Kris Carr
We all know a garden is my happy place. While the rain poured down in New Orleans, we stayed dry inside the Stove House. The majority of this collection was curated and donated to the City Park by a single lady. According to their website, this was the original greenhouse at the gardens and the existing boiler makes it perfect to house the hundreds of succulent and cacti species. I hope you enjoy these photos as much as I do! Folks are like plants; we all lean toward the light.
Kris Carr
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Connor and I celebrated our third wedding anniversary on August 1st. Last year we hung around town, but this year we started planning months in advance so we could take a bigger trip. After tossing around a couple of cities, we landed on New Orleans. NOLA has been on my travel bucket list for a while, so when we found plane tickets in our budget, we jumped on them! To save on the cost of plane tickets and lodging, we decided to travel from Wednesday to Saturday. We booked the sweetest Airbnb in the 7th ward, just steps from the Fair Grounds, that was like heaven on earth for three short nights. If you're headed to Jazz Fest this would be the perfect place to stay! We flew out of Atlanta and landed in New Orleans at 8am. We had the most accommodating hosts who let us check in early, so we dropped off our bags and walked to a local breakfast joint called Toast. This restaurant was highly recommended, and now I know why. I had a savory crepe with a side of fruit and Connor had a huge breakfast platter. This was also the only place where we ate that served sweet tea. You read that right, there is no sweet tea in New Orleans. After filing our bellies, we walked back to the house to take a nap. Leaving Greenville while the rest of the world slept meant beating Atlanta traffic, but it also meant that we were exhausted and needed to recharge before we started exploring. By lunchtime we were ready to wander out into the Louisiana heat. After researching local activities, we decided to walk to the City Park. We found the streetcar line there, as well as Morning Call Coffee Stand and the New Orleans Museum of Art. After we ate our beignets we spent a couple of hours walking through the museum. It had a variety of exhibits, from ancient artifacts to modern photography, and I loved how they offered free admission to Louisiana residents every Wednesday. We enjoyed both the art and the air conditioning! After walking through the sculpture gardens, we made the 30 minute walk back to house to get cleaned up for dinner. One of my favorite things about this whole trip was the fact that none of it was planned, and we spontaneously picked restaurants and activities each day. We read through the local guides our hosts left for us and the journal from previous guests. Several of them recommended a local dive just a couple blacks away for some authentic cajun cuisine. We made our way over to Liuzza's By The Track and stuffed ourselves with po'boys. They were huge and delicious! We stopped by the neighborhood grocery store, Canseco's, for some dessert on the way home and called it a night. On Thursday morning we walked to a nearby coffeehouse called Fair Grinds for breakfast. While we ate our croissant and bagel we planned out what we wanted to do for the day. It's become a tradition of ours to visit AZA accredited zoos when we visit new places, so when I learned about the Audubon Zoo I knew we would spend an afternoon there. After some quick research on the transit app we figured out which streetcar route we needed to take. We finished up our coffees and walked back to the City Park. From there we rode the Canal St car to downtown before hopping on the St Charles St car which took us all the way out to the zoo. In total, it took about an hour to get there from our airbnb, but that includes all the the stops we made along the way. Because an all day pass for the streetcar system only costs $3, both locals and tourists utilize it. When we arrived at Audubon Park we realized the gates to the zoo were at the back of the park which would have taken us another 30 minutes to walk. Luckily, we caught a ride on the zoo shuttle bus that dropped us off at the ticket booth for free! I had purchased our tickets online at a discounted rate, so we walked right in and decided to eat lunch before seeing any exhibits. We were able to walk the entire zoo, ride the train, and stop by a couple of gift shops within 4 hours. If you love animals, and have an afternoon to kill in New Orleans, I highly recommend this zoo! We had just enough time to see all of the animals before we were chased out by the rain. Again, we were so thankful for the zoo shuttle which drove us back to the streetcar in the pouring rain and arrived just in time for us to hop on! Since our clothes were wet we decided to ride it all the way back to City Park and then walk home to change. We had every intention of going back out for dinner, but by 7 o'clock we were both so worn out we decided to just have a pizza delivered. Dominos and chocolate cupcakes were all we could have wanted! We woke up on Friday to more rain. I was disappointed because this was our day to spend downtown, but we weren't going to let it keep us down, so we grabbed an umbrella and made our way to town. We rode the same Canal St streetcar, but this time we jumped off at Bourbon St. Since it was early in the day there weren't many people out and we were able to walk a few blocks just to say we did it. I'll be honest, I was pretty unimpressed by Bourbon St and most of the French Quarter, but I loved Jackson Square, Decatur St, and the water front. We noticed that the streets were pretty dirty and there were a lot of questionable people walking around, but if you stick to the tourist traps it feels safer. After exploring downtown I felt thankful we decided to rent in one of the quieter wards instead of staying in a loud hotel. After stopping in a lot of shops, and dodging rain for most of the morning, the sun finally came out and we were able to ride the St Charles streetcar down to the Lower Garden District (not as far down as the zoo). We walked to Magazine St to visit a store I had seen online before our trip called Century Girl Vintage. This boutique was everything my 10 year old self could have imagined. They had beautiful vintage gowns and jewelry displayed, and I could have stayed there all day! We popped into De Ville Coffee House and Creperie for something cold to sip on while we stepped in a few more shops. After we had cleaned up and changed into our fancy clothes, we walked to Nonna Mia's Italian cafe to officially celebrate our anniversary with a delicious dinner. We splurged on scratch made pasta and dessert and stayed out late before walking back in the dark thinking it was our last outing in New Orleans. Connor shook me awake at 5 am on Saturday to inform me that our flight had been cancelled. At any other time I would have freaked out, but I was too tired to care. When we woke back up at 7 am we had been booked to a new flight at 4 pm that evening. Although I was't thrilled about getting home to Greenville so late, we made the most of our extra time in NOLA by walking back to the City Park. We waited out the rain again at Morning Call with tons of other people. The small diner is definitely more crowded on Saturday mornings than weekday afternoons, but we were able to find a table and enjoy some hot beignets. When the rain lessened to a drizzle we walked across the street to the New Orleans Botanical Garden. We had passed by it on our first day in the city, but it was too hot at the time to walk around. In the early morning hours there were no other visitors and we had the conservatory to ourselves. I spent the better part of an hour taking hundreds of photos of all the beautiful tropical plants. Some were familiar to me and others were very exotic. We walked across the garden to a cacti house that was home to the largest succulent collection I had ever seen! The plaque said it was one woman's collection and that she had donated it to the gardens. This gem was the highlight of the trip for me, and I'm so glad we stumbled upon it thanks to a delayed flight! I could have spent an entire say at the Gardens. There's no way I could share all of my photos in this post, so I'll be writing a separate blog dedicated to just the botanical gardens. Thankfully, our Airbnb hosts extended our check out time to noon, so we were able to pack up and catch an Uber back to the airport around 1pm and only had to wait about 3 hours to board. It could have been a lot worse since our original flight was scheduled for 10 am. I'm just glad the airline let us know ahead of time so we could squeeze in a few more activities! A short flight back to Atlanta and a 3 hour drive to Fountain Inn put us pulling into our driveway around 10 pm. We absolutely loved this trip and getting to spend time together just the two of us. I love family vacations, but we wanted to make our anniversary extra special this year. We're not quite done with our summer traveling, but we're winding down slowly and ready for a quieter season at home. Next on the calendar is Las Vegas, Nevada!
After much anticipation, and a summer filled with celebrating, Chelsea and Lex are finally married! How sweet is was to be included in all of the festivities as her bridesmaid. The rehearsal went without a hitch, and dinner at Sassafras was so delicious. We will definitely be eating there again! It was so fun to meet and mingle with their out of town family and friends, too. On the big day we met at Chelsea's house early for hair and makeup. We drank mimosas and ate Chickfila while each girl had her turn being pampered. Once the photographers arrived we carpooled over to the church to get dressed and take our pictures. After the ceremony, we traveled to Greenville to the reception at Larkin's. The rain held off just long enough for us to take some gorgeous photos by the Reedy River Falls. I can't wait to see them! We ate and drank and danced the night away with friends, new and old. When the storms rolled out we sent off the happy couple to their honeymoon to Hawaii! I truly love all weddings, but witnessing some of your favorite people get married is extra special. Chelsea is one of the most thoughtful people I know, so it's no surprise that she went above and beyond for her wedding party. She picked out the prettiest peach bridesmaids dresses that were so flattering, and let us wear our own shoes and accessories. She also gifted us with tote bags filled with jewelry, pajamas, and other goodies for the wedding.
Seriously, it was the best weekend and we can't to catch up with them soon to hear all about their honeymoon! |
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December 2022
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