Where We Have Been - USA - New Orleans to Dallas

From New Orleans we hit the road in a rental to cross Louisiana and Texas (YES its big) heading for Dallas, eventually, and our flight to New Zealand.

So first up we followed the western side of the Mississippi in the hope of being able to visit one of the Plantation Homes. Unfortunately, given it was New Year’s day, this wasn’t to be. We stopped off in Baton Rouge where we enjoyed eating our lunch sitting on steps on the banks of the Mississippi near where the USS Kidd, now a Museum, is moored.

From Baton Rouge we headed for Lafayette.

After a brief stop at Walmart, it’s an American icon and a must do, not really but we were surprised by the range of products available, in a small town for a charger cable we found ourselves crossing the impressive Louisiana Airborne Memorial Bridge, also known as the Atchafalaya Basin Bridge, which at just over 29 kms long, elevated and split is very impressive and on into Lafayette.

It was in Lafayette that we had our first stay in Drury Inn and Suites, a well-priced and comfortable hotel chain that provides basic food for dinner and a drink in the room price.

Being in Louisiana we felt we needed to try some cajun and/or creole food and Bon Temps Grill was recommended to us so into an Uber and off we went. We spent a very pleasant evening, with Carolyn enjoying Gumbo and David Fried Gator, while being entertained by a young Lafayette singer song writer named Abi Claire. The restaurant was fairly quiet and Abi introduced herself to us later in the evening and was amazed when we told her we had just seen Stevie Nicks in San Francisco and in absolute awe when we mentioned we’d seen Bowie live, twice!

The next morning saw us up bright and early and backtracking a little to experience an Airboat ride in the Atchafalaya Basin the largest river swamp in the US. Very cold, very loud and no Alligators as it was the wrong time of the year but quite an experience particularly travelling at speed between the piers of the Louisiana Airborne Memorial Bridge.

Back in the car, where we thawed ourselves out, we headed to Houston for our second Drury Inn and Suites stay. We were so tired that we simply indulged in the complimentary dinner and drink and had an early night.

Unfortunately, we were starting to run into time constraints and were finding we needed to prioritise what we were going to do so the next morning we skipped a trip to the Houston Space Centre and struck out for San Antonio and our next stop at another Drury Inn and Suites which was right on the Riverwalk.

We only had San Antonio on the agenda as we needed a stop on the way back to Austin so we decided to take the opportunity to visit The Alamo, a special place from David’s childhood because of it’s association with Davy Crockett, but San Antonio was an unexpected delight. The Riverwalk is a lovely area to kickback and enjoy a casual stroll, drink and meal. Staying right on it was a real bonus.

From San Antonio it was back on the road to revisit our friends in Austin for a birthday dinner for one of them.

From Austin we headed North and caught up with horse friends on their ranch (Marystown’s Shetland & Miniature Horses) near Waco. It was great to reconnect with them and to see their beautiful horses (we did own a 50% share of one of their stallions that was imported into New Zealand).

We were intrigued to hear that previously they had a goat disappear overnight and that it was almost certainly taken by a large cat, possibly a Cougar. It was also entertaining to watch a couple of squirrels tease their small dogs. One would come down a tree and partly cross the paddock to distract the dogs while another one made a run for another tree. This went on for quite some time and we were surprised at how well the squirrels manipulated the situation to achieve their objective. They were much quicker and more athletic than we expected launching themselves off the ground and landing on the trunk some feet above ground level.

Our friends took us to a Mexican Cantina for lunch and for a great Texas Steak, surely a must do in Texas, at the Texas Roadhouse.

They also took us to visit the Texas Rangers Museum in Waco, yes the museum includes a tribute to the Lone Ranger and Tonto, and to the Mammoth dig at the Waco Mammoth National Monument which was very interesting.

From there it was back to Dallas where we caught a Dallas Stars Ice Hockey game (great atmosphere and experience) and revisited the bar we found when we first arrived in Dallas weeks earlier.

We finished our first trip to the US with a lazy day in Fort Worth where we wandered the Forth Worth Stockyard area, were amazed by the range of taxidermy animals available for purchase, were entertained at the Fort Worth Cowtown Coliseum by the Ultimate Bullfighters (think Rodeo Clowns not Spanish Bullfighting) and watched the cowboys herd the Texas Longhorns through the streets (was interesting to see them tilt their heads so that their long horns passed over the top of the parked cars).

Then it was off to Dallas-Forth Worth Airport to catch our flight back to New Zealand.

Memory: At the Ice Hockey game, when the action pauses, the commentators talk about the players saying something like That’s pure Jake “The Hammer” Lawson, the kind of play that gets the crowd on their feet! At only 20 years old, Lawson’s already got 15 goals in his first 25 games. It surprised us the first couple of times when they talked about an opposition player to hear the crowd very loudly chant “WHO CARES”. We had never experienced supporters so vocally dishing the other team.

Closing Thought: Texas you are certainly big.