Trip to New Orleans {June 2014}

It wasn't exactly a vacation, although it was supposed to be.

Let's start at the beginning: I got maybe an hour or two of sleep the night before we left, although I'm not sure I even slept at all. We flew out of Fargo at 5:00 a.m. so we were at the airport by 4:00. The first flight went smoothly. We had a layover in Minneapolis, so we picked up breakfast at the airport bakery and waited for our next flight. There was a problem with our first airplane, so we were moved to a new gate to get on a different plane. But we weren't able to board yet because of the weather. We finally boarded the plane an hour and a half late.

Of course, that meant we missed our flight out of Atlanta. We couldn't get on the next flight to New Orleans, so that meant we had to wait for another one. Then that flight was delayed because the captain was stuck in traffic for a couple hours. We were seated in first class for the first time ever, but didn't get seats together on that flight.

View of the Mississippi River from the hotel

Finally, almost seven hours late, we arrived in New Orleans. But, wait - it's not over yet....

After a shuttle ride to the Sheraton, we were good and ready to go to bed. But as it turned out, that wasn't happening just yet. Thanks to a power surge, they were having problems with the elevators or something, and we were sent to the Westin instead. So we finally got a room and by that time, it must have been 11:00 p.m.

The next morning, Dan had to go straight to his courses (yes, it was a business trip for him), so I was left alone to figure out breakfast and get checked out of the Westin by noon. Someone from the Sheraton picked me up and, thankfully, I was able to get checked in early - I believe check-in isn't normally until 2:00. 

Sadly, my curling iron didn't survive the trip there.

And it's still not over....

While he was in his classes, Dan received the news that his uncle had passed away unexpectedly...tragically. So from that very first day, we were busy trying to figure out how we could switch our flights and fly into Chicago instead for the funeral. We did have a few more days in New Orleans, though, so I'll share a few pictures from our time there:

View of the pool (rooftop, 8th floor) from the 28th floor

We did a LOT of walking

It was so hot and humid, we got treats from Pinkberry to help cool down

Mine was watermelon (funnily, I'm eating watermelon as I work on this post)

Entertainment at the welcome reception

People mingling at the welcome reception (Mardi Gras World)

Dan visited with a lot of people at the IFT, a food tech show

I actually really enjoyed the show..and the free food :)

We tried a lot of new kinds of food here (this is a muffaletta sandwich)

Monday afternoon, we flew out of New Orleans, but the weather was - once again - uncooperative. We sat on the airplane for quite a while before getting cleared to take off. The rain was unbelievable! Of course, we had a layover in Detroit that night - if we had chosen a different flight, it would have cost hundreds $ more. But because our first flight didn't land until so late, there was the possibility that we would be stuck in Detroit that night. We were SO thankful to find out that our flight out of Detroit had been delayed, as well, so we were able to make it to Chicago that night.

Arrangement at the funeral home (as you can see, Bobby was a Cubs fan)

We spent the rest of the week there, then drove Debbie's car to Fargo and picked up my car from the airport. I was actually kind of glad to get home a day earlier than we had planned, because it meant we had the entire weekend to get unpacked and (sort of) relax before heading back to work!

Poor Loki was VERY happy to see us again