Colorado, Utah and Hawaii

This upcoming trip with bring the number of US states that I have visited to 17.  There is plenty more to see but not enough time and money to do so. 

I'll start with a map of our planned visit to Colorado and Utah and post up every day that I can.

 

A Map of Our Houston and Louisiana Adventures

Houston and the Space Centre

 The Omni Hotel is a cracker - large airy and beautifully landscaped with ponds inside and out, and huge colourful Koi carp along with other fish.  The service is great and the prices even better.

Here is a shot of all the carp who come up to great us as we stand on the side of the pools.

Houston skyline is not that impressive from a distance but it is so hard to tell with everything being so flat here.  We will need to explore more.  We decide to spend half a day at the Space Centre - thats what Houston is famous for, right?  By the time we drive south through the very busy freeways, it is nearly early afternoon, and I am not feeling so hot with the allergies I started with, turning into a hacking cough and miserably congested head.  

The freeways are more tangled than anywhere I have seen in the US, with freeways running parallel to each other often.  A real traffic nightmare.  Tom is a great driver, fast but competent on the freeways so we manoeuvre our way through the traffic bit by bit.

We make our way to the space centre and know we are there when we see these jets at the entrance.

The first thing to impress is the shuttle "on the back" of the huge Boeing 747.

How the hell do these things fly together?  Inside the jet, details of how the plan to transport the shuttle evolved thanks to some clever dickie engineer whose name I forgot to take down - but he was obviously brilliant and thought outside the square.  Here's a bit more information on it.  It is very impressive.  The space centre is well worth a visit, lots of explanations and you realise just how pioneering this work has been, and how brave (or crazy) the astronauts must be.    The rockets are immense and the areas that the men and women occupy so small, that is it mind blowing.

The engines that push the rockets up are immense!  

We spent about 5 hours there and could have done a lot more but my health was not good and I needed to get to a chemist.  Managed that and also managed a trip to the Apple store in Houston to buy a laptop for Hunter, who has saved for nearly a year to get this,  and an Apple watch for my birthday.    Very happy but tired and need a rest.

Houmas House and Return to Houston

Thursday morning and it is time to leave the Provincial Hotel and drive towards Houston.  This has been a great little hotel- very helpful staff, and has the flavour of the French Quarter.  We have breakfast at the little Cafe D'Or around the corner - perfect croissants etc and some interesting decor.

I take a last shot of one of the local houses just opposite - getting the sense of the quarter.

After settling up we drive up the Mississippi to Houmas House which was one of the largest plantations in its time.  300,000 acres, first an indigo plantation and then sugar.  

It is very large and gracious looking and has a lot of interesting historical features.  There were over 400 slaves working there in its time and then after the war some of them became share farmers.  This part of the history is brushed over during the tour which was conducted by in-period dressed guides.  He told me a lot of it was politically incorrect now.  I said it is important that we know the politically incorrect parts of the history so that we do know how not to behave in the future.  

Collection of ornaments

 Tapestry done by the ladies to teach them patience.

The circular staircase

This photo is looking out toward the Mississippi but now has the large levee in front so you cant see the river itself.  There used to be 18 oaks lining the driveway down to the river, and now only 4.  The gardens are beautiful - fountains, birds and so on.

We also ate at the restaurant there before driving on to our lovely hotel in Houston.

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and eating out at Pappadeaux.  This was my mixed seafood kebabs!

Good night.

More touristing in New Orleans

After breakfast we walked down to Jackson Square and go into the church there.  It is far too reverent for me and I don't stay long. Quite pretty.

Next door is the Presbytere where there is a museum showing the effects of Katrina and upstairs a tribute to Mardi Gras.  The Katrina part is worth a look and very sad to think of how poorly the relief/ food/water was managed for the thousands who were stranded here.  I had forgotten that 1700 died in that 2005 storm.
Each one of these bottles represent a person lost in the storm.

This teddy bear is caked in mud - so much devastation by the storm but in the aftermath, the lack of assistance to the people who were stranded in different parts of the city, without food and water, was abominable.

The other part of the museum is dedicated to the Mardi Gras and shows the history and a lot of costumes.














After we came out of the Presbytere there was a live jazz band playing on the street.  They were good!

People watching is becoming one of my favourite past-times here.  New Orleans is filled with so many diverse cultures and socioeconomic groups.

We went on the hop-on and hop off bus again after visiting here and did the full tour and then went on the Natchez paddle steamer for a dinner cruise.

Pretty tired after that day.

Air Boating and New Orleans in the Afternoon

We decided air-boating might be fun - you know those big boats with a large propeller at the back to zoom around the swamps.  We set off with Captain Sam - just 6 of us in an airboat.  Ear muffs are on, because it is noisy, we speed out onto Lake Salvador near Lafitte.

After looking at New Orleans in the distance we venture into the wildlife areas where again we see alligators galore, including babies with their mum.  Apparently only 3-5% of the babies survive, getting eaten by predators and mum as well.  The canals have been formed for power cables to be run throughout so there is plenty of room to manoeuvre around and stop along the way to look at animals and plants.  Birds and bubbling methane marshes add to the interest. 

 My favourite flower in the swamp is the bull tongue - white and delicate looking, but the yellow daisies add to the colour along with the blue hyacinths.  I would say that the swamp tour yesterday gave us more variety in animals, but the air boat give a bit of a thrill like jet-boating as well.
After we arrived back at the hotel, we had lunch at the French Cafe - I had shrimp gumbo and it was very nice, too.  I am becoming a convert to Tanqueray gin since I arrived here.  After lunch we found the hop-on hop-off tour and went as far as the garden quarter. We had plenty of opportunity to check out the skyscrapers and the rest of the points of interest along the way.



We had enough time to view about half of the huge mansions in the garden quarter.  Apparently Brad and Angelina have a place here (up for sale I hear) and Sandra Bullock along with a few other movie stars.  The houses are very grand, all beautifully done up.  Here are a few of my favourites.

The footpaths are the worst of any big city I have visited but hey - first world problem!

We did manage to get the hop-on bus back to town,  even though it was 5pm by the time we arrived back at the stop.  I think that this tour is okay but the hours are a bit limiting as they finish at 5.30pm and we had to make several calls to be picked up and they made a special trip so we had the whole bus to ourselves..

We were dropped off at the visitor centre and walked back to the French Quarter, where we had dessert - sorbets and beignets at Cafe du Monde  This heart decorated model bus at the visitor centre actually looked like a coffin - I thought it might be quite good for one anyway.

Found some interesting art on the way home too.  And of course all homes are decorated for Halloween