Continued from Atlanta.

Breakfast time in the atrium.

Finally found the water button. I had to ask a staff who pointed out this tiny kinda hidden button in the middle.

They were not stingy with their bacon at this hotel. Just grab as many as you’d like. Glad the kids will just eat hotel breakfast and enjoy it now. Makes life so much easier.

Let’s go.

Got the car from the valet, and there’s a Starbucks attached to the hotel where we in so that made it super easy. Relaxing start to the day, which will hopefully pay dividends later as it’ll be a long driving day…again.

Good, now when they misbehave, I can threaten to take away their stuffies.

I think they are doing highway expansion here. In Austin, you just mow more grass, here they actually need to cut down trees.

Drove by one of the foreign automaker plants in the deep South that I’ve read about in the news from over the years. Interesting to see one in person finally, for me at least. I know no one else cares, but I DO!

Oh…what’s this slowdown for.

Ouch.

Everyone seems to be ok as they are all standing and talking. Look at the truck covered in spilled concrete! It must have just happened as police wasn’t on site yet and the traffic was only a few short minutes long. Dodged another traffic bullet for us.

Gonna make a stop here. Clean bathrooms and some lunch.

I found these dining trays for the kids. Wish we found these earlier in the trip.

Baba does the driving, mama does the reading of modern versions of Little Gold Books to the kids while they eat lunch. It was a good family time.

Another car plant.

The forecast is for more heavy rain along the way.

Swampy over here, lots of bridges over bayous.

Here come the rain.

Heavy heavy rain.

Hello old school Defender, in its natural state, being hauled around by another vehicle.

Ominous looking clouds.

Despite all those very terribly placed wrong way signs, all those cars are going the right way. And thankfully I’ve got them to follow, because I’m not sure I would know where to drive if I was the first car at the light.

Driving into Marigny area of the French Quarter.

Our hotel is that peach colored building.

Temporary parked the car on the street while I walked in to check in and get a parking fob for the gate to the parking area behind the hotel.

As I was checking in, it kept on threatening to rain, and rain hard. Sure enough, as I pulled the car into the parking lot, the sky opened up and fat rain drops just pounded us. Good thing we were able to run the short distance from the parking garage into the courtyard and into our room.

This is what $474 a night gets you in Nola in Frenchmen Street area. It’s quite pricy, and if not for wanting two connecting rooms, I think we could have gotten it for much cheaper. Kid issues.

Only one bathroom though.

We got into our room and it immediately smelled like Nola. Smells old and slightly moldy. The kids complained that they didn’t like the smell. We told them that it was an old building and that its also the high humidity…both true.

Why would they mount that TV so high? We have no less than 3 boarded up fireplaces in our rooms. Why would anyone even need to have giant fireplaces like this to begin with in Nola? It doesn’t get that cold here.

The hotel lobby. We looked at the events calendar, and they are supposed to have live jazz bands for both nights that we are here. So awesome that we can all enjoy some live jazz without leaving the comforts of our hotel.

The hotel bar. Very promising when the bar has you pick your liquor base, flavor profile and then they make something up for you. I’m here ordering drinks for us.

While I was ordering drinks, RL let the kids play in the rain. I wouldn’t have allowed them, but I’m glad RL let’s them. Sometimes I’m just too uptight for the kids to get messy and have fun.

Meanwhile, drinks getting made.

Legit cocktail bar here.

Got the drinks.

Cheers! It was an amazing cocktail.

And the kids having an amazing time getting wet and yelling in the courtyard.

Perhaps this will be a memory highlight for them.

Look at how happy they look!

Forecast for the new few days. We are expecting a rainy time here in Nola. That’s alright, we’ll deal.

Really now?

The heavy rain finally passed.

Alright, another drink while the kids get showered and cleaned up then we’ll go out for dinner close by.

Painting in our room. Kinda creepy having all those faces.

Dinner spot one block away.

We are the first customers here today. It seems like this is a slow travel period in Nola for tourists. It’s hot and wet, I get it. Also, there’s homeless people everywhere. Every time I come to Nola, it feels more dilapidated and more closed store fronts. Yet, somehow, I keep on coming back. It’s like an abusive relationship.

Losing his shit.

Is it me or does that crab claw look only halfway cooked? I ate it anyway. Yum, gotta have some cajun food when in Nola.

Came back from dinner and the opening band was just about to start playing in the lobby.

Pretty awesome that we get to take the kids to listen to live jazz. Most of the jazz clubs are 21 and up only, but the lobby is open to everyone. Not to mention, when the kids are done listening (probably 3 songs in), we merely walked 15 seconds from the lobby, across the courtyard, and then into our room. Perfect setup.

Showing Princess and the Frog again to the kids since we are in Nola. Hopefully they’ll get more references about the city after rewatching the movie again.

The center piece of the courtyard, a beautiful fountain. Beautiful, yes, a little loud…yes to that too.

We originally thought that the bathroom tiles had larger and smaller black squares. But it’s just the heavier walked grout turning black making the black tiles look larger. They should have just picked a black grout from day one.

The headliner band comes on after 9pm tonight. But RL and I were both so tired from the long day of travel that we didn’t have the energy in us to walk across the courtyard to listen to music. Oh well, missed opportunity but just too tired.

To be continued in Nola Day 2.