A Very Late Wrap-up

As I make arrangements to escape from my daily life with some of my favorite Moms for my third Manic Mommies Escape, I am reminded of our previous escapes.  Sadly my recap of my Road Rally and escape from last year was never posted as my sister’s prognosis crashed shortly after my return home.  Better late than never could very well be my life’s motto, so here we go.

Have you ever had the opportunity to road trip with a friend?  Do you love to visit new corners of the country?  I love road trips, in fact, one of my dreams is to road trip Route 66 through America’s heartland. 

When I first found out I was going to get to drive a Chevy to last year’s Escape I was thrilled.  I have to admit that I was skeptical that I would fall in love with a Chevy.  You see, I had a brand new high end Japanese brand minivan, and it had stolen my heart.  Right before the Chevy arrived, my baby took hail damage and I was stripped of her for two whole weeks.  After driving the awful (also Japanese model) rental car I could not wait to get back in my own brand new car.  The Traverse, shown below, showed up a day before my baby came back from the shop.  I drove my precious van home, parked it in the driveway, and went right back to driving the Traverse.  My van still has not forgiven me, just ask her.

My friend finally got to drive the Traverse when we left on the road trip and I finally got to play with some of the bells and whistles that I had not taken the time to check out while driving.  While I had never been to New Orleans, my co-captain calls New Orleans her home away from home.  So we were using the onboard navigation, but she could have easily driven it with her eyes closed.  We stopped for the night in Tuscaloosa (a post of its own) before finishing up the trip on Friday. 

My friend drove us into New Orleans so I could take it all in.  While my moving car photography is nothing to write home about, these are some of my favorite sights that I would have never known I missed if I had just gone straight from the airport to the hotel. 

Once we arrived in New Orleans, we didn’t drive much and that may or may not have had something to do with the constant beverage consumption that was taking place.  I did manage to get a couple more iPhone photos of the city that I would like to share.

Since we didn’t have to pay for a flight or a rental, we had a little left in our budget and decided to treat ourselves to a super nice dinner.  Antoine’s is a place my friend had always wanted to go, but had never tried.  I was thrilled that she got to try something new in the city she knows so well.  I got to try a Ferdi Special at Mothers for lunch one day, and even though it isn’t 70 cents anymore I still highly recommend the Ferdi with trash.  I also had my first beignet at none other than Café Du Monde during the insanely busy post bar hours.  Why is it always about food??

Although we decided against the drive-thru Margaritas in our loaner car, I did get a classic Hurricane on my first night in New Orleans.  This was at the Manic Mommies reception on Friday night, and I got to keep the glass.  Speaking of glass, while we were walking around there was a man playing these beautiful glasses and he taught me how to play.  In addition to the lesson, he gave me my favorite picture of the trip.

I will be following up with a separate post about our stay in Tuscaloosa the night before the Escape.  Don’t worry, that one will be much shorter.

Disclaimer:  General Motors is a really cool company that among other things makes great cars, believes in Moms, and values bloggers.  I have been reminded about how much I am indebted to them a lot lately, and I was beginning to feel like it was a one-sided friendship.  It then occurred to me that this does not have to be a one-sided relationship.  Although I am not directly being compensated for this post, I have benefited from the companies generosity many times throughout our relationship.  The thoughts and opinions in this post are true and genuine and independent of any benefit the company has or will offer.