AIR TIMES: • November 10, 2009 4:00 AM EST

Le Cirque (New Orleans)
By the time she graduated high school, Danielle Crook had been everywhere from the Florida Everglades to the peak of Mt. Kilimanjaro. But she'd never been to the American Deep South. Now, at the age of 21, Danielle's on her first visit to New Orleans, Louisiana, and she's taking her best friend -- her mother Marilyn, a 3rd-grade teacher. Together, they taste the Big Easy's creole cooking, go behind the scenes of the Mardi Gras parade, and get up close and personal with the snapping alligators in the Louisiana Bayous.