Day 3

Depart at 8:15 am Panama City, FL: Sunny, Clear, 43 degrees

 

We woke up in Panama City to a beautiful view of the Gulf of Mexico. Phil wanted to dip his feet in the gulf, so we walked down to the shore. The water was much warmer than the air outside, and probably even warmer than Ocean City's water during the summer, but unfortunately once Phil got out it was still 34 degrees in the shade. See more pictures of this event and Panama City here.

 

 

 

 

 

 

We then took the Gulf Coast parkway from Panama City to Pensacola. It was a very pretty drive, with the Gulf of Mexico to the left of the road for the majority of the trip. We stopped at a car wash called "Beachy Clean" and finally got the salt washed off the Blazer. We took some pictures of it posing at the beach all clean, see them here.The people there were pretty nice and soon we were on our way again. We passed through several beach towns, and one of them had a bridge to the Gulf Coast Islands, so we payed the 50 cent toll and visited one of the islands. See pictures of our trip through the panhandle here.

 

 

 

Soon we were in Alabama, and we decided to stop for lunch in Mobile.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We stopped for lunch at a place called "Dreamland" because Phil was looking for some good southern Barbeque. This place is by far some of the best BBQ in the world, and they will even ship it to you if you want. Anyways, here is a picture of Phil stuffing his face with it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Later we arrived in Mississippi, but didn't stop, except to take this picture.

 

 

 

 

 

 

We got to Lousiana around 2:30, it was sunny and warm, so we drove with our windows open. We have not seen many states yet, but it is probably safe to say that Louisiana has some of the worst roads in the nation. No, not Alabama as you might expect, Louisiana. Read our rant about Louisiana here, in our "Bizarre traffic from other states" section.

 

 

 

 

Once we arrived in New Orleans, we had a brief bout with the inner city traffic, and soon found that no hotels near the French Quarter or downtown were going for under $100 a night. Evidentily the Sugar Bowl is in town...doh! So we found a cheap best western about 8 miles outside of town, and they have a shuttle service into town. It is pretty nice, and significantly cheaper. We are going into town later to check out the night life, and tommorow we are going on a Voo-Doo Tour...stay tuned!

 

 

Arrive at 3:45pm at New Orleans, LA: Clear, 65 degrees