After our two part honeymoon, we were happy to be home back in Austin. We wanted nothing more than to sit at home and not go anywhere for a long time…well, that only lasted about 3 weeks or so before we had the itch to go somewhere. Then came the news that we got pregnant!!! Pregnancy now dictated our traveling plans, so naturally our next vacation would be a short getaway out of town for a Babymoon.

We decided on New Orleans due to that it’s drivable from Austin within a day and it’s the first city RL and I visited as a couple. Now that we are married, pregnant and all grown up, the focus will be less partying and more…eating. So, let’s get going then.

Woke up at 8am and got ready to head out. We’ll be in Nola for 3 nights, and this is the forecast. We really do know how to pick a nice weather week to go…

Yup, this is happening right now. We expect lots of rain on the drive there.

Leaving dry weather Austin for rain in Nola…

I took this photo to burn RL for deciding to go through the Starbucks drive thru. Come on, we can at least physically go inside…But pregnant girl said no.

Our route.

Yes, we are both completely naked in the car. This bag of berries will probably be the healthiest thing that we’ll eat over the next few days. I expect all meals in Nola to be covered either in butter, sugar, fried batter, or all the above.

See that thick yellow layer of oak pollen on the hood of the car? At least that’ll be washed away once we drive into the rain. Also, see that smear on the windshield…yeah, that never got washed away from the rain even after 4 hours of windshield wiper usage. That’s one resilient dead bug stain!

Pooping on bluebonnets. Google it.

No road trip is complete without a stop to DQ.

Oreo Blizzard, the best.

Also some food to keep us going during the drive. We are only about 2 hours in at this point…ugh, are we there yet?

This piece of chicken is shaped like….a  piece of chicken.

Here comes the rain.

Oh yeah, it’s coming down hard.

Getting some gas and switching drivers. RL drove the first part out of Austin and we spent much of the time in the car bickering. She gets stressed out at driving, and I get stressed out so I backseat drive. Once we switched drivers, everything calmed down immediately for both of us.

Not a fun drive.

Eek, can’t see shit!

Finally made it to Louisiana, and the rain has calmed down a little.

RL laughed at something uncontrollably…Neither of us can remember what it was she laughed at.

Not amused with the laughing.

Not the most beautiful part of the country.

I saw a sign for Hardee’s and I had to exit because I got hungry again.

Seriously, soooo good!!! Much better than that overpriced, stupid long lines Hopdoddy’s in town.

Sigh…

Yum!!

Yum!!!

Ohhh, they had a claw machine here…except it was out of commission. Maybe it’s for the best.

Must drink some Red Bull to stay awake.

RL goes to sleep, and somehow her sleeping made me want to sleep too. I spent the next hour of so fighting really hard against nodding off. Lucky her!

All along the way to Nola, we kept on seeing signs for adult businesses.

So bored and so sleepy. RL is still asleep.

More adult business signs. How did they decide that this stretch of highway was a good place for these signs?

On the phone taking care of business. Not in Austin, can’t give me a ticket for using my phone.

RL made a comment about how she’s eating dead animal carcass.

Yup, wrote this down on a piece of napkin in the car so we’ll remember it for the blog. Saw alligator road kill! Only in Louisiana…

Think this guy is into himself?

Finally made it to Nola after more than 8 hours of driving!

Ahhh, good ol’ run down Nola.

Metal bars over the dollar store.

Our hotel is located close by. We are in the Marigny neighborhood, basically East of the French Quarter. If Bourbon Street is Dirty 6th in Austin, then Marigny is more like East 6th in Austin. Lots of live jazz music bars over here, and that’s the reason why we wanted to stay on this side of town.

Found!

The main part of the hotel looks nice, but unfortunately, we ended up staying at an expansion building that’s right behind the main building.

Making a short drive to the parking lot.

Hotel expansion building to the right of the photo.

Not too bad. This is what $165 a night gets you on weeknights right next to the French Quarter and Frenchmen street.

So tired, but lets head on out for dinner and some drinks!! RL and her pregnant belly.

Heading out to dinner. we wanted somewhere really close by since we are pretty tired from the long drive.

Frenchmen street.

Our second choice for dining tonight. We found out belatedly that our first choice does not open on Tuesdays, doh!

Seems like a cool spot.

We snatched a sweet table by the window.

Italian beer to go with my Italian food.

RL had pasta while I had a drum with “ocean sauce”, which contains shrimp, crawfish, and crab. The waitress had suggested the drum because it’s a local catch, but it took some internal convincing for myself to order it. Last time I ate drum, I was in Nice France having a really nice expensive meal that led to food poisoning…Please don’t let me get sick this time…

Tiramisu, well, more like a tiramisu flavored cake. Dinner was just alright, but it was pretty expensive for just “alright” food. We paid close to $80 for the two of us, blah!

In search of live jazz music, which is a piece of cake here on Frenchmen St. Every other bar here has live jazz music.

Nipple!

This will be our music spot tonight.

Old Fashioned for me, OJ and Sprite for RL.

Cool, jazz clarinet.

Alright, it’s been a long day. We are exhausted, it’s time to head back to our hotel and sleep.

I guess that’s one way to have a working convertible top.

Ah, this is nice. Our hotel is literally 1 minute from Frenchmen street.

Despite being so tired, neither of us slept well tonight. There was a big brass band playing in the streets late at night. RL could hear our next door neighbors talking late into the night. At 3 am in the morning some asshole decided to play a trumpet out in the street. On top of that, my throat started hurting and I started running a light fever. Shit…I am coming down with something. Hopefully it’s nothing major…

To be continued at Nola Day 2 Part 1.