Travel 101 For Dummies Version

It is very important when traveling to be prepared, especially when you are traveling internationally. Most normal people would first make sure that their passports are in order. I like to consider myself normal so check and check.

Ok, so maybe I am not so normal because check and...Oh NO ! That's right folks there I was Monday night almost a week out from our trip to Italy when I just happened to go in search of our passports. Of course I knew where mine was, right where I had put it after our honeymoon. I was a little more concerned about Brandon's. He has had it for a really long time and I was afraid we would pull it out and it would be expired, or worse yet that we couldn't find it because it was not with mine. However, the joke was on me when I pulled out my passport, flipped it open and saw my MAIDEN name printed across the page...yep... Oh Crap... I immediately got on the phone with my sister to discuss. This issue had never NEVER crossed my mind....probably because the last time I had used it I was married...at least legally... but all of my tickets were obviously in my maiden name...doh. So after an hour making phone calls and discussing the options we really had only one choice to guarentee I was able to get a passport in time...we were taking a road trip!



We literally threw clothes in a bag...my house looks like a tornado came through....put the dogs in their crates and headed to Kinko's {FedEx office...whatever} to get my passport pictures. It was about 9:45pm at this point so as you can imagine I have the BEST passport photo ever. You know it is bad when a young guy is taking the picture and he keeps saying he is going to take one more. Finally, I said you know what I don't care it just needs to get stuck on a passport to get me to Italy. By 10pm we were on our way to Mobile for the first leg of our journey.

I have no pictures of any of this so I will fast forward. The next morning we woke up got back in the car and continued our trip. I will take a few moments to say Brandon was really great through this whole ordeal. I can laugh at it now because it is over, but I was so mad at myself that night for being so dumb to not even check my passport a little before now. He never once twice got irritated with me, dropped everything to go with me {he has a final TODAY} , and even drove the whole way there and back...so thank you babe...I love you.

So we continued on our trip. We left with plenty of time to get there...I was anxiously watching the arrival time on the Garmin...we were 15 miles away when things came to a screeching halt. We were on a bridge to what seemed like nowhere over a vast expanse of water when traffic stopped....just stopped....as in not moving an inch stopped. It was at this moment that I had had all I thought I could take and I was looking at Brandon seeing he had had all he could take and then I heard Brandon having all he could take...so I just stared into the peaceful water hoping that if I wasn't going to make it on time, maybe I would just sink to the bottom of whatever body of water we happened to be suspended over, but they were tightening the bolts on the bridge so that wouldn't happen, hence the stopping.

We finally made it...on time...and I have to hand it to the government this was not anything like the local DMV where I had to go back 4 times to get a stinking license {I had been envisioning this scenario the entire way there}. Everyone was smiling...laughing.... telling jokes. We walked right up to the window handed them my paperwork...and they said come back in 3 hours to pick up my passport....I promise...cross my heart hope to die stick a needle in my eye....that is how it happened. I know, I couldn't believe it either.

Since we had three hours to kill, we had a nice little mini vacation in the French Quarter trying to make lemonade with our lemons. How about some pictures?








So we walked around, I took pictures, Brandon typed away on his blackberry, I took pictures, then we grabbed some lunch somewhere we just wandered into....and I took pictures.



Then we walked around some more and took pictures



I wanted to move into this beauty even though it was a Pizza shop...but hey that could work out nicely too.




I wanted to steal this patio set....LOVED it....I wish I had a picture of the name of the restaurant because I would call and tell them if they ever want to get rid of them to call me....they'd be perfect in a cheery shade of yellow...on my patio.



How cute are these? If they hadn't been a little out of my budget I probably would have brought a couple of cows home with me.

By now our blood sugar was getting a little low with all the walking so we headed to Cafe du Monde for some beignets...their specialty.....I had never had them before....YUM!


This picture was taken post me digging in and shortly after I took this Brandon finished off the rest. We walked some more for good measure after gorging ourselves and then headed to get my passport.



All in all, it was a good day considering the circumstances that brought us to New Orleans. I had never been so I got to see it, spend some QT with Brandon, and most importantly I walked away with a passport. I am sure Brandon might tell a different story, but this is my blog. Oh and I did get a couple extra souvenirs while I was there.