It's time to pick up the hire car for our 12 day round road trip from New Orleans. We start, on the wrong side of the road again, towards our first stop in Lafayette. Familial tension leads to an icy silence permeating the car for the first half hour which doesn't bode well for the road trip. However, a quick stop to eat truly awful food at a chain coffee shop and heavy rain that drenches Mum gets us smiling again and soon we're rocking it out to 'Cocaine' by Eric Clapton. Ahh, the family that sings about drugs together, stays together.

The highway over swamp lands was eerie and picturesque at the same time. Best stretch of highway I've driven, barring maybe Port Douglas. We finish off the nature trip with a stay in a rustic Airbnb cabin on acreage a bit out of Lafayette. Our only neighbours are 2 dogs who adopt us for the night and the guy at the next property who stops by with his daughter on a golf buggy to say hello. We grill our own dinner and are in bed by midnight for once. Thank god, maybe I won't need Betty Ford after all.