This week, I went to New Orleans for the first time!
My dad and I arrived on Tuesday afternoon and started our day at The Gumbo Shop because who goes to New Orleans and doesn’t get gumbo? Anyway, I feel I should express here that I thought that besides Bourbon Street, there wasn’t much to do in New Orleans aside from some plantation tours and eating and drinking. I was pleasantly surprised to find that we had a full couple of days.
We took a walk around The French Quarter to see the sights like Jackson Square, Decatur Street, and Steamboat Natchez. If you are not familiar with Steamboat Natchez, it is New Orleans’ only steamboat that takes you on a two hour cruise along the Mississippi River.
After a 30-minute drive and an endless search for parking, we walked another 10 minutes only to find out that the firework show was about 20 minutes and the finale was all of 10 seconds…meaning we missed it while we were walking… When I saw fireworks there in 2015, I don’t remember the duration because we were so far away we could barely tell the show was even going on (a.k.a. The First Fail). But when I asked people if that was really it, everyone seemed confused why I would think it was longer. I was pretty over it and ultimately decided that I wouldn’t try 4th of July in The City of Traffic again. The true highlight was the cute pictures we got at Alex’s house earlier that day! 
Getting to Cabo was sort of a hot mess. Originally, I sent out on a 7:30 a.m. flight out of Dallas to connect in Houston on the way to Cabo, while Ilse would fly nonstop on American. As luck would have it, the first flight out of Dallas to Houston got canceled which rolled paying customers onto the next flight. I fly standby which, for those who don’t know, means I do not have a confirmed seat. I kept getting rolled over so I assumed I wasn’t going to make it out of Dallas and ended up canceling. I decided to Uber home from Southwest headquarters and made it out to the employee shuttle, but somehow ended up getting on the wrong shuttle.
Considering I had to be taken back to the airport anyway, the passengers on the shuttle convinced me to give my trip one more try and to ask a gate agent to help me out. Once I arrived back at the airport, a lovely lady named Summer helped me out by re-routing me to L.A. I made it onto the flight with a minute to spare and one seat left. Once I got to L.A., I had four hours until my completely open flight to Cabo where I spent most of my wait time chatting with a couple of people at one of the restaurant bars. As we prepared to board, two of the ladies I was chatting with asked me about my plans and offered to drive me to my hotel considering they were already getting a rental car for their week-long stay in Cabo as well. Yay! Or so I thought. 
Lex in the City 