My new travel essay went up on Scoutie Girl this week.  This time, I dragged my daughter off to one of my favorite places in New Orleans:  the Pharmacy Museum.  Where else can you learn about leeches, absinthe, folk medicine, and all the different forms of heroin our ancestors gobbled as medicine?

The choice of the Pharmacy Museum was obvious, since I’m not sure it’s a place many people know about or go out of their way to visit, but I also wanted to write about the Audubon Bug Zoo, which spawned our favorite memory of the trip:

One room housed a handful of baby alligators in a tank.  They were floating calmly, just watching us, until one of the keepers climbed up to fish dead water bugs out of the neighboring tank.  Then the alligators stood up on their hind legs, front legs folded in front of them hopefully, and begged to be fed.

Of course, the gesture had to be mimicked throughout the rest of our trip.  I mean, you’ve never seen anything so cute as baby alligators begging.

Baby alligators begging for a treat.

I’ve already written about going on a walking tour through the swamp.  One of these days, I’ll have to write about the ghost tour, too.  And roaming around with Dana Fredsti, getting beignets at midnight. And going to the roadhouse in Metairie with Denise Dumars, where the bartender told us about getting anthrax shots in Afghanistan.

It was a great trip.  I’m ready for another vacation.