My 2013 Family Trip, Inspired by a Broken Piece of Glass

In May of 2013, my family and I took a trip that I will never forget. First, we spent about five days on the Gulf in Florida. This was the first time I had ever seen a beach, and I found that is one the most relaxing places I could ever imagine being. The Gulf was amazing, and I am sure I will crave the soft sand beneath my feet every day until I am able to go back, but the trip to New Orleans on the way home is by far the most cultural and exciting experience I have ever had.

French Quarter Hotel/ Abandoned Building

            It all started when we pulled into the parking lot of a hotel that was built to resemble the French Quarter. We got to our room after the long drive from Perdido Key, Florida and immediately fell asleep. As we drove away in the morning we noticed a deserted building next to the hotel with broken and boarded up windows. At the time we had no idea what the building was or what had happened to it, but later on in one of the many gift shops around town my mom found a book that showed people during Hurricane Katrina evacuating the exact building we saw earlier that day. Realizing this, it gave me the chance to see and understand what these people had gone through, and it made me love the city that much more. As soon as I could see the dome the people evacuated to, and the damage to their homes, I felt like I had a much better appreciation for the trip altogether.

           

Although New Orleans was amazing, the walk down Bourbon St. with my mother, dad, and three younger siblings seemed like it took forever. With strip clubs, inappropriate pictures, and bars lining down the street, you could say that this was no place for a family trip. Needless to say, we avoided Bourbon St. after that. Instead, we turned off of the street as fast as we could and we found a little restaurant that we decided to eat lunch in. Gumbo, alligator tail bites, red beans and rice, and even French toast lined the table with the most intoxicating aroma one could imagine. While we were here, my mother decided to look up activities we could do in New Orleans that were family appropriate, which is when she found the website for the Pharmacy Museum. At the mention of going to a pharmacy museum with items dating back to the early 1800’s, I was practically out of my seat and at the door ready to get there. I have always loved learning about that time period, and this was most definitely my cup of tea. So, with a few more

bites of our oversized French toast, we made our way to the museum.

    

First Floor of the Pharmacy!

Love/Luck Potions

Voodoo Doll

            As soon as I opened up the door I fell in love. Brown and clear glass bottles by the hundreds lining the walls and my eyes never really stopped moving, because everywhere I looked there was something else that  caught my attention. One of the coolest pieces of information that I will never forget, is that back in the day when people would buy love and luck potions in a pharmacy, the potions would be labeled with numbers so that the people could check out without any overly-curious customers finding out what they were up to. This actually inspired the song ‘Love Potion Number Nine.’ It was not uncommon for people to use voodoo dolls, either. Although when people did use them it was not necessarily for negative reasons.  The first licensed pharmasist in the United States worked at this exact pharmacy back in the 1800’s. It was scary to see baby bottles with lead nipples, or the boxes of heroin that doctors would give to patients as  pain killers. In cases like these, I am relieved to have been born in the time that I have. The pharmacy museum was by far my favorite part of New Orleans.

At the end of the day, as we walked what seemed like hundreds of miles back to our car, my mind raced with what all I had learned. I gained a new appreciation for what I had, and for how advanced our technology is nowadays. With blisters on my feet and a smile on my face, we got into our rental car and began our journey back to Springfield, Missouri. I knew this would most likely be the last big family trip I would have before I go off to college next Fall, I was extremely grateful to have gone where we went in that one week. It will be a memory I have with my family that will never go away.



Who knew something so small
could remind you of so much?