Thursday, 4 January 2019: New Orleans

We flew in Wednesday night and slept at a nearby hotel. In the morning we picked up our rental car  and drove to the French Quarter.  It had been raining for the past couple of weeks, but on Thursday it was sunny although a little cold and windy.

 There we met my nephew Phil near the French Market for breakfast and walked through the French Market, Jackson Square, St. Louis Cathedral, Moonwalk Riverfront, Artillery Park, Royal Street and up Canal Street to the Ignatius Reilly statue in front of the Hyatt (from Confederacy of Dunces).

 After Phil left we took a cable car to 1032 Constantinople St where Ignatius and his mother supposedly lived.

Then we walked around that area a little and took a cable car

back to the French Quarter where we had lunch at Meals from the Heart (Black bean/avocado po-boy and mushroom po-boy).

 Then we did a little shopping at French Market and took the Canal St/ Algiers Ferry across the Mississippi River,

walked around on the other side a little--past the courthouse and the British Pub and then back across the river. After that we went to Beignet Cafe where Kristen had a Beignet.

Then we found our car and drove to Louise and Rod's house near Houma, about an hour away.

Wednesday May 9 (and Thursday May 10)

Wednesday we went into Stuttgart and bought some final souvenirs--trachten for everyone. I bought a shirt at TK Maxx (they don't use the letter 'J' in Germany)

Our next stop was the Märchengarten in the grounds of the Ludwigsburg Palace:

 

 

We flew home on Thursday

Sunday to Tuesday, May 6-8

Saturday was more of an easy day--ongoing walks around the mountains, playing with the kids especially watching the cows, and walking to a former adventure park where we were able to play on the abandoned equipment.

 

Monday we drove to Germany, spending a lot of time stuck in traffic due to a big accident 

Tuesday we hung around Korntal with Annemarie at her mom's house. 

Highlights were buying icecream and playing at the playground.

 

Saturday, May 5

On Saturday we spent a lot of time playing around the barn, watching the cows being milked by the automatic milker and scratching themselves on the automatic scratchers.

 Stephen and Jessie went for a walk while the kids were napping and explored the other end of the trail that Stephen and I had attempted. They discovered that it was possible to drive up to the start of the trail, cutting out a significant amount of uphill climb, so after the kids got up from their nap, we all went to it.  Andrew practiced his steering on a steep uphill climb composed of continuous hairpin curves.

End of road until snow melts

Aftermath from the avalanche

The river that runs along the road

logs uprooted by an avalanche

We had dinner in our apartment

Friday, May 4: Northern Italy Dairy Farm and waterfalls

Normally there are several waterfalls but because it was early spring, waterfalls had sprung up all over the valley.

When I went for my early  morning walk I found a waterfall which had sprung up spontaneously.
 

In the morning we played around the dairy farm, watching the automatic milking machine, and went for a short walk

In the afternoon while the kids napped Stephen and I went for a long walk along a path towards 3 waterfalls--Even at the start of the path we saw more than 3 waterfalls, but an avalanche had taken out a significant chunk of the path, so we did exploring on rocks and snow instead.

To the left is the area wiped out by an avalanche

. Then we went for a drive,

winding up in the nearby city for dinner at a pizza place. Up until this point it felt more like Switzerland since everyone spoke German, but here the waiters spoke to us in Italian, and we ate Italian food, so it felt more like being in Italy.