Wednesday, August 22nd
We started our final morning in New Orleans with the requisite trip back to Café du Monde for a delicious (though not nutritious) breakfast of beignets buried in a mountain of powdered sugar, as well as their famous chicory coffee to wake Charla up and, in anticipation of our arrival in the Sunshine State, some fresh-squeezed OJ for Chase. On our way out of town we drove across the 23-mile Pontchartrain Causeway. The bridge across Lake Pontchartrain is so long that allegedly one can see the curvature of the earth while crossing the bridge; unfortunately for us, a tanker truck was leaking corrosive chemical waste on I-10, which shut down the Interstate, and forced so much traffic onto the Causeway we didn’t get to see anything too exciting.
On the other side of Lake Pontchartrain, we finally arrived in Abita Springs, Louisiana, the home of Abita beer. The sweet smell of the brewery greeted us as we walked in to find the sampling room already open before our 2:00 tour. The tour of the facility started with two short videos, one about the brewing process and the other about Abita’s mission to go green, and then we were guided into the large room filled with tanks where our only instructions were not to touch anything shiny. The tour was short but informative, and most importantly, it left us with an even greater love of this Louisianan brew.
Leaving Abita we jumped on to I-12, to I-10, to the Mississippi state line and the shockingly nice Mississippi Welcome Center. Also near the Welcome Center is the NASA Infinity Center; the name sounded impressive yet vague, but when we arrived they had just closed and we didn’t end up learning anything more about it. Once we were in Mississippi we ducked off the Interstate onto US90, a scenic rural highway along the coast. In the town of Waveland we had a very exciting moment when we saw the Gulf of Mexico for the first time of the trip! We, of course, slammed on the brakes and waded out to play on Waveland Beach before continuing on east.
We stayed on US90 until the sun set, and once the views were gone we jumped back on I-10 for the long slog east. I-10 passed us right on through the 55 miles of Alabama and the 200 miles of the Florida Panhandle before finally arriving in Tallahassee at 2AM. Charla operated as our Tallahassee tour guide, pointing out both the sights and the day-to-day necessities of the city, until we stopped for the night to say hello to Charla’s mom and goodbye to our road trip from Talkeetna to Tallahassee.
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