May 31st
Here is it! This Epic road trip begins! Our first day actually starts the night before, as we decided to leave at 11pm May 30 on a Tuesday. This was so we would be able to drive through the night and get to New Orleans in the morning about 8 or 9 o’clock, while at the same time allowing me to finish my gig that evening. We left from Tampa (our hometown) and drove through the whole night, switching at two in the morning, so Ashley could drive. This was so we could share driving and both have energy once we arrived. We arrived in the French quarter of New Orleans and made a point of driving over the famous Lake Ponchartrain bridge. This is the longest lake bridge in the USA and it was definitely scary. This technically can be considered our first bucket list checked item. With a little bit of wind in the morning it was kind of scary but that was most likely my issue. The cost of the toll was $5 and we came in from the north heading into the city. We had a full day of things to see.
We started in the French quarter so we be able to see the historic area of the city as well as grab a coffee and beignet from the world famous Café DuMond. This is one of the most popular tourist restaurant destinations in New Orleans and should be at the top of any bucket list of anyone who visits the city. One thing I found humorous however, is though the city is vastly African-American, many Asians were working there in this restaurant.
After we grabbed a coffee, we decided to take a walk around the French corner and stumbled into some really neat buildings. However in the morning we felt kind of unsafe due to agressive homeless population. This forced us to leave early and head over to the cemetery which is supposedly world-famous. The name of the cemetery is the Greenwood Cemetery and this graveyard featured huge mausoleums of many famous generals and historical former residents of New Orleans. It features families and distinguished people in history, of not only the city, but the USA in general.
From this point, we decided to walk around the park that was near and grab lunch at Cafe Navarre near city park. We drove to city park after the cemetery, and walked around and enjoyed the wildlife and pleasant lake in the public area. Once we were done with lunch we had our fill of the city and decided to head over to our next destination which was to drive the Great River Road, which starts at the Delta of the Mississippi River just outside of New Orleans. Our goal was to stop at Oak Alley plantation.
This road, is almost 1000 miles long so the best parts were not on this journey, but we could at least say we had been there. As we drove along the Mississippi River, we enjoyed the various plantations along the road which carry significant historical value. However the one we came to see was Oak Alley.
Oak Alley plantation has a very nice and incredibly beautiful lawn, and though we had a great walking tour, one thing that people don’t tell you is you can see what you come to pay for from the road. Unless you are genuinely interested in history of plantations, it was not our favorite spot. The fee to get in is $38 for two people and it did include a tour, however the thing that was disappointing was the price. Oak Alley plantation features a very famous photo of its oak trees lined down the plantation and in the distance you can’t see the over the hill which behind is the Mississippi River. The Great River Road runs along the Mississippi road for almost 1000 miles and we didn’t drive it because of the obvious length and deterrence from our trip.
Once this was over we decided to continue driving up the great river road until we reached the capital of Louisiana….Baton Rouge. We had about an hour of daylight left and decided to spend it along the Riverwalk. The local casino boats were parked, and we walked the length of the pedestrian area for a great sunset experience. We both had a few beers and dinner afterward and enjoyed the historic walk along the river. There is a Masonic capital building there that looked very interesting and almost out of place, which if I had more time, would have loved to have explored. Nonetheless, after the visit we decided to head to San Antonio through the night, yet again. For clarification we decided to drive at night time the first three days due to the fact we wanted to get out of the eastern half of the United States. This required us to go to New Orleans first and then San Antonio the next day. This leads us on to day 2!
Daily Expenses
We were a little over budget for the day but I kind of cheated and rolled the previous night into this day thus giving us a two day budget of $200.
$6 Snack (May 30th at night)
26.05 gas
18.81 gas
1.82 coffee
5 Lake pontretrain toll fee
9 cafe du monde
$3 water and gum
3$ bananas
$23 lunch at to ups new orleans
$44 Oak Alley Plantation
10.64 Pizza bar in Baton Rouge
6$ wine bar louis
5$ beer Baton Rouge
18.25 gas
TOTAL- 173.67
Tampa to Baton Rouge- MILES DRIVEN- 814.9