Chris & Victoria's Honeymoon

Back Home

2007-03-16T06:26:00.000-07:00

Back home after a wonderful vacation. It was everything we had hoped for and more.

The last day of the trip was a great food day. It was raining most of the day though so we didn't do much more in the line of sight seeing or attractions. The one thing we did go and see was the Culinary history of New Orleans exhibit. It was an interesting stop with many pictures and artifacts from years gone by. Several menu's from restaurants over the years.
Then we went for lunch at Acme Oyster Bar. We started out with half a dozen raw oysters then half a dozen grilled oysters. And they were AMAZING! The grilled ones were better, but put anything in garlic butter smothers with cheese and it's going to be better. Anyway, we started with that, had a couple of Po Boys(subs) , then finished with a pecan pie for desert. Everything was very good and we would suggested anyone that like oysters go to this place.
After lunch we decided to just relax and bide our time until dinner at NOLA's. You don't think you are tired until you lay down on a feather bed, then you are out like a light.
We got all dressed up in our Sunday finest and headed out to NOLA. about a 15 minute walk from the Ritz. It had just started to rain again as we stepped into the restaurant so we got lucky getting there. we were not so lucky on the way home.
NOLA's was Perfect. We stared at the bar as we waited for our table to be ready. I had a Long Island Ice Tea and Victoria had a Vodka on the rocks. It didn't take long until we were being seated. NOLA has three levels to it, with an elevator in the middle to take guests from one floor to the next. So we road the elevator up to the second floor and were seated in a nice corner where Victoria could people watch all night. The service was perfect, high dinning service but in a more casual environment. There were three servers covering our area of 5 tables. Each had their own job and did it well.
To start Victoria had " Baby Greens Tossed in Sherry Wine-Bacon Vinaigrette with Blackberries and Warm Pistachio Crusted Goat Cheese " and I had the special of the day app which was grilled Scallops on a bed of spinach cooked in garlic butter resting on phyllo pastry.
For our main dish I had the " Hickory-Roasted Duck with Whiskey-Caramel Glaze, Buttermilk Cornbread Pudding, Haricot Verts-Fire Roasted Corn Salad, Natural Jus and Candied Pecans" which was amazing. You would think in a place like this you would get a duck breast and that's it. Nope, I got half a duck with this meal. It was almost to much food.
Victoria had the " "Shrimp & Grits" Sautéed Gulf Shrimp, Grilled Green Onions, Smoked Cheddar Grits, Apple Smoked Bacon, Crimini Mushrooms, Creole Tomato Glaze and Red Chili-Abita Butter Sauce ". It was perfect, the shrimp were cooked perfectly, the flavors worked really well together and she ate every last spoon full.
Next was desert. After my half a duck I was in no need for desert but Victoria wasn't passing up this chance to have desert. She had a slice of chocolate bourbon pecan pie with sweet potatoe ice cream and caramel drizzle. It was yum yum yum!
So we had finished our meal at NOLA's and we rate it our Number 1 meal for the trip. Not by very much though. But that's for another post.
We headed back to the hotel in the rain, got into our feather bed and drifted off to sleep for the last time on our honeymoon. In the morning we went down to the restaurant in the hotel for breakfast(side note here, the breakfast tray we had from the day before was Still in the hallway outside our door) We had eggs benedict. Mine was traditional Vic had a crab cake on the bottom instead. Both were good. We went back up to the room, packed up our stuff and said good bye to our room. Some of us took longer to say goodbye then others, but I won't say who.

Overall we loved our trip, best one either of us has ever been on. We thank everyone for reading and commenting both right on here and the emails people have sent. I'm sorry that some people couldn't log into the system to post. We hope to get a chance to go to New Orleans again, after they have finished repairing all the damage from the storms. After a few days of rest we'll be posting our Best/Worst awards on here for all to see.

Thanks again, talk to you all later.

The Ritz

2007-03-14T08:47:00.000-07:00

Victoria in the Bed at the Ritz
Victoria in the Swamp holding an Alligator

Here we are on our last full day of our honeymoon. Chris typing.

We spent last night here at the Ritz Carlton in New Orleans. We have an amazing room(thank you folks at On the Twenty) We have a king sized bed with about 10 feather down pillows on it, and a Feather pillow top mattress that you just sink right into. We have a fully stocked bar fridge that I have already locked so Victoria doesn't take anything out of it. The little bottle of gummy bears alone is $6.95.

The bathroom is all done up in Marble, marble floors, marble tiles around the bathtub. There are three seperate rooms just for the bathroom. One toilet room, one tub room and one vanity room. It's quite bright with all the white marble and huge mirrors.

When we arrived we received a nice little welcome package from the Ritz, basically a letter and a CD with some jazz on it.

Once we got to the room Victoria roamed around the room taking pictures, picking things up and oooing over them. Once she found the Ritz Robe she put it on and hasn't taken it off yet. She even slept in it. For our turn down service we received 66% dark Valrhona chocolate. Victoria liked that very much.

So far everything has been perfect with the Ritz, other then the construction going on in the street out front of the place, but nothing can be done about that. =)

Last night we went out to Mulates for dinner. A traditional Cajun restaurant. It was fantastic. There was live music playing and I would guess around 200 people in the place. I had a basic seafood platter so I could try everything(stuffed crab, fried oyster, catfish, shrimp, crawfish, and frogs legs) and Vic had the Crabmeat Au Grautin with a twice baked potatoe and sauteed veg. Everything was amazing. The better dinner award went to Victoria this night though as hers was just to die for. Mulates is now in our top 3 for meals on this trip. and we would recommend it to anyone coming down here.

We decided to stay in last night and catch up on a little sleep. As today promises to be a full day or touring the city and eating Good, Good food. Acme Oyster Bar for lunch and NOLA for dinner. We can't wait for NOLA.

This will be the last post from the road. Our internet runs out this afternoon and I won't pay another $10 just for tonight(yes, I'm cheap) So we'll post again when we get home for all those not in the area. Thanks for reading our blogs, we enjoyed all of your comments.

Talk to you later

Chris & Victoria

Welcome to the Swamp!!!!

2007-03-13T14:51:00.000-07:00

Read the other post first then read this.

So Monday morning we ate our continental breakfast in the open air courtyard then set off on a funfilled day of Plantations and the Swamp!!!
Oak Alley Plantation was first. We were there an hour early so we had beignets and coffee at the restaurant. YUMMY!!!! The tour was really cool... I want to live there!!! We had a mint Julep as we walked around the grounds...took pictures.... I would love to be a Southern Belle!!!

Off to Laura Plantation..... Completely different. This was a Creole plantation. Everyone worked not just the slaves. Check them both out online and deffinitely visit them both if you come down for a visit. Both had great tour guides...nice houses.... expensive giftshops.

Off to the Swamp!! So we arrived in Lafitte, Lousianna..... Don't blink, you'd miss it. It was a two hour Airboat tour of the swamp and marshlands. IT WAS SOOOOOOOO COOL!!!!! Definitely one of the coolest things I have ever done. I was scared at first to go on the airboat because I don't like boats but I got over that fast. We saw alot of alligators and birds and turtles and trees oh my! Did you know that alligators eat marshmallows??? Seriously alligators eat marshmallows!!! Chris took a video of it to prove it!! They don't chew or even taste their food they just swallow it hole. I even got to hold a baby alligator!! I GOT TO HOLD A BABY ALLIGATOR!!!! IT WAS SOOOOOOOOO CUTE!!!!! Chris has pictures. But Chris is a chicken he didn't hold it. So all in all it was an amazing tour!!!

Back in the French Quarter we went for dinner at a Soul Food restaurant called the Praline Connection. We had fried okra to start, then I had BBQ ribs with Jambalaya rice and collard greens. Chris had a breaded pork chop with red beans and rice. Yummy food but HUGE portions. When we ate all we could we left and walked around for awhile. We got drinks at a Jazz club on bourbon st. I had a Hurricane and Chris had a mint julep! Boy were they strong!!! Good music good drinks. We then walked up and down Bourbon st. at all it's glory and had the largest daiquirri that I have ever had!!! I was alittle tipsy.

So now that I have typed all of this Chris gets to come and add a couple pictures. We will write tomorrow to tell everyone of the trip to the RITZ!!!!

New Orleans

2007-03-13T14:30:00.000-07:00

Hello Everyone... here is a recap of the last few days. Didn't have WiFi and now we are paying for it. Literally....$10 a day. So we are only paing for 1 day. Cheaper then the Marriott!

We went to the USS Alabama in the Mobile Bay. It was a big warship from the WW2 time period. It was grey... it has guns... go Americans go! We have pictures. I don't like boats so we didn't stay an overly long time.

Next we drove through the rest of Alabama and into Mississippi. I had lots of fun saying M-i-s-s-i-s-s-i-p-p-i. I think I was starting to drive Chris crazy. We turned off in Biloxi for lunch and drove around down by the gulf. We think Biloxi was hit by hurricane Katrina or some other recent storm since there was lots of damaged buildings and vacant lots. I have pictures.

It was a bit of a downer to see the beautiful beach on one side and mass destruction on the other. There were several "Waffle Houses" that were destroyed!!! It makes you appreciate Mother Nature and her mood swings. Anyways we had lunch at Popeye's.... nothing special....everything is fried. Back onto the Interstate.

We decided to bypass Baton Rouge etc. and come straight to New Orleans. Yes we saw lots of the Katrina devastation. From the highway you see rows and rows of vacant houses, all boarded up. Business have moved or been vandalised and parts of the city look like a ghost town.

At the Louisianna Tourist Info Center we picked up a bunch of Travel and Hotel Coupons and headed out again. One of the coupons was for a hotel in the French Quarter called Hotel Chateau. We told the front desk clerk it was our Honeymoon and she upgraded us from the cheapest room they had to a King size bed Balcony Room. The Hotel is on the corner of Chartres and St.Philip. Cute room cute outdoor courtyard.... nice place...you should go.

After seetling in we decided to go walking around and to try and find something to eat. We walked all over the French Quarter Bourbon st. etc. and we settled on a restaruant called Petunia's. It was really good!!! Oh Julie you are going to love the name of the guy who owns if..... Hoyle Byrd!!!! I kid you not!!! I had Cajun Pasta and Chris had Grilled Red fish. Yum.

More Pictures

2007-03-11T17:25:00.000-07:00

Chris at Nasa
Victoria at Nasa

Some gaters at the Mini Putt across the road from our hotel in Orlando
A Gater at Gaterland
Some animals begging Victoria to feed them at Gaterland
View from Beach at our Hotel in Orlando

Sad Sad Victoria

2007-03-10T19:00:00.000-08:00

Oh NO!!!!!!!! WE MISSED A BBQ FESTIVAL RIGHT HERE IN MOBILE!!!!!! AND IT FINISHED TODAY!!!!!!

See what happens when you don't plan things!!!!!

Mobile Alabama

2007-03-10T18:34:00.000-08:00

Howdy Y'all

We are writing today from Mobile Alabama. Today has been long but fun. We started out in Tallahassee. Had breakfast at a place called Another Broken Egg. It was fantastic. Chris had an omellette with crab, onions and cheese and I had an omellette with bacon, chorizo sausage and cheese. They were yummy. Really slow service and surprisingly this has been a recurring theme today.

We drove through downtown Tally(as the locals call it) in the day time and looked around. It's nice. Then we set off on an adventure to the Florida Caverns State Park. Awesome tour!!! The tour guide was fabulous. We were about 50 feet underground. We took many pictures of formations in the caves. Apparently there are like 30 caves that they have discovered on the property but you can only tour this one.

So we left the park and then on the way back to the interstate we drove past a Federal Correctional Facility and it was really nice!! Kinda odd placement though...it was beside a Middle School. We think it was a fairly low security prison because we didn't see any guys in towers with guns. So we stopped for a snack at a Sonic's. Bad choice. Drinks were good but service and food wasn't sooo good. Every order including our own that we saw the workers bring out to people were wrong! They gave me the wrong salad and it took forever to get the right one.

We decided after snack time to see how long it would take us to get to either Pensacola or Mobile today. Well they are about 50 miles apart so we headed to Mobile. We arrived at the hotel at about 6pm and got our room keys. Brought our luggage up stairs and I opened the door.... and low and behold a NAKED guy was changing in front of me!!!! Obviously the front desk screwed up. Chris had to go back to the front desk and get the correct room. Funny thing is that the same thing happened to someone else yesterday!!! I hope that doesn't happen again it wasn't a pretty site. So after getting settled we went for dinner. We ate at a restaurant called JR's Smokehouse and proceeded to have an amazing dinner!!! Chris had a full slab (rack) of dry rub ribs and I had a combo of pulled pork and smoked sausage. Chris would like to change his Best BBQ honour from last night to tonight. While last night was good the Quality of tonights food far outweighs yesterday. Chris really enjoyed last nights Quantity. So if these two places got together Chris would never leave.

So that's all for today... We are in Central time zone now and with the time change tomorrow I don't know what time it will be when we get up and stuff.

Bye y'all...Y'all have a good night!!

Pictures

2007-03-10T05:51:00.000-08:00

Morning All.

Decided to just post some pictures from our trip so far. Yesterday was mostly a day off, we drove over to Tallahassee, found a nice cheap place and relaxed. Our hotel was dependent on the fact that at 7pm they brought out free freshly baked cookies!!! Chocolate chip and white chocolate macadamia nut. Yum. We had dinner at Sonny's Real Pit BBQ. Here is what we had: Pulled pork, sliced pork, ribs, ribs, more ribs, smoked turkey, pulled brisket, smoked chicken, mac and cheese, cornbread, garlic bread, corn on the cob, baked beans oh and potato salad. No this was not a buffet. They just kept bringing Chris more food since he got the all you can eat meal. He says that it was the best BBQ he has had. We then went to the Tallahassee Mall and went to see Wild Hogs. We thought it was appropriate after all the bikers yesterday. Fabulous movie. Go see it.

Anyway, here are some pics

Buffalo Airport. Last of the snow.
North Carolina, Charlotte Airport
Chris and our rental car. Orlando.
The view of the lake behind our hotel in Kissimmee.
Me eating breakfast outside in Kissimmee.

Byees!!!

Then Tragedy Struck

2007-03-09T05:47:00.000-08:00

Good morning all, Chris Here

Another day down. It was a pretty good day overall. We started out from Orlando around 9:00 heading for St. Augustine. It was another lovely day, 68 degrees as we left Orlando. We saw a few signs for Daytona beach and wondered if it was along the way or not. Sure enough, about half way to St. Augustine is Daytona Beach. Mrs. Plested needed a rest stop so we decided to stop in at Daytona just to check it out. Well it so happens that this week is Biker week. So there are thousands and thousands of Bikers here. and they are everywhere in this part of Florida right now. As I type this there are about 20 bikes in the parking lot of the hotel we are staying at.

Anyway, so we stopped at a Bob Evans for an early lunch. The Bob Evans in Daytona just happens to be right across from the Speed Way. So we have a few great pictures of that. We had a simple meal there, but it was pretty good. Then we took off down to the beach. We drove up the coast towards St. Augustine stopping along the way to get some nice pictures of the ocean and the beaches. All the while bikers were everywhere.

We pulled into St. Augustine around 2:00. found a hotel quickly since there were so many people around. We ended up at a Howard Johnson Express. It turned out to be a great choice as one of the trolley tours goes right through the parking lot.

So we unpacked our stuff and decided to go on said tour so we could get a feel for the city before we started wandering around. Little did we know that this would be the best part of our time in St. Augustine. The Tour lasted about an hour taking us all around the historic district of the town. We saw the Fountain of youth, the Fort, several old Churches and Hotels ect. All in all a great tour and we did actually learn about the town while on it.

Once we were done with that we walked over to the Fountain of Youth(about a 2 minute walk from our hotel) For the bargain price of $7 each we got to see the fountain and have a glass of the water from it. And let me tell you, it wasn't worth the $7 or even the 2 cents the paper cup was worth. It was a smelly glass of stagnant water and the "attractions" they have build up around the place are lame. The only cool thing about the place was the 20 or so Peacocks wandering around. There were three or four pure White ones. We have several pictures of them as well(pictures should be posted by tomorrow, )

So we spent about 30 minutes there and that was plenty. We came back to the hotel and washed out the bad taste in our mouths with good spring water. We then decided to go downtown to the shopping district and find somewhere nice for dinner. We walked through all the little shops and it is very cute. Think Niagara on the Lake or Port Perry or a much bigger Port Carling. We then tried to find somewhere to eat. We walked through the whole historic district and really didn't find anything worth going into(that would cost less then $200) so we ended up at a pub called Scarlet O'Hara's. The driver on our tour said it was a pretty good place. I had the seafood platter(bunch of fried seafood) and Vic had the Southern Fried Chicken. The only thing I would suggest having again from my meal was the Crab Cake and the only thing Victoria suggests from her meal was the drink she had, it has Cranberry Juice, Lime Juice, and Southern Comfort. So overall, this meal is in a distant last place so far on this trip.

After dinner we decided to go on a ghost walk of the area. We had looked this up before hand and it looked cool. It started at 8:30 and lasted for an hour and a half. The best thing I can say about it was that we got some exercise out of it. LOL Our tour guide has just started doing this job 2 months ago and hasn't memorized all of her lines yet. All she was doing was trying to regergitate lines, and the one that we found quite funny is in every story she told, at some point in the story, Tragedy would strike. Hence the title of todays entry. ;)
Vic thinks she was drunk, and proceeded to tell half the people on the tour with us this. It's possible she was, probably more the fact that she was nervous and just not used to the job yet. But since this is the type of thing that is only good if your guide is good, it was a terrible ghost walk(other then the one picture we got of the "orbs" which we will post tomorrow)

By the time we got home we were exhausted and fell asleep pretty quickly. Before we did though we decided we had seen enough of St. Augustine and would be moving on in the morning.

So we are off to new adventure god knows where. talk to you again on the other side

Chris and Victoria

Wednesday Wackyness

2007-03-08T04:25:00.000-08:00

Hi Y'all!!! It's Victoria.

So Wednesday was wacky, wild and long. We had breakfast at the hotel and then left for Gatorland. Sea World was way to expensive so Gatorland for $20 a person was perfect for us!! We drove by tons of really amazing hotels on the way. Most notably the Ritz Carlton and J.W. Marriott whict you can see from like 30 miles away!!!

Gatorland was fabulous! Lots of gators obviously... birds.... snakes.... a petting zoo with baby goats!!!!! They were soooo cute! The baby alligators were adorably too. We watched two shows. One was the Upclose Encounters where they proceeded to bring scary things out of boxes and made the audience hold them. Mostly snakes. The secong show was the Gator Jumparoo show where they make gators jump out of the water for pieces of raw chicken. Chris took some really good photos of both of them. We took the train ride and apparently Indiana Jones was partially shot there. Don't remember which movie but it must have been one with alligators in it. They have an alligator breeding marsh and wherever you looked off into the distance were lots of alligators. Then we decided to try some gator meat. Gator nuggests and Gator ribs. Chris liked it...I couldn't get past the little bones in the ribs. I don't think I would eat Gator again. Maybe I should suggest Gator to our chef for the next menu?

Chris and I had lunch with one of Chris's Internet Gaming friends and his fiancee. His real name is Kenny but his "handle" is Thraggen. We went to an Italian restuarant called Palace Italian Grill. Fantastic food!!! They brought out complimentary bruschetta and roasted peppers then Chris ordered lasagna and I have a proscuitto and mozzarella panini. We had a Lemoncello Tart for dessert and also complimentary glasses of Lemoncello. We had a great time at lunch and we can't wait for them to visit us up in the cold cold north.

So from Lunch we travelled to the Florida Strawberry Festival. All I can say is WOW. Americans know how to throw a Fair!!! We walked around alittle bit and then went to see the Pig Races!!! Robinson's Racing Pigs!!! I got to bet one one pig at her name was Britney Spareribs. They are the cutest things ever!!! We watched them race around a track and then they also raced and swam!!! The last race they brought out baby pigs to race and it seriously was the cutest thing ever!! Yes we have both video and pictures. We walked around the Livestock area and looked at all the crafts. We had some dinner. Polish and Italian sausages on buns and a Blooming onion. Yummy onions. We also had a Strawberry shortcake (minus the whip cream)They had some of the most interesting fried foods!!! They had Fried Twinkies and Oreo's!!!! Next was the concert. We had fairly good seats. He sang a bunch of songs. Some I knew and most I didn't. Yes he sang all the old favourites like Through the years, Islands in the Stream, the Gambler, Lucille etc. The Gambler was funny. There was a big screen and they played clips from the Gambler movie 1-5 and then hesaid coming soon Gambler 6 and they had Coolio and old movie clips of Kenny Rogers superimposed together!!! Then he started trying to RAP!!!! We also saw his twin boys and wife. They came out on stage and Kenny made one of the twins sing the Gambler... Hilarious!!! Overall it was a good concert! I hope some of the pictures turned out.

So we left the Strawberry Festival fully bloated from deep fried food and with alittle bit of a country twang. I bought some strawberries, we are needing some wholesome food after the last few days.

Alright we have to go now.... Driving to St. Augustine today. So that's all from Orlando.

Oh and Sid and Dorothy....no babies just yet...let me concentrate on my apprenticeship for alittle while. Check back with us in a year.

Day 2 done and done

2007-03-06T17:40:00.000-08:00

A couple pictures from the wedding

Chris Here

Well here are are at the end of day two. We stopped in at Chili's last night for dinner, I had the baby back ribs(of course) and Victoria had a chicken and shrip fajitas. It was very very good and we were both very full when we left. We started today with a quick breakfast which we ate out on the patio in the beautiful sunshine. Then we jetted off to the Kennedy Space Centre(God love the GPS) It was a full day of riding around on a bus, stopping at all the interesting points on the Island(or at least the ones they took us too). We stopped at the observation Gantry which you could see the vehicle assembly building and the launch pads from. Then we stopped at the apollo visiter center. It was mostly about the moon landing with a replica of the rocket to scale in the building. Last was the international space station centre. All about the space station of course, but you get to see the room with current projects for the station in action. I got several pictures of people actually working on equipment.

So all this took about 4 hours but it was well worth it and lots of fun.

On our way back we decided to stop for dinner at Bahama Breeze. A theme restaurant that was a lot of fun and excellent food. To start we had Fire Jack Shrimp. Then I had Mahi Mahi and Victoria had Jamacian Chicken. Then to finish it all off we had Dulce De Leche Cheesecake.

This has now become our best dinner of the trip. It was simply amazin.

Our after dinner entertainment was A mini putt across the street from our Hotel. Fun as hell. Once I download some of the pictures from our camera I'll post them. But it was the most interesting mini putt either of us had ever seen.

Signing off for tonight. Talk about tomorrow

We're Here!!!!

2007-03-05T17:23:00.000-08:00

Hey...

We have arrived in Kissimmee!!! The flight from Buffalo to Charlotte was alittle rough taking off but all was well. When we arrived in Charlotte North Carolina we had lunch at a Carolina Pit BBQ fast food restaurant and it was fantastic!!!! Chris had pulled pork on a bun and I had Smoked Turkey on a bun. We definitely need a restaurant like that in Ontario. Our flight out of Charlotte was an hour late departing but it went alot smoother then the first. When we got to Orlando it was 65 degrees and sunny. We have rented a silver Chevy Impala which Chris says drives like a dream. It's 8:30pm now and we are hungry I think we are going to get fast food. So I am going now... Have to serach the hotel room for cool free stuff. WOOHOO free Coffee!!!

Byees!

2007-02-20T08:17:00.000-08:00

Current Itinerary

March 5th

11:40am – Leave from Buffalo on our way to Orlando
3:00pm – Arrive in Orlando
Will be staying at the Lake Suites Hotel in Kissimmee for the first 3 nights.

March 6^th

Visit Cape Canaveral and NASA

March 7^th

Visit Sea World in the morning. Lunch with one of Chris's Internet friends.

In the afternoon we are going to the Florida Strawberry Festival. At 7:30 pm we will be seeing Kenny Rogers live in concert!!!

March 8^th

Head towards St. Augustine.

Currently plan on visiting the Fountain of Youth, Castillo de San Marcos and going on a ghost walk during our stay in St. Augustine.

March 9^th

St. Augustine during the day, head to Tallahassee in the evening

March 10^th

Tallahassee and surrounding area tours. Plantation houses and such. Also several Caves in the area.

March 11^th

Driving tour along the coast on our way to Mobile Alabama, possibly straight through to Baton Rouge if time permits. Probably several stops along the way as we see interesting things.

March 12th

Drive to Baton Rouge if not already there. Go on bayou/air boat tour(s)

March 13

Drive to New Orleans

March 14^th

Dinner at Emeril’s

March 15^th

1:00pm Board plane to Buffalo

6:30pm Arrived in Buffalo