What started as an item on Chris’s bucket list, has finally turned into reality. Over the past couple of days, we have packed some items into a U-Haul truck, loaded the dogs into the car, and headed off towards New Orleans, LA for about six weeks or so. The goal is to spend time in NOLA during Mardi Gras, and after quite a few dead-ends, Chris found a place in the French Quarter which we are going to call “home” for a short time.
I’m not really sure how this will work, or if this will be a major issue for the dogs, but we are at least going to try it out. Keep in mind, we are trying this with less than two months to go before we get on a cruise ship to travel across the Atlantic. Not exactly sure what we are thinking, but it will be a crazy time.
Road Trip (Part 1)
We started off on our trek towards NOLA mid-afternoon with the intent of making it to Alexandria, LA for the night. Chris was driving the U-Haul and I was following him with the dogs. We made a few stops along the way, and the dogs traveled exceptionally well (albeit I’m sure they slept most of the way). We arrived in Alexandria to settle in for the night. This would be the dog’s first time in a hotel, and we were expecting the best and the worst. The trip – so far – was uneventful – surprisingly so.
Road Trip (Part 2)
We survived the night and in the morning we got up, got the dogs back in the car and continued our journey. We had about 3 hours to go if we drove straight through, but with the dogs needing their stops, we anticipated it to take closer to 4 hours.
It didn’t…
We were literally 25 minutes from our “home” and here we are on the I-10 Bridge heading into NOLA, and the lanes were closed due to an accident. It has just happened, as there was no emergency services in the area, and from the traffic that was backing up it seemed like it was going to be a challenge to get them there. What seemed like a very long time, but was probably 15-20 minutes, the first emergency services vehicles arrived. By this time, there was a black intense and thick smoke emanating from the crash site. It must have taken closer to an hour for it to get it under control, and when we finally had the opportunity to drive past the site, there was very little left of the vehicle. No clue what happened, or if there were any casualties, though from what we saw, it would be surprising to believe that anyone would have survived that crash.
Arriving in NOLA
We finally arrived in NOLA around 4 PM to meet our realtor for the keys, and shortly after, Zach and Austin were there. It took no time to unload the truck and Chris set off to return it before the office closed.
We were here, and now it was about making what little furniture we took with us work in what was (is) a surprisingly cute little house in the Quarter, and settle the dogs into a new world for them.