Ohhh-klahoma, where the families camp

A few weeks ago, the Knox-Broyles family drove six hours north to meet up with the Broyles duo, who had driven six hours south. A little place called Chickasaw National Recreation Area was our home for two days. We cooked. We hiked. We saw tarantulas. See for yourself in this photo gallery. (If you can't see it, you need to become my friend of Flickr. It's a pain, I know, but if you have a Yahoo account it's even easier. I have to keep one iota of privacy here, people.:))

New Orleans!

We made it to New Orleans! The first night, we stayed in Lafayette, slept in like honeymooners without their kiddo (til nearly 11!), then headed into the Big Easy. I was surprised at how big city New Orleans is. The downtown is taller and more interesting than Austin's. The waterfront is OK, and the French Quarter is definitely cool. We're at the Olivier Hotel, a block off Bourbon, which I've realized is what Sixth Street is striving to be. Too bad New Orleans has the drink-in-the-street law, plus you can drink until you decide to stop, not until the bars all shut down simultaneously.

Well, what about the music on Sixth Street? We saw two incredible jazz bands last night, and the rest seemed to be cover bands, which isn't much different than Sixth. Downtown Austin does have better options for a variety of music and food, the latter of which we're going to explore here in New Orleans more today.

We ate at this Charter House place in the French Quarter. The crawfish cakes and muffaletta were pretty good, and they were better than the Acme Oyster House, which we were lured in to by the name and the fact that it was on all our maps. There's nothing that sucks more when you're traveling than getting all hyped up about a place because it has the appearance of being really great, only to get stuck with stale bread and tasteless oysters. Ah, well. More yumminess is ahead for us, I just know it.

Off to Cafe du Monde!