done New Orleans...

the hotel St Pierre was a bit rickety - but Louis Armstrong stayed there, so who am I to complain...
We had a very enjoyable 3 days listening to music, eating and roaming those beautiful streets in the French Quarter where we stayed, the Garden district, going by tram, by ferry to the other side of the mighty Mississippi... on the way we stayed over in Pensacola beach, where we had our first proper US restaurant meal, and it was just marvellous. Also the view from our room was just a wide ocean - and sky - and nothing else... returning from New Orleans we managed to catch a horrendous cloudburst that wouldn't stop, so we had to cut our journey, sleeping in Panama city, which was also an experience. Next day everything was clear and shiny like if all that rain nver happened, so we managed to see Wakula park and lodge, and took part of the springs boat trip. I was dreadfully cold, as I had no warm cloths, and the sharp winds might have been all the way from Lancashire... but we saw all the wildlife - all the birds, alligators, turtles insisted on being seen. And not forgetting those mystical creatures - manatees! Yes, we saw them quite close by.
sorry about being short - but I cannot do justice to all the beautiful, weird, tasty, weird, interesting and weird things... Sharon lent me her old camera, so I could make photos, maybe I talk more about it all when it settled... even though it is colder here than usual, it still makes it up to 20C during the day, while it is snow and freezing temperatures in both Hungary and the UK... glee glee and glee... we are planning our trip to Melody next week, to St Petersburg and other parts of more to the South of this enormous peninsula, maybe more boat trips to the Keys
see how it goes.
pictures show tram inside, garden district, music scene, street...
the point is really, that this country is so bloody giant - days of days of interstate highway, we done 2000miles and didn't get very far from Florida really, though we gone through a bit of Mississippi and Alabama before Louisiana... all flat with trees and trees and water everywhere...