San Antonio, TX

I fell in love with this place. It wasn't too bad of a drive from New Orleans to here. We got here pretty early enough to roam the city while the sun was still out. Usually the three of us would take turn driving. You know, a few hours per person... well, I slept through the whole drive. Haha. I have never slept so much in a car before. I had to pay for the hotel room this night. So I Hotwired it. Hotwire is a pretty neat site. You can get last minute deals for hotel rooms and stuff based on star ratings. The only sucky part is you won't know which hotel you will get until you click "purchase." If you like taking chances then it could also be a fun lil game. We ended up with the Hampton Inn a mile away from the Alamo and town center. It was a pretty nice hotel for how much I paid ($75). It was walking distance to pretty much everything. 

We checked in to our room and left to find a place to have dinner as soon as we got there. I despise walking anywhere... but when I am in a tourist-y mood, I will walk anywhere and everywhere. We walked a few blocks to the town center. It was called the River Center or something like that. It's a cute little place. Kind of like a mall... but what's neat about this is it has like a river running throughout the whole place. It has a very patriotic theme. They might've just decorated the place in red, white, and blue for Fourth of July though. Maybe that's why. There were a lot of creepers and teenagers there. So glad Megan's dad was there to protect us haha. We were starving and couldn't decide between Tony Roma's and Hooters... I have never been to any of those place mentioned before. But we ended up with Hooters. I got some boneless chicken, and barely finished half of it. I think the half-clothed girls really just took away my appetite. It was distasteful. The food was just alright. They had horrible service too. After the Hooters, we went to see The Alamo!!! I was dying to go sightseeing. Actually, we grabbed some desserts at Haagen Dazs before we headed to The Alamo. Took a few pictures here and there. Megan really wanted to do some activities, so we paid to do this mirror maze thing and 007 laser light. It was fun. We were kids again. I got myself a shirt that says San Antonio, Tx on there. It's a pretty sweet looking lil thang. After all of the shenanigans were done, we walked back to the hotel to rest up. Because we are going to drive FOREVER to Arizona. San Antonio, you're beautiful. Here are some pix. 

NOLA

I allowed myself to be a complete tourist on this road trip for the following reasons... 1) I have never been to these cities before so it makes complete sense that I can do tourist activities. 2) I am in fact, a tourist. 3) Being a tourist will give me the opportunities to explore all of the hot spots. 

We finally got out of Florida (it seemed like we would never get out because it was such a long state). Drove through the bottom of Alabama & Mississippi. My #1 mission on this road trip was to take pictures of the welcome signs. I wanted to get every single one of them. Do you know how impossible that was?! There were no warnings to let us know that they were coming up. By the time we approach the sign, it was either too late to pull out the camera or we were too far/ driving too fast. What a disappointment. Anyway, so we finally got into New Orleans. We drove on so many bridges, it was definitely different than my usual drive in California. There's water everywhere. Our first stop was at this Cajun Food place. Megan and her dad really wanted these things called "boudin." The pronunciation of that word sounds like "Buddha." I was really confused on why they wanted "Buddha." I've never had it before. So what is boudin? It's a type of sausage. We got pork & crawfish boudins. I had the pork boudin. How was it? It honestly tasted like eggrolls to me. Haha. It was good, but I wouldn't crave it all the time. After that quick stop, we checked into our hotel. Funny thing about this, we somehow went to the wrong hotel. We unloaded all of our stuff and the bell boy brought them in. The front desk tried to check us in but we had no reservation there... it turned out that our hotel was across the street from this one. I have no clue how that happened haha. Once we were in the right hotel, we freshened up and headed for Bourbon St. Our hotel was only about five blocks from there. We walked. If you know me, you should know that I never ever ever walk anywhere. I hate walking. Driving > Walking. Okay, you get the point. But this was a part of me wanting to be a tourist. Also because the parking was really bad there haha. I didn't mind walking. It was a good city vibe. So Bourbon St. was nothing like what it looked like on TV. It definitely didn't smell like how it looked on TV (if that makes any sense). I will tell you one thing, it was definitely festive. The streets were way tiny. I guess they do add 10lbs to EVERYTHING on TV. We had dinner at this restaurant that some guy just pulled us into and sat us down. What did I get? A salad. As soon as I ordered that, I started thinking what the hell was I thinking. I'm in New Orleans and I got a salad. A freaking salad. But I didn't feel like changing my order, so I just went with it. It was delicious. After dinner, we roamed the street. Being the tourist that I was, I had to buy a bunch of New Orleans souvenirs. I got the most beautiful pair of shorts that says New Orleans on the back. I was so excited to wear them... Um, after one night with them, the New Orleans letters became "Ne Or ea s"  WTF man. Talk about bad printing. Anyway, we walked the whole street. There were strip clubs everywhere. These butt-naked strippers were standing at the door luring in men..and women! The bars looked so much fun. We were there on a Monday, so it was like karaoke night or something. It seemed like all of the bars had karaoke. Honestly, I think it would've been much better if I was 21. We had no business of being there. Once we were done exploring, it was back to the room we go. We needed some rest for the drive to San Antonio, TX. Adios NOLA.