All my bags are packed.......

..well not exactly, but that song just keeps running through my head.

Well we are in the final preparations of our next destination.....New Orleans! A fun and exciting place to visit, but not the first time we've been there. In fact, this will be the third time we've been there, but really our first time to REALLY visit there.

Our first time there was on our way back from Orlando in 1997. We got there about 11:30 at night and our first stop was a hotel. We got up the next morning and visited the aquarium, some open air market, and took a picture of Paul, Cris, and Aaron at a Bourbon Street sign. Then we left. That trip was probably a total of 16 hours there.

The next time we went we drove the 6 hours from Houston and spent about a day and a half visiting the WW2 Museum, Bourbon Street, Harrah's casino, and drove around a little bit and then we left. This was January 2005, the same year as Hurricane Katrina destroyed the city.

This time we are flying in on Saturday and leaving on Tuesday night. We have lots of exciting things planned including visiting the Civil War Museum, taking the night time haunted New Orleans tour, visiting the new casino, driving around and seeing the progress made since Hurricane Katrina, and of course visiting Bourbon Street. We are lucky enough that the first weekend of Mardi Gras is beginning and there will be a couple of parades. We are also lucky that this is the "quiet" weekend of Mardi Gras and all the rowdiness won't be happening until the next weekend. We really aren't into rowdy crowds, but would like to sample a little bit of Mardi Gras.

The airline tickets are bought, well actually one ticket was bought for $36 and the other ticket was paid for with our credit card miles. The hotel is booked and the rental car is next. Now begins the planning and figuring out what we want to do while we are there (we are hoping to find some Live Trivia competition as well). Knowing us this will NOT be a restful and relaxing vacation and we will cram every minute with something to do until our weary heads hit the pillows at night.

But the best part is we are getting away, seeing new things, and spending time together. The bad news is there is SO much that has to get done (for Pizza Zone) before we go and we will have LOADS of stuff to get caught up when we get back.

Oh well......we'll cross that bridge when we come to it!