warm. Now I can truely say "I am a Foxy Lady" haha,,,,    We went to an old factory that is converted to artists studios and are rented out so the artists can work on their craft and also make sales to the public.  There was an interesting one where the person makes guitars.

 Grant, being Grant was always getting seperated from the rest of us as it was a maze of corridors and alleys.

 We keep finding great little places to have lunch and doing some great shopping

Calloway County.....down on the farm

We drove to New Concord which is right by Murray and enjoyed the drive past all the forrests that have bare trees for the winter, it just looks so different to the summer time. It as been rainig off and on, and cold since we have been here but unfortunately not cold enough to snow so I really dont think at this stage we will get a white christmas.
Pat and Janice produce just about all the food that they eat for themselves and when they kill a hog, as they did the week or so before we arrived, they butcher it and do their own curing and smoking of their meats. We have been having the crispiest and best sugar cured bacon.
Janice had the ham picked out for Christmas dinner and needed to take it to one of the butchers in town to get sliced...well the ham was 34 lbs which is just under 15.5 kg and really big.....the guy at the butcher said leave it her and we will get it done.....Janice wanted to take it and bring it back when they would be doing it and the guy said no leave it or we wont be able to do it before Christmas. Janice said she wasn't happy about leaving a home cured country ham but the guy insisted and said they would look after it.
The next day we get a call that it is ready to be picked up and so we get changed and drive to town it took about 3/4 hour and when we got there they said that 1/2 hour previously that a lady with the same surname had picked it up............Janice was totally devestated to say the least. After much discussion we left the shop with the understanding that this was not over yet.

The next afternoon they called and said they had tracked down the lady and got the ham back and we could pick it up.......which we did .....immediately.....
We all will really enjoy that ham on christmas day.

Last night we went to a Place called Patties for dinner and the house speciality is a 2" thick Pork Loin Chop . We had an excellent dinner and a great time. The whole place was decorated for christmas and the lights were amazing. On the way there we drove to The Land Between the Lakes and saw some Buffalo and Elk.And Yes Melissa....Grant wore a jumper.While I have the laptop hooked up to Janice's ADSL, Grand is out working with Pat in the tobacco shed and they are loading the bundles of tobacco onto the trailerI know its dark but my phone dowsn't have a flash. This is the shed he is working in.

Nashville Stopover

We arrived in Tennessee on Sunday evening at 5.30 pm and it was already so dark and it felt like midnight. We hired a car at the airport. For the un-initiated thats a Lamborgini..........not really we got a white Ford ......boring but comfortable.
We found a place to stay for 2 nights and went to Shoneys for dinner....don't think we will go to one of them again.
Next day breakfast at the Waffel House and had a great breakfast and then went shopping...bought some warm clothes to wear while we are here.
Walked our feet off at nthe Mall and didn't get around to all the stores. Went back to our room and Grant fell asleep while I wrapped all the christmas presents and sorted them into the groups for our 2 christmas's we are having.

Dinner that night at Ruby Tuesdays.And yes Melissa grant was showing what a tough bronzed Aussie he is by not wearing a jumper........whereas I was wearing 3 layers............... Grant was keen to head out to Kentucky the next day so we didn't do the tourist thing in Nashville this time......and we are still feeling jet lagged.