Cast of Characters:
Me: 28, Speech-Language Pathologist, UNH hockey and Disney fan. I have serious vacation ADD and struggle with sitting still on vacations. I'm the vacation planner.
Nick: 28, my boyfriend of nearly 4 ½ years. He’s a salesman. He likes to travel, and he likes to leave the vacation planning up to me.
As most trips do, this one came about after much debate over destinations. April vacation is when Nick and I travel together, and we considered many different ideas, before deciding on New Orleans from 4/25/15-4/29/15 and then driving over to Orange Beach, AL to stay until May 2nd. Nick is a big fan of jazz music and has wanted to go to NOLA for years, but we both agreed that a full week in NOLA would be too expensive and too chaotic. So we looked at a map, and started googling towns and cities within 3 hours of NOLA. Orange Beach was on the outer rim of that time limit, and the pictures were gorgeous. A bit of research revealed that there was plenty to do there and nearby to keep us occupied. I love the ocean, I love listening to the waves, I love walking in the sand and water, and I love an excuse to wear my flip flops. But I do NOT love sitting on a beach for an extended period of time. Nick is not a beach sitter either. So we needed a beach area with lots to do.
Once we settled on the destinations, we booked hotels and plane tickets, and then sort of pushed the planning to the side for a bit. Those who know me will be shocked by this, but this school year has just been WAY too busy. Plus in the middle of this we booked a Disney Cruise for next year, and that became more exciting to me. What can I say? Listening to jazz music and walking around a city with a reputation for violence wasn’t super motivating to me. But eventually we got the important stuff planned, like tickets for the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival, which just so happened to coincide with our trip, and reservations for a jazz brunch and for a show at Preservation Hall. A lot more of the vacation got planned on the plane (yay for Southwest Wi-Fi!) and even more got planned on the fly, thanks to the “near me now” feature on the Trip Advisor app. BTW, I love that app.
The days leading up to the vacation were crazy busy, and crazy cold, but vacation did creep closer. On Thursday 4/23, we had snow, which definitely made at least one of us question our sanity in choosing to go to a southern swamp following this brutal winter. On the plus side, the cold weather meant the suitcases were packed way ahead of schedule. Friday night, following a crazy day at work, we spent the night at Nick’s parents’ house, since it is just a few minutes from the airport and we had a VERY early flight.
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