Discovered by Accident

Here we were, driving down the freeway, trying to get to our next destination, Santa Fe, as reasonably quick as possible.  Michael saw a sign saying: Historic Jefferson (my face was buried in my iPhone, probably on Facebook) and said that he wanted to check it out.  So, off we go on our next little jaunt.

We discovered a quaint town that we wished we could have spent more time at and will probably come back to again in the future.  As it was, we spent three hours dinking around.  The town is FULL of antique stores and a really cool, step back in time, general store where a cup of coffee is only 5 cents.

Pick your old fashioned candy, put it all in a bag, one price per pound.

And of course, I bought a bag of fried garlic peanuts and a bag of fried Cajun peanuts.  So good.
If you want to buy some peanuts, call the store.  Also, they have the best praline's I've tried to date and you can order them online HERE.

Toy guns.

And pink ones at that!

Wile away a Sunday afternoon playing checkers.

Oh darn, Mike got caught stealing candy from the bins again. ;)

Just another of the numerous antique stores to be found.

We saw this sign for cornbread sandwiches and our stomachs were growling.

Mike had:
The Redneck - Fried Bologna and American
Cheese

I had:

The Texan - Texas Chili and Cheese
sandwiched between our kornbread - our only
sandwich that must be eaten with a fork .

Mike had:

VERY BERRY PIE

I had:

CHOCOLATE PECAN PIE

On the way out of town we saw this store and pulled over to the side of the road, 5th wheel and all.

The cluttered porch.

Inside was a jumbled collection of antique clocks.  They were reasonably priced, or so we thought, and came away with two.

Maybe now that he had a sale he can fix his roof and ceiling.

Just an over-sized house going down the road that you don't see every day.

New Orleans

We arrived in New Orleans on April 6th, Tom's birthday.  Tom is Mike's son and he moved to New Orleans to set up his practice many years ago.  We stayed for 4 nights and had a wonderful time with our friends, Sharyn and Greg.  Much of it was spent driving back and forth from the campground to the French Quarter and other various places of interest to us.  We had to fight traffic much of the time and figuring out the quickest and easiest way to get there wasn't easy.  It wasn't our first time in New Orleans, but for some reason, for this particular visit, traveling back and forth wasn't any fun.  I suppose there was more traffic because of the upcoming French Quarter Jazz Festival which began the day we took off.

Street Performance wows the crowd

Cafe Du Monde

When we came upon this artist working on his painting, we fell in love with the artwork.  The artist's name is Kamam Devant and he's from Armenia.  He does beautiful work in a lovely palette. 

Beads hanging from trees everywhere.

Enchanting courtyards like this are all over town.

As we were walking down the street, I saw this Cool Cat sitting in front of his art gallery and quickly snapped a picture.  He mumbles to the guy working (and he thinks I can't hear him) "This f___king chick is taking my picture."  I let him know that I heard exactly what he said and he and I both got a laugh over that one.  I wasn't offended and he was cool with it all.

Friends now.

Oak Alley Plantation

This is by far our favorite plantation to visit and have lunch.  This time I bought a cookbook of their recipes because we so enjoy the food here.  It's so nice that they allow you to take pictures inside the home.  Everyone is so friendly down south, too. 

Our beautiful tour guide

After we left New Orleans, we stopped along the side of the road to get some swamp pictures.

Louisiana (they pronounce it: Lou si anna) wildflowers.

If you are going to New Orleans, here's a few of our favorite restaurants:
Jacques Imo's
Lebanon Cafe
The Camellia Grill