Yesterday we rode the streetcars in New Orleans, firstly travelling on the garden line past all the grand houses then changing to the line that went up Canal St and stopped at City Park. Here we went to the Morning Call Cafe and again enjoyed coffee and beignets as well as gumbo and jambalaya. This filled in our last day nicely and we spent the evening eating on Bourbon St and listening to music again - a bit of traditional jazz this time!
We picked up a car in New Orleans this morning and headed out of the city in the direction of Birmingham, Alabama where we hope to be by tomorrow night. Before we got across Lake Pontchartrain in New Orleans it had started to rain heavily. We noticed that just over the Mississippi state line there was a NASA facility so we decided to stop there and do their tour. It was the Stennis rocket testing facility and Infinity interactive Science Centre. We were able to see rocket engines and space suits as well as be taken on a tour to see where the engines are tested - the towers that are water cooled so as not to melt from the intense heat of the engines.
It was still raining when we left here as we headed north through Mississippi but the rain eventually cleared later in the afternoon. We have stopped at a place called Laurel in Mississippi and tomorrow we'll have a bit over 200 miles to drive to Birmingham in Alabama.