NOLA - Day Three

We decided to take it easy on our third day. After walking so much the past two days and being a few months pregnant I needed a break. At first I had planned for us to do a swamp tour and possibly something else with the tour company but I felt that wasn't the best thing do with Louis and Leah. They just needed to be able to go somewhere and run around, have fun. We didn't have a set schedule for our trip which made it easier for us to be flexible about what we were going to do with our days. I made a loose itinerary for each day with lots of options to choose from.

Our hotel was a block away from the Louisiana Children's Museum. The museum turned out to be the perfect choice. They had so much for the kids to do. We could've easily spent another day in the museum. We got to the museum early on in the day so it wasn't busy.

Neat electrostatic plasma light globe


Big scale for weight measurements


The skeleton body (Mr. Bones) also pedals the bike when you do.



Rock climbing


Microscope and lots of slides to look at


Local artist and school made this.


Fun bubble section





The museum has great child size replicas of a lot of famous areas in New Orleans. All hands on. This was one of the Julia Street Warehouse by the street car, about a block away from the hotel. You could load and unload the carrier ships.


Another area of the museum dealt with architecture with many opportunities for kids to learn how to build their own structures. This station was about the use of triangles in fortifying bridges.


Winn-Dixie is one of the larger grocery store chains in the South. They had a great replica called 'Little Winn-Dixie' for the kids to pretend-shop in.






A few other things they had was a replica of Mister Roger's Neighborhood that was well made and just like the show. They have Cajun cottages for the kids to play house in. They also had a toddler section called 'First Adventures' where Louis spent most of his time while Leah explored the rest of the museum.

After the museum trip we walked down to the Riverwalk and shopped for souvenirs and stopped for some lunch. Leah found a mask for our next parade viewing. Leah had a smoothie which she shared with Louis. Then she tried to have some and as you can see Louis was not cooperating. I ended up sending Leah out to the outside promenade to drink her smoothie in peace.





After lunch we walked around some more and then headed back uptown to go to view some more parades. This time we took the bus instead of the streetcar. On the weekends many of the parades contain more than one krewe. This parade had two krewes so twice the time, twice the beads.









Due to the nature of Mardi Gras parades and the fact they happen on the major streets in New Orleans the buses reroute during the parades and it takes a while for them to get back on schedule. Overall though it worked out pretty well. We walked about mile down and waiting for the bus. Matt grabbed some sandwiches from Subway while we waited. The buses are a great way to travel in New Orleans. The fare is 1.25 for the bus or streetcar. The drivers are used to tourists and we found them to be generally patient and helpful. Another thing you will notice when being down South is how much nicer everyone is when on public transit in comparison to New York City.

We made it back to the hotel in about 20 minutes, had our dinner and headed to bed. Overall it turned out to be a good day.