New Orleans/Mardi Gras miss, Baton Rouge blessing

So this past weekend was my Mardi Gras "adventure," if you can all it that. K got stuck at work a little late Friday night, so we didn't leave until about 8:45, which put us in New Orleans at about 12:30 in the morning. We stayed with my friend, who I hadn't seen in years, so we talked to him for a while before going to bed. K pretty much passed out, but this stupid hedgehog that was in the room with us kept me up all night! We slept in on Saturday (as much as we could with the dang hedgehog making all that noise burrowing under the newspaper in his little cage) before going to lunch with my friend.

The parades that day got cancelled because of rain, so that sucked. We drove around the city for a bit. We got stuck in traffic for over two hours, but we didn't care because (1) we were together, and (2) we had my homemade chocolate chip cookies in the car with us. We wound up meeting K's friend Rob at his girlfriend's house. Rob is in the Army with K, and I'd met his girlfriend a few times before. So we went to dinner with them at this wonderful restaurant -- the Cheesecake Bistro. Of course we had cheesecake for dessert. It was amazing.

I took some pictures of the city when we were driving around. You could definitley tell New Orleans had been hit by a hurricane, but it didn't look like it had been completely flooded for weeks.

























































Then, we went to Bourbon Street and a bar called the Cat's Meow. It was kinda fun, but we missed the whole Bourbon Street atmosphere because we were in the bar the whole time. I did take a couple quick pictures before we left:





























So that night, K and I decided to try to find a hotel room so we could actually sleep. We figured it would be tough, but given that Bourbon Street wasn't that crowded, we were hopeful. For no reason, it turned out. We drove all over west New Orleans looking for a hotel with vacancy. We stopped all along the highway with no luck. Finally, at about 5:30 a.m., we found a hotel room at a Best Western in Baton Rouge. So we got a little sleep and a nice shower.

It turned out to be a good thing that we wound up in Baton Rouge. We got to see the swamp during the day, which is really cool (sorry for the shots from the car):




























We drove around Baton Rouge for a bit. Then, we saw this pretty area by the Mississippi River with a couple fountains and nice benches and even a ship. So we walked around there and talked. It was a really nice day out, so it was wonderful. There were several older (40-ish -- older than us) couples who were walking around holding hands or cuddling on benches. I told K that I hope I'm one of those people someday.

At that very point, we had reached a fountain. K pulled out a nickel and told me to make a wish. He said he didn't have any pennies, but if one cent is good luck, imagine how much luck five cents is. I told him to make the wish. He did, and he tossed the nickel into the water. I didn't have to ask him what his wish was. I'm pretty sure it was exactly what I would have wished for -- exactly what my words had really meant just as we'd gotten to the fountain.