(Pardon me while I continue to test out the different methods of placing pictures in my blog. Have to see how well they all work!)

While on vacation in New Orleans a couple of weeks ago, my husband and I spent a morning at the Audobon Aquarium. We got there when it first opened and wasn't at all crowded; by 90 minutes later when we were ready to go, it was pretty full. So fair warning--if you go, go early.

In any case, my favorite part of the aquarium was, interestingly enough, not the aquatic creatures. It was the parakeet house. I grew up with parakeets--my grandmother had those that came to live with us a few months out of the year when she did. I only really remember one of them. His name was Gentleman Jim, or GJ. We'd let him out of his cage and he'd fly around the room, but he mostly liked to be right where we were. I did a lot of homework at the kitchen table with GJ perched on the end of my pencil or trying to sharpen his beak on it while I was writing. He may or may not have been the same parakeet that liked to dive into the fish tank. That was a little more of an adventure. My sister also had birds as pets most of her growing up years, and still does. Me, not a fan of birds in the house myself. Too much seed tossed around, too noisy. But still, I thoroughly enjoyed playing with the parakeets in the parakeet house.

So I'm including two galleries here--one is just photos from our trip that may entice you to go to New Orleans yourself. The other is strictly for the birds.

The galleries are on autoplay, but you can speed up or slow down using the control buttons at either side of the gallery, or you can click on the thumbnails below.

First, general scenes around New Orleans, including random parades that spring up all the time, St. Louis Cathedral, the statue about immigrants (didn't get the actual title), various music ensembles we would stumble across (favorite part of the trip), Audobon Aquarium, New Orleans from the ferry to Algiers Point and one great house in Algiers, and the bayou boat tour (see if you can spot all the critters).