We started our final day in Louisiana with a 75-minute guided tour of the Laura Plantation. I had researched three different plantations when I was planning the vacation. The other two I considered were Whitney and Oak Alley. Laura Plantation isn't the flashiest one, but the tour guide was excellent, and we learned about the Creole culture as well as sugar plantations. We ate lunch in the car while we drove about two hours to Avery Island for a self-guided tour of the Tabasco factory. It's our only industrial tour for this two- week vacation. We wanted to make sure we had enough time at Vermilionville, which closes at 4:00 pm. In hindsight, we could have spent more time on Avery Island. Vermilionville wasn't anything to write home about. It was the cheapest of our three experiences today. I had hoped to visit the Acadian Cultural Center (run by the NPS) that is right next to Vermilionville, but these days it's only open on Tuesdays and Wednesdays.
We had dinner at Bon Temps Grill in Lafayette. It was definitely our most expensive meal so far, but it was the only time we spent money on food today as we had a free breakfast at Holiday Inn and made our lunches. Oliver and Ian had kids' meals. Ian (as always) had chicken nuggets. Oliver had shrimp. Nadia and I had salads, and Paul had a bacon cheeseburger. We were served a little bit of complimentary garlic bread at the beginning of the meal. Nadia wanted Oliver to order something with alligator so that she could try a bite of it. Due to an accident, the drive to our hotel in Texas took more than the 2 hours it was *supposed* to take, and then we showed up at the wrong Holiday Inn at first as it turns out there are more than one in this city. OOPS! Thankfully the "right" one was only a ten-minute drive from the "wrong" one. Hopefully I won't make that mistake again. I also was reminded during our time in New Orleans that I need to remember to research parking options when planning to spend time in a city. Since we live in a very rural area, it's something I don't naturally think about unless I know we're going to a really big city like NYC. The hotel gave out free popcorn and cookies. We'll be in Texas for the next week. Some days will involve a fair amount of driving, and other days we won't have to drive much. It's a big state! Speaking of states, we restarted the license plate game at the beginning of the year, and we only have six states left to find - Arkansas, Hawaii, New Hampshire, Oregon, Washington, and Wyoming. Considering we are planning to be in Hawaii in August, I am hopeful we can find all 50 this year since we've already spotted some of the other ones that have been hard to find in the past such as New Mexico and North Dakota.
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