pentultimate and ultimate days in nawlins

on my penultimate day in new orleans (this trip) dianna and i had planned to go on a swamp tour in breaux bridge (near lafayette). somehow we let lazy get the best of us and we ended up just going across the bridge over to jean lafitte national park. i thought we were going over to the chalmette battlefield and was very perplexed when we ended up near gretna.

i am super excited because dianna wants to work on a summer series on the national parks. of course i want to go with her and learn all about them. and i felt like our stop here could be the beginning of a wonderful series.

after learning that the swamp tour at the park requires that you bring your own canoe we opted to go on a nature walk. (dianna's favorite thing to do. i always resist and then have a great time)

queen d at the beginning of the trail

who said the bayou wasn't sultry?

i thought this was awesome.
if you look close you will read
"with a dozen palmettos a person could construct an effective,
watertight dwelling in less than a day"
maybe i should give up the brick house and go with palmettos?
it'd be faster!

this is an old cypress tree.
one of the few this old left.
it really is humongous

the first gator we spotted.

a little baby gator hangin' out in the leaves
can you see him?

another one

this guy was my favorite.
he was so little and i kinda just wanted to try and catch him
how much harm could such a little guy do?
i never tried, so i don't know

spring was everywhere.
little babies of all sorts sitting around
it was awesome

the day i had to leave i didn't want to go. the weather was perfect and i was just getting the hang of life on vacation on the bayou. dianna and i had been running around Audubon park and so we headed out again. this time, i decided that we should do the "parcourse fitness" for fun. so we ran in-between stations. it was great fun! and i was really sore a couple days later.

chin-ups
man these are hard!

i have to wonder why my legs are all the way out there like that?
i was trying to pull up slow and easy
i guess i just kick my legs out weird!

doing curls
i think i look ridiculous, but dianna made me include this photo
because:

i wanted to include this

this is Audubon park