During the long MLK weekend, which happened to coincide with my birthday, Reedi and I traveled in Nigel to Tupelo, Miss, where we saw the local sites and took a nice, long bicycle ride along the Natchez Trace Parkway.
In October 2024, Reedi and I traveled to meet Ari in Washington, DC, during Ari’s Fall Break. Rather than flying there or driving the interstate, we decided we’d head out to the East Coast and take our time getting to DC by exploring the Outer Banks. We spent five days traveling through Georgia, South Carolina, and North Carolina. Along our way we visited Amelia Island (FL), Savannah (GA), Hilton Head (NC), and Kitty Hawk (NC). On Wednesday we arrived in…
Another weekend, another short getaway! We had a free night award at Hilton for any location, anywhere. Reedi has been wanting to get to the beach. So, being that it’s very hot at night here on the Gulf Coast we thought that the free night would be the perfect opportunity to stay out of the heat and to get to the beach. This was only a normal two-day weekend, but that allowed for plenty of time to make the drive…
In May 2024, we dropped our daughter off in Monroe, La., to catch her ride to Cimarron, New Mexico, to staff Philmont Scout Ranch for her second year. After dropping her off on Saturday morning, Reedi and I headed north into Arkansas for a long weekend of hiking, eating, and mining crystals.
During Spring Break of ’24 the family took a road trip of the Northeast. Reedi and I flew in from New Orleans, our son flew in from Austin, and our daughter flew in from Atlanta, and we all met in Baltimore. From there we began and 8-day road trip through Maryland, Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, Rhode Island, and Massachusetts. As the kids grow older (24 and 19 respectively), family trips like this become more precious as we…
During our trip to Austin this past weekend, we had the opportunity to experience the Natural Bridge Caverns in San Antonio. These caverns are Texas’ premier natural attraction, and they truly live up to that reputation. The adventure began as we joined a Discovery Tour, where state-of-the-art lighting illuminated massive, otherworldly formations formed by single drops of water over eons of time. The sheer size and beauty of the caverns left us in awe. After our adventures underground, we enjoyed…
Our daughter, Ari, discovered several months back that one of our favorite bands was playing in Atlanta. Fortunately, this coincided with a break in school for her. So, I decided to meet her in Atlanta, catch the concert, then whisk her away to North Georgia for a quick hike on the Appalachian Trail. I left home on Wednesday, January 24th, and meandered made my way to Atlanta. I stopped at the Conecuh Sausage Company Store on my way there for…
In January, Reedi and I took advantage of the 3-day weekend to travel to St. Augustine Florida to see the Nights of Lights and experience the charm of America’s oldest city. We enjoyed our evening there hopping in and out of the many shops, having a hearty English dinner at a public house, and enjoying some ice cream at Kilwin’s Chocolates. We left St. Augustine on Sunday and made our way south along the Atlantic coast to Flagler Beach before…
It’s December here in Louisiana and we took advantage of one of the first cool, crisp weekends to take a road trip 4 hours north to Natchitoches, La. This was the 97th Natchitoches Festival of Lights, and we’ve always wanted to make a trip to the City of Lights to experience the festivities. Our daughter lived in Natchitoches for 3 years as she attended high school at the nearby Louisiana School for Math, Science, and the Arts. However, we had…
The summers in Louisiana are brutal. Temperatures are in the high 90s and humidity pushes the heat index well into triple digits. Heather and I have been wanting to make a trip down to the Southwest Louisiana and the Atchafalaya Basin, but it’s simply not a place we want to be in a van with no A/C. So, we’ve been having this little weekend trip sketched out for a little while not and were just waiting to pull the trigger….
On Thursday, Reedi messaged me mentioning that there was a Blue Angels Homecoming in Pensacola this weekend. Within an hour we had decided that we were going to be in Florida for the weekend. We left after work on Friday and headed to the Florida Welcome Center were we spent Friday night. Early saturday, we head to Fort Pickens Park and found a parking spot along the sea wall across the Bay from the Pensacola Naval Air Station where we…
After spending much of the summer of 2023 in East Tennessee, Reedi and I planned a round about way to travel back home to Louisiana. Trying to knock a few states off of our 50-by-50 bucket list, we decided on a road trip through the Midwest that would include Tennessee, Kentucky, Illinois, Missouri, Iowa (new), Wisconsin, Minnesota (new for Reedi), North Dakota (new), South Dakota (new), Nebraska (new), Kansas (new for Robert), Oklahoma (new for Reedi), Arkansas, Mississippi, and back…
Reedi and I spent much our Summer in East Tennessee visiting family. We spent the weeks working (remotely) and visiting, and would try to get away for the weekends and see the natural beauty of East Tennessee and the Smokey Mountains. On this Saturday in September, we visited the Monroe Life Hot Air Balloon Festival. We didn’t know what to expect, but found a wonderful and relaxing evening watching the glow of the balloons.
Our daughter spent the summer of 2023 working as staff at the Boys Scouts of America’s Philmont Scout Ranch High Adventure base in Cimarron, NM. As soon as we heard she was planning that, Reedi and I planned a trip around visiting her. We started our trip by flying to Albuquerque, NM, then driving to Sante Fe to meet with Ari. We spent two days in the Sante Fe/Taos/Cimarron areas eating and exploring this section of New Mexico, which is…
Many of the trips we’ve taken over the last few years include SUV camping. As in, Reedi and I pack a mattress, a cook kit, an SUV tent, and some other items and hit the road in our SUV. No hotels, no reservations. Sometime we fly to a location and rent an SUV to camp in. During this trip in January of 2023, we travelled to nearby Dunn’s Falls Park in Enterprise, Mississippi, then to Clarkco State Park in Quitman,…
Sometimes the best laid plans go awry. Reedi and I had a trip planned to Cabo. We had booked a week in a resort in Cabo. We had day trips to old town Cabo and to the marina scheduled. We were going to go on an excursion on a glass-bottomed boat. Then with less than 24 hours to go before we boarded our flight to paradise, we received a call from our daughter that would change all of that. Our…
In August of ’22, we made a trip to the Pacific Northwest. We flew into Lake Tahoe, made our way west to Northern California, then spend a week traveling up the west coast through California, Oregon, and Washington. During that trip we visited Lassen Volcanic National Park, Lava Beds National Monument, Crater Lake National Park, The Oregon Coast, The Columbia River Gorge, and Olympic National Park. Many nights of the trip were spent SUV camping, with the occasional hotel room…
Being from New Orleans, we don’t get many chances to see the changing of the season and fall foliage. So in the Fall of 2021, we flew out to Massachusetts and made a trip through the Northeast. We began our trip in Salem, Mass., then drove to and through Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, and New York, ending our trip at Niagara Falls.
In August ’21, our family traveled to San Francisco for a few days of touring before heading south. From San Francisco, we drove down Hwy 1 to Monterrey, Carmel by the Sea, and Big Sur. From there, we travelled inland to Fresno to visit some family then on to Yosemite for three days in the Park.
It was the depths of Covid. We had an Alaskan cruise planned that was cancelled due to the pandemic. So, we looked a little further down our bucket list and decided a Colorado road trip was a wonderful second option. We quickly switched gears and booked our flights. Our two ‘little ones’ were in high school and college at the time and Reedi and I knew then that there were only so many ‘family’ vacations ahead of us.