We geared up and set our GPS for Baton Rouge.

We rode through gorgeous green country, lots of soybean fields and trees lining the road. Sprawling estates enhanced the beauty of Southern Mississippi and continued into Louisiana.

Stretching 34 floors into the Louisiana sky, the tallest capitol building was easy to spot from miles away.

We parked beside Capitol Lake and walked through the side garden to the entrance.

It was bustling inside: people everywhere, from legislators and senators to tourists. We climbed the stairs to the second floor where we got our stamp from the information desk.

RJ and I sat in on the House of Reps for a little while and listened to the agenda and bills to be passed. After listening to the committees and realizing nothing too exciting was happening, we decided to venture to the observation deck, 27 stories up.

I was not about to walk up all those flights of stairs and I had told RJ before we ever made it inside the building that he was not going to make me walk up 27 stories, just so we were very clear. We took the elevator instead up to the 24th floor where we had to switch to a special one that took us the rest of the way.

From the observatory deck, we could see the Mississippi River flowing in the distance.

After taking a couple pictures, and marveling at the beautiful world God created, we descended to the ground floor for one of RJ's very-urgent-meetings-that-absolutely-could-not-wait-another-second. Having wrapped up his meeting, we left in search of a coffee shop where RJ could continue his work before we headed to New Orleans.

An hour or two later, we reluctantly left the heavenly air-conditioned coffee shop. The sun was setting behind us and we hoped for cooler weather.

We drove a little over an hour in the heat and humidity down to New Orleans, where we found a Cajun restaurant close to downtown. We ordered wayyy too much food for just the two of us; I don't even know what all we had to eat. We scarfed it down as the restaurant was closing in 15 minutes.

We got back on our bike and continued into downtown New Orleans. We finally found a parking spot half a mile from where we wanted to be. By this time it was after 9 P.M. and there was a huge party going on right down the street. We locked up our gear and walked to Cafe Du Monde. This restaurant is the reason our entire trip came to fruition. It was our main reason for driving down to New Orleans, and where the idea to travel the United States even began.  It all started when we watched the movie Chef for about the third time.  The movie is about a father and son on an epic road trip in their food truck.  They stop at various cities throughout the US to sell their food and try different food in the city.  The movie has a scene where the duo makes a stop at Café Du Monde for their famous beignets and marvel at how good they are.  Ever since, we've wanted to try a beignet from that exact same restaurant.

We walked up to the window and asked for an order of beignets and the lady handed us a bag filled with powdered sugar and three warm beignets nestled inside.  We ate with abandon.  They were even better than the movie depicted.

After fulfilling our dream, we strolled the busy streets. The two of us browsed the shops, trying on face masks and marveling at one of the shops filled entirely with hundreds of different kinds of hot sauce.

I bought my Louisiana coffee mug and was rather pleased to notice it had the name of the street where Café Du Monde is located.

We walked back to our bike to leave for our campsite, but down the road we could hear a live band playing inside one of the bars.  They were belting it out and sounded amazing so we had to check it out.  We stood there, just listening to them perform for quite awhile until we were both going deaf from the speakers.

We took off for our campsite on the outskirts of town, stopping first for fuel and a couple water bottles. It was so hot and muggy that we didn't bother setting up the tent, choosing rather to copy the guy at the site next to us and sleep on our mats under the stars.

Cheers!

~em and rj