Living Our Dream

Shreveport, LA Part III: Rose Garden

Shreveport, LA

Just a few miles up the road from where we were staying at Tall Pines RV Park was the American Rose Center, which is the headquarters of the American Rose Society. The center is located on a 118-acre wooded tract that is home to the American Rose Center Gardens which is a collection of over 65 smaller rose gardens sponsored by various chapters of the American Rose Society or by individual members or couples.

As we pulled into the entrance to the gardens, there was a building that was dark. At first we thought the gardens were closed, but we eventually saw the sign for the administration building located farthed into the property. Apparently they only use the first building for weddings, and the administration building is where the gift shop and garden entrance are located.

We went to the garden relatively early in the morning, because it was supposed to be hot and humid. We were the only car in the parking lot at 9:45 AM. We paid our admission fee, got a garden map, and headed into the garden.

The garden's most distinctive feature is the Windsounds Carillon located right inside the garden entrance. The carillon plays on the quarter hour. As one would expect, the tower is surrounded by roses.

According to the website, the "official" season for the rose garden is April to October, but there are peak times of bloom in the spring (late April to early May) and fall (mid October). There are many varieties of roses, and different types of roses have different bloom patterns, so there were still some roses in bloom even though it was late May.

Some of the gardens at the American Rose Center have companion plantings like azaleas and crepe myrtle to take up the slack when the roses aren't blooming profusely. Unfortunately, the azaleas were done and the crepe myrtles were just starting to bloom. The quiet pool of the Prayer Garden in the next photo is surrounded by crepe myrtle that will be spectacular in a few more weeks.

One of the things we liked about the gardens was the way the paths wound around through the woods and how each individual garden presented a new vignette. Most of the gardens had a focal point such as a sculpture, a pool, or a trellis like the one shown in the background of the photo below to add interest.

There was even a Japanese garden complete with a small tea house.

One garden had a replica of the Statue of Liberty surrounded by yellow roses.

Pink roses lined one side of the walkway to the chapel.

Although the gardens weren't in their peak bloom time, there were some areas that had roses in flower.

We liked the salmon color of the roses in the next garden, so we paused for a photo.

There were also many individual blooms that were beautiful.

We had a nice walk around the American Rose Center Gardens even though only some of the roses were in bloom. We probably would have been disappointed if we had driven a long distance to see the garden, but since it was only a few miles up the road from where we were staying, we're glad we went.

By the time we were done, the sun was getting really hot, and we still had to go back to the RV park to do a few chores since we were scheduled to depart the next day. Look for our next post and we'll tell you where our next stop was.

Shreveport, LA Part II: Mudbug Madness

Shreveport, LA

As we said in our last post, Mudbug Madness is an annual crawfish festival that runs from Thurday through Sunday of Memorial Day weekend near the Shreveport riverfront. We were downtown too late on Thursday to catch the early afternoon entertainment and too early to catch the evening entertainment, so we headed back into Shreveport around noon on Friday. There are several free lots where you can park, and we didn't have any problem finding a spot.

This year marks the 28th Mudbug Madness, which features Cajun music, Cajun food, and crafts. The event is held in Festival Plaza near the riverfront. Admission is $5 per person, but it's free on Thursday and Friday before 5:00 PM - another good reason to go back on Friday rather than try to go Thursday evening.

Mudbug Madness was started in 1983 when several locals decided to do something about the criticism that Shreveport was located so close to the Texas border it was more like Texas than Louisiana. They started the festival to showcase Louisiana foods, Louisiana music, and Louisiana fun.

On our way into the festival, we stopped for a tourist photo.

There are several entrances to Mudbug Madness, but the one we used was close to where the craft booths are located. We saw leather belts, bird houses, Louisiana-themed paintings, photography, and even hand-rolled cigars.

There was also a fairly big children's area with games, a bounce house, face painting and a stage for children's entertainment.

We stopped briefly at the first of two musical stages that had a group playing rock music.

Then we walked on to where the food booths were. We had tried crawfish once before, and we weren't too sure about them; but we couldn't go to a festival called Mudbug Madness without at least trying them one more time. The only problem was there were so many food booths to choose from, it was hard to decide what to get.

In addition to other Louisiana favorites like boudin (a pork sausage), jambalya, and red beans and rice, there were boiled crawfish, crawfish pies, and crawfish étouffée (pronounced Ā-two-fay). Since boiled crawfish are a lot of work to get at the meat, we decided on crawfish étouffée, which is a crawfish stew served over rice.

The étouffée was good with a nice, rich flavor from the dark-brown roux that was used as a base. But we're still not too sure about crawfish. They're not bad, but we expected them to be sweeter like lobster or langostinos.

Another reason we wanted to go Mudbug Madness was to hear some traditional Louisiana Zydeco music. The name Zydeco comes from a French Creole phrase that means literally "the snap beans aren't salty." The figurative meaning is that times are hard.

Zydeco is a form of folk music that started in southwest Louisiana in the early 1800s. It had Creole, Cajun and African influences, and it usually has a fast beat. The primary instrument in Zydeco music is a button or piano accordion. Another traditional Zydeco instrument is the washboard, which is sometimes incorporated into a specially-made instrument called a vest frottoir that is worn over the shoulders like a bib. Zydeco music has matured over the years and now incorporates elements of R & B, soul, hip hop, jazz, reggae and rock.

The name of the band that was playing at the second musical stage was Cedryl Ballou and the Zydeco Trendsetters. They were very good, including their 12-year old drummer.

As Zydeco music moved from homes to church community centers and finally to rural dance halls and night clubs, the music attracted dancers who incorporated different styles including two-step, waltz, shuffle, and rock and roll. We enjoyed watching several couples who were dancing at the festival.

We had an excellent time at Mudbug Madness sampling Cajun cuisine and listening to Zydeco music. By going on Friday afternoon, not only did we beat the crowds, we also got in for free.

We're hoping for at least one more sightseeing outing before leaving the area, so stay tuned.

Shreveport, LA Part I: Shreveport Riverfront

Shreveport, LA

We started our sightseeing in Shreveport with a drive downtown to see the area around the Shreveport riverfront. Shreveport, LA, which was originally named Shreve Town, was established in 1836 on the banks of the Red River. It was named for Captain Henry Shreve who was a riverboat captain and inventor who designed a special boat to clear log jams (called snags) from rivers to make the rivers navigable.

The Red River had a series of log jams 150 miles long called the Great Raft. The section of the jam around the area that was to become Shreve Town extended from 17 miles upstream to 8 miles downstream. Captain Shreve was asked by the Secretary of War to clear the Great Raft from the Red River in 1832. The Work was completed in 1838. There is a statue of Henry Shreve gazing out over the Red River in front of the Riverview Theater in downtown Shreveport.

In spite of the fact it was a weekday, and in spite of the fact it was the opening day of Mudbug Madness (more about that later), we found a free parking spot in a little gravel lot right along the river. We began walking upstream.

There is a nice riverfront park where they apparently have concerts and special events. The park had some interesting stainless steel roses along the water. The roses have colored lights in them that light up at night.

The next photo is a closeup detail of one of the roses.

The glass-domed building near the center of the photo below is the Barnwell Conservatory, which is located adjacent to the riverfront park.

Although we usually like anything that has to do with plants and flowers, the Barnwell Conservatory is fairly small, and it was much too nice a day to go inside to see flowers. We were content to walk around the small outdoor garden and then continue strolling along the river.

Behind the conservatory was a purple martin house. Purple martins, which are members of the swallow family, are very fast and agile, so we couldn't get a good photo of an individual bird because they were too busy flitting back and forth trying to keep their newly-hatched offspring fed.

Purple martins are considered to be highly beneficial because they eat a lot of insects. Unfortunately, the purple martin population in the U. S. declined with the release and spread of European starlings in the 20th century.

In front of the conservatory, Paul stopped to admire a pelican sculpture.

Back along the river, we saw the boat for the one-hour "Spirit of the Red" sightseeing cruise pass by.

There are also lots of casinos along the river. In the photo above of the Barnwell Conservatory, the tall buildings behind the conservatory are the Eldorado Casino (left) and Sam's Town.

Shreveport has a sister city right across the river called Bossier (pronounced BO-zher) City where we could see more casinos. On the Bossier City side of the river, the casinos are on riverboats on the water and the hotel part of the casino is a tower on land. The next photo shows the Horseshoe Hotel and Casino.

A little way downstream, the riverboat of the Boomtown Casino almost looks like it is steaming around the bend in the river.

Also right across the river in Bossier City is the Louisiana Boardwalk. After we walked along the river on the Shreveport side, we hopped in the car and drove across the bridge to the Louisiana Boardwalk on the Bossier City side.

The Louisiana Boardwalk is a large, outdoor mall that reminded us a lot of Branson Landing in Branson, MO.

There is a trolley that visitors can ride to save steps.

We went on our little excursion to the Shreveport/Bossier City riverfront a little later in the day because there is a Texas Roadhouse in Bossier City very close to the Louisiana Boardwalk. Participating Texas Roadhouse restaurants have 8 or 10 different earlybird specials for $7.99 from 4:00 to 6:00 PM Mondays through Thursdays. Our favorite is the 6-ounce sirloin steak. Since we're on our 2011 Zeller Foodie Tour, we figured we might as well take advantage of the special since we were going to be so close.

One of the fun things about Texas Roadhouse is the fact they have barrels on salted peanuts to munch on while you're waiting for your table, and they don't care if you throw the shells on the floor. Since we were there early, we didn't have to wait. Fortunately, they put buckets of the peanuts on the tables, too.

Dinners include two sides, rolls and cinnamon butter (yum!). We always get a salad for one of our sides. Margery likes the Caesar salad, and Paul likes the house salad with bleu cheese dressing. For our other side, Margery got a baked potato, and Paul got mashed. Margery could hardly wait for the photo. Her fork is poised in the background with her first bite ready to go.

As usual, the dinner was excellent. The steaks were juicy and full of flavor. A 6-ounce steak isn't huge, but with a few peanuts beforehand, a nice salad, rolls and butter, and potatoes, we got plenty to eat.

We mentioned Mudbug Madness earlier, and we promised more information. Mudbug is another term for crawfish (south) or crayfish (north). Mudbug Madness is Shreveport's annual crawfish festival that is held Thursday through Sunday of Memorial Day weekend. The entertainment at the festival on Thursday and Friday runs from 11:00 AM to 2:00 PM, then there is a big gap in the schedule until evening. Because it was Thursday, and because we went to downtown Shreveport later in the day so we could go to dinner at Texas Roadhouse, we missed the late morning/early afternoon entertainment for the day. Therefore, we decided to go back a little earlier the next day so we could see what Mudbug Madness was all about. Our next post will tell you what we found at Mudbug Madness.

Morgan City, LA

Berwick, LA

Although we decided to relax the last couple of days before we left Berwick, we were curious about how high the water levels were along the Atchafalaya River in town, so we took a drive over the bridge that lies between Berwick and the larger, neighboring town of Morgan City. The photo below shows the flood wall in Berwick. The flood wall is gray with light blue flood gates and sits in front of the trees to the right of the photo. Water was only a little way up the wall, which was only a slight increase over what it was when we first arrived in the area 5 days prior.

As we approached the Morgan City side of the river, we could get a better view of their riverfront, and we could see the water was up over the wharf. The water was only a foot or so deep at the base of the flood wall, which is about the same as it was in Berwick. We could also see the Morgan City flood wall had a walkway on top, so we decided to drive into town to take a closer look.

We parked and took the steps to the top of the wall where we could see a depth gauge with the water at the 8.5-foot mark. The gauge is on the wharf where the water is only a few feet deep, and the 8.5-foot depth relates to whatever their reference point is rather than the actual water depth at that point on the wharf.

Flood level in Morgan City is 4 feet. At a level of about 7 feet, the water just starts to overtop the wharf. The level was 7.7 feet when we first arrived, and it was 8.5 feet when we took the above photo. The crest is predicted to be less than 11 feet. The flood walls are at least 18 to 20 feet high, so that means if the water goes up another 2 or 2.5 feet, it will be nowhere near overtopping the flood walls.

The next photo is a view downstream. The wharf, an old abandoned warehouse downstream, and an oil company dock upstream of where we were standing were on the river side of the wall and were flooded, but there was no flooding anywhere on the city side of the wall.

There was no chance of anybody violating this parking ordinance, unless someone tied up their boat.

From the the top of the flood wall we had a good view of the Berwick lighthouse over on the other side of the river. The lighthouse originally stood along the Atchafalaya Bay to the south of Berwick to mark a shoal at the mouth of the bay. Just before WWI, a new channel was cut through the shoal. When a new lighthouse was built to mark the new channel, the old lighthouse was abandoned. In 1987, the town of Berwick rescued the old lighthouse and moved it up the Atchafalaya River next to the town.

After we left the flood wall, we took a short drive through town. The next photo shows a grand old house that was near the river.

Some of the homes in town looked like they hadn't changed a bit over the years. Even though the car needs some work, Paul liked the old De Soto Custom parked in front of the house in the next photo. It is most likely a 1946 to 1948 model.

We had a great time in Cajun Country. We never did get to go on our Cajun swamp tour because every time they thought they were going to have enough people (they needed 8 to make the trip economically feasible), someone cancelled. Finally, on our last day in the area, it looked like we would finally go; but then the Corps of Engineers closed one of locks on the tour route to better control water flow during flooding, and the tour had to be cancelled again. Oh well, now we have an excuse to go back - like we need one.

Our next destination is Shreveport, so stay tuned.

Jeanerette Museum

Berwick, LA

Jeanerett is a small town along Bayou Teche about half way between New Iberia and Berwick where we were staying. Margery found the Jeanerette Museum when she was doing her research into things to do.

Jeanerette is called "Sugar City," and, in addition to local history, the Jeanerette Museum has a lot of information on growing sugarcane and processing it into sugar. We have been hearing so much about sugarcane at all the Louisiana plantations we have visited, we wanted to learn more.

Another reason we decided to go the Jeanerette Museum was so we would have a good excuse to drive along Bayou Teche. The drive is quite scenic with many old plantation homes that were built in the 1800s. The photo below shows just a few of the mansions we saw.

Since most of the homes are privately owned, it's hard to find out much information about them unless you talk to the locals. The house in the photo below, however, had a plaque on the pillar by the gate that said "Arlington 1861." When we later Googled the name, we found out the house was for sale for $995,000. 

Franklin is another town along Bayou Teche on the way to Jeanerette. Franklin, which was named for Benjamin Franklin, was founded in 1808. Franklin is very charming with its white lampposts running down the center of the main street. The lampposts, which date back to 1915, were restored in 2005.

The town of Jeanerette was named for John W. Jeanerette, who came to the area in the 1820s from South Carolina. He worked as a tutor for a planter's family, and he also opened a store and saloon. By the 1830s, he had saved enough money to buy a plantation. John Jeanerette also became the town's first postmaster.

When we got to Jeanerette, we had no problem finding the museum. The Jeanerette Museum is in a 100-year old cedar house on the banks of Bayou Teche in back of a small park right on the main road.

Inside the museum, we watched their excellent video on sugar. From the video, we learned more about how sugarcane is grown and processed. Although sugarcane does produce seeds, it is most commonly grown commercially using stem cuttings. Short sections of stalks containing at least one node are buried horizontally in a shallow trench. Sprouts appear from the nodes. The photo below shows a field of young sugarcane plants.

Although sugarcane is still harvested by hand in some locations, growers in the United States use mechanical harvesters that cut the stalks at the base, strip the leaves and chop the stalks into short lengths all in one operation.

After harvesting, the canes are taken to the sugar mill where they are washed, shredded into small pieces and crushed between rollers to extract the juice. Crushing machines used to be turned by hand or by animal power. Outside the museum, there is a mule-powered sugarcane crusher. The canes would have been fed into the slit in the side of the machine where rollers would have pressed out the juice into the iron kettle.

Bagasse is the byproduct left over after the sweet juice is extracted from the woody stalks. The bagasse is dried and used for fuel for the boilers that produce steam to power the sugar mill.

The juice is then mixed with lime and heated to drive off water. In the past, shallow, open kettles were used. We have seen those kettles everywhere we have gone in southern Louisiana. Modern methods use vacuum kettles to remove water more efficiently at lower temperatures to prevent scorching of the sugar.

After most of the water is driven off, the sugar begins to crystallize. Molasses, which is the thick syrup that is left, is removed from the sugar by centrifuges. The resulting raw sugar is then sent to a refinery for final purification and bleaching into white sugar. Incidentally, most of the brown sugar we buy in the grocery store is really white sugar that has had molasses added back.

On average, one ton of sugarcane yields 180 pounds of raw sugar, 7 gallons of molasses and 270 pounds of bagasse. The remainder of the weight is water, which is evaporated.

One room in the museum had a lot of wooden foundry patterns used to cast gears and other components for local sugar mills.

The foundry, which is located next door, donated the patterns that are no longer needed to the museum. The reason some of the patterns are no longer needed is because many of the local mills have closed due to hurricane damage and environmental pressures against the burning of bagasse for fuel. The foundry is shown in the next photo.

The room with the patterns also had a great piece of local folk art in the form of a alligator hand-carved from cypress.

In addition to sugar-related items, the museum also had lots of photos and items that speak to local history such as these Mardi Gras costumes...

...and these household and kitchen items.

There was also a whole room dedicated to local wildlife. We called it the "man cave." There were mounted specimens of fish on the walls, and there were examples of other wildlife like the armadillo, alligator, wood duck, bobcat and otter shown in the next photo. The canoe-like boat is a pirogue. The pirogue is a traditional Cajun fishing boat built from cypress. The flat bottom is suited to the shallow waters of the swamps and bayous.

One surprising thing we learned about at the museum was that there was a WW II prisoner-of-war camp just 2 miles west of Jeanerette. Most of the prisoners were captured in North Africa and were under the command of General Erwin Rommel, the "Desert Fox." The prisoners were employed on local farms and engaged in the cultivation of sugar cane.

While the museum isn't a major attraction, we did enjoy it, especially the video on sugar production. It is worth stopping if you are taking the scenic route along the bayou.

Another thing we found out about when we visited the museum was Le Jeune's Bakery, which is located a couple of blocks away. The museum had several photos and newspaper articles about the bakery, which has been owned and operated by 5 generations of the Le Jeune family dating back to 1884. All their products are made from scratch using recipes that have been handed down from generation to generation.

LeJeune's Bakery specializes in French bread that they bake three times a day. If you know when to go, you can get it hot out of the oven. But we were interested in their other specialty - ginger cakes. In addition to being able to buy at the bakery, several local grocery stores carry Le Jeune ginger cakes, and you can also order their products online.

Signs direct customers to the side door because they're too busy in the back baking to man the front counter. In the photo below, Paul is trying to decide how many ginger cakes to buy.

The ginger cakes are fairly large (probably 6 to 8 ounces each), and they're only $1.75. We bought two. We should have bought more because we started eating the first one right there in the parking lot. Yum! They were as good as the ones we remember getting at the King's Arms Tavern Bakery in Williamsburg - maybe better.

We again took the scenic route along the bayou back to the motor home as we munched on our ginger cake. We planned to relax for the last couple of days of our stay in Berwick before we headed out to our next destination.

Avery Island Part II: Tabasco Pepper Sauce

Berwick, LA

In our last post we told you a little about the history of Avery Island and about how Edmund McIlhenny married into the Avery family. After the Civil War, someone (possibly a Civil War veteran who was passing through the area) gave Edmund some chile pepper seeds he said were from Mexico. Edmund was an avid gardener, so he planted the seeds. It is uncertain how he ended up with his final pepper sauce concoction, but because it was such a hit with his friends, he began to sell it in 1868.

Tabasco is the name of a region in Mexico, and since the original pepper seeds were thought to have come from Mexico, Edmund used that name for his pepper sauce.

McIlhenny Company offers factory tours 7 days a week, except major holidays. Tours start outside the factory visitor entrance.

The tour begins with an excellent video detailing how Tabasco sauce is made starting with growing the peppers. In 1965, the McIlhenny Company ran out of room on Avery Island to grow all the peppers they needed for their production, so they began growing peppers in Central and South America. All the seed peppers are still grown on Avery Island, and a member of the McIlhenny family personally selects only the best plants from which to save seed. Most of the peppers for the sauce, however, are now grown in other locations. A big advantage to growing in more than one location is the supply is assured in the event of hurricane, insects or disease at any one place.

According to company tradition, all peppers are picked by hand at the peak of ripeness because that's the best way to assure they are at their best flavor and maximum juiciness. As the peppers ripen, they turn from green to yellow to orange and finally to red, and they don't all ripen at the same time. In case there is any question about which peppers to pick, employees are given "le petit baton rouge" - a little red stick, which is a dowel painted the preferred shade of red for picking.

The peppers are mashed and mixed with a small amount of salt mined right there on Avery Island. The mash is placed into barrels that have been used to age bourbon whiskey, after which a thick layer of Avery Island salt is placed on top of the lid. The layer of salt doesn't directly affect the flavor of the peppers, but it acts as a natural barrier to protect the barrel contents while allowing gasses to escape during the fermentation and aging process. The mash is aged for up to three years.

After aging, the mash is inspected by a member of the McIlhenny family then blended with white vinegar. After the mixture is stirred intermittently for up to 30 days, the seeds and skins are strained out, and the sauce is bottled.

The caked salt from the lids of the aging barrels is put out around the island as salt licks for the deer. That way, their venison is pre-seasoned. ;-)

Seeds strained out from the mash-vinegar mixture are sold to be used to extract capsaicin to make analgesic rubs like Bengay and to make pepper spray.

After we watched the video, we walked along a glass window where we could see various bottling and packaging operations. Mixing and aging take place in other areas of the plant that are not part of the tour.

McIlhenny bottles an average of 720,000 bottles of sauce a day. The photo below shows the mid-day count for the day we were there. They needed to step it up if they were going to get close to their average that day.

There was a stack of labels by the window marked with the names of various countries - Uruguay, Czechoslovakia, Ivory Coast, Greece, Saudi Arabia and more. Tabasco is labeled in 22 languages and dialects and sold in over 160 countries.

At the end of the tour, there was a small Tabasco museum that had examples of old bottles and equipment. There was also a scale model of Avery Island. You can see how high the island sits above the surrounding landscape. The salt mine is located on the other side of the island. The red and gray buildings toward the right are the McIlhenny factory. Rows of pepper plants stretch out to the left.

After the tour, we took time to check out the Tabasco products in the company store.

In case you're hungry, there is also a lunch stand outside where they sell local dishes such as jambalaya, crawfish etoufee, seafood gumbo, red beans and rice, and more.

In the store, you can sample all the Tabasco sauces. We like a little heat, but we're not real crazy about Tabasco because of the sour nature of the sauce that comes from the fact vinegar is such an important ingredient. However, they have a new Sweet & Spicy sauce that Paul loved.

In addition to being able to sample all the sauces, they also had Tabasco soda and Tabasco ice cream. In the photo below, Paul is sampling jalapeño ice cream. It was delish - sweet with a definite jalapeño flavor and with a little bit of a kick.

In the next photo, Margery is checking out Tabasco hot pepper jelly.

By the time we finished visiting Jungle Gardens, taking the Tabasco factory tour and visiting the company store, we were kind of hungry. Rather than try something from the lunch stand outside the company store, we decided to continue our 2011 Zeller Foodie Tour by going back to Duffy's for a late lunch/early supper (lupper). Margery also had her heart set on a chocolate soda ever since we were too full the last time we were at Duffy's.

Margery had a barbecued brisket po' boy (in the background), and Paul had roast beef. This time, we each ordered only a half plus an order of onion rings to share. In New Orleans and the surrounding areas, Po' boys (no matter what kind), are traditionally served "dressed," which means they have lettuce, tomatoes and mayonnaise on them. Like the shrimp po' boys we had the other day at Duffy's, the meat was overflowing the bread. Everything was great.

Even with only half a po' boy we still got plenty to eat, but not so much that Margery didn't have room for her chocolate soda. It was gooood.

After lupper, we made our way back to the motor home. We still have more planned for Cajun Country, so look for our next post.

Avery Island Part I: Jungle Gardens

Berwick, LA

In our last post, we mentioned we would be visiting another one of the Louisiana salt-dome islands. At a height of 163 feet above mean sea level, Avery Island is the largest of the five salt domes in this area. Avery Island is completely surrounded by water in the form of bayous, a salt marsh and swamps.

Since Avery Island is surrounded by water, it's only logical someone would come up with a solution to a possible flooding problem. We saw the travel trailer in the photo below just before we got to Avery Island. We're not sure this an example of Cajun ingenuity or of redneck ingenuity, but either way, it looks like it will keep them dry. However, if a flood were expected, you would think it would be easier to just hitch the trailer up and drive away.

Native Americans, as well as early settlers, used to boil water from a natural salt spring on the island to extract the salt. During the Civil War, over 22 million pounds of salt were mined for the Confederacy at Avery Island until Union forces invaded the area and smashed mining equipment and burned buildings. Today, the salt mines are leased to the Cargill Salt Company.

Before the Civil War, Edmund McIlhenney married into the Avery family, who settled on the island in the 1830s. At that time the island was called Ile Petite Anse (French for Small Cove Island).

After the war, Edmund founded the McIlhenny Company and began manufacturing his now famous Tabasco pepper sauce on Avery Island. We'll get to the McIlhenny Company and Tabasco sauce in our next post, but we just wanted to give a little background history before we tell you about Jungle Gardens in this post.

There were large banks of clouds rolling in and out all morning, and just as we got to Avery Island, a large patch of relatively clear sky had just moved in, so we went to Jungle Gardens first because we preferred to go there when it was sunny.

One of Edmund McIlhenny's sons, Edward "Ned" McIlhenny, was a naturalist and conservationist. In the late 1800s, the snowy egret was hunted to near extinction to provide feathers for ladies' hats. Ned created a bird sanctuary and rookery called Bird City in a pond on the island. It was nesting season when we were there, so thousands of birds were nesting at Bird City.

Even though Ned assumed the presidency of McIlhenny Company in 1898, he still found time in the 1920s to convert part of Avery Island in the vicinity of Bird City into a 170-acre garden. He planted specimens of hundreds of varieties of exotic plants from all over the world. He also planted many camellias and azaleas which thrived in the mild Louisiana winters. Jungle Gardens opened to the public in 1935.

As we learned when we visited Jefferson Island, oil frequently occurs near salt domes. Oil was discovered on Avery Island in 1942. Ned stipulated the drilling crews avoid the live oak trees on the island, and that they bury pipelines where possible (or at least paint them green) to minimize the impact of oil production on the beauty of the island. Who says drilling for oil and nature can't co-exist?

Jungle Gardens is a drive-through garden. There are pull-offs and parking areas where you can stop for photos and take short walks to explore further. We have to warn you, if you're planning to get out of the car, or even if you're just planning to just roll down the window for a photo, take along insect repellent. It was hot and humid when we were there, and the mosquitoes were ferocious.

Stapled to the map of the gardens they gave us when we entered was another warning for people who are thinking about getting out of their vehicles. It was a warning about the presence of alligators. Sure enough, as we rounded the first bend into the garden past a small pool, we spotted a 4-foot 'gator.

Unfortunately, both the camellias and azaleas were done blooming when we were there, so we had to be content with just the bayous, ponds, live oaks, and palm trees. They were pretty enough, but we prefer lots of colorful blooms.

 

The next photo shows Bayou Petite Anse, which runs along the western side of Avery Island.

There were numerous egrets in various parts of the gardens because of the rookery at Bird City. The cattle egret in the next photo is wearing its orange-buff colored mating plumage.

Live oak trees abound in the gardens, but the ancient Cleveland Oak is particularly picturesque. The tree is named for President Grover Cleveland, who supposedly visited Avery Island in 1931.

After we drove through the gardens, we made our way over to the McIlhenny Tabasco factory for a tour. We'll tell you all about it in our next post.

Rip Van Winkle Gardens

Berwick, LA

Acclaimed American stage actor Joseph Jefferson built a winter home on Orange Island in 1870. Orange Island, which was later renamed Jefferson Island in his honor, is located near New Iberia about an hour west of where we were staying in Berwick. Jefferson Island is not really an island, but one of five salt domes in this area that rise 75 to over 100 feet above the surrounding landscape. Some of the so-called islands are more or less surrounded by bayous and wetlands, but Jefferson Island isn't one of those. It does, however, have 1,300-acre Lake Peigneur directly to the northwest.

The water from an ancient sea that once covered parts of Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi evaporated leaving behind salt deposits. The deposits were then covered by thousands of feet of sediment. Salt, which was less dense than the sediment, found its way upward in the form of bulbous columns. The rising columns of salt formed the Louisiana "islands" that exist today. Grand Côte Island (now called Weeks Island), which we mentioned in our last post as being the location of the sugarcane plantation belonging to David Weeks who built Shadows on the Teche, is another one of the salt-dome islands.

Some of the salt from the salt domes has been mined, and we'll have more about a salt mine later on in this post, and we'll have more about one of the other islands and another salt mine in an upcoming post.

Although Joseph Jefferson played many parts on stages around the world, he is best known for his role as Rip Van Winkle in a play he adapted from the Washington Irving short story. Rip Van Winkle Gardens were named by a later owner in honor of the famous role Joseph Jefferson played more than 4,500 times.

Outside the entrance was a nice three-tiered fountain made from sugar kettles amidst a garden filled with snapdragons.

Tours of Joseph Jefferson's mansion at Rip Van Winkle Gardens are given every hour on the hour. We arrived between tours, so we had time to explore the gardens before the next tour started. The photo below is taken right inside the entrance looking toward Lake Peigneur. We'll have more information about the lake later on in this post.

As we headed up the path toward the mansion, there was a colorful bed of impatiens. We liked the way they combined colors and textures.

We stopped for another photo by a huge stand of bamboo.

Although the path to the mansion isn't steep, it is uphill because the mansion is built near the top of the 75-foot high salt dome.

Along the way, there are several gardens off the main path like this Japanese garden...

...and this water garden with another three-tiered sugar-kettle fountain.

There are several peafowl on the grounds, and you can hear them calling and squawking. We waited for this guy to see if he was going to display his tail feathers, but he didn't. He eventually hopped up on an old grindstone so we had to settle for a photo of him with his tail draped down over the stone, which at least was better than having his tail lying flat on the ground.

There is an expansive lawn in front of the house that provides nice views of the house framed by moss-draped oak trees as you take the semicircular walkway around to the other side.

Like other tours we have taken while we were in Cajun Country, we were the only ones there for the house tour. Everyone seems to be avoiding the area because of the fear of flooding. There are some towns not too far from here that are or will be flooded, but most of the more populated areas and the tourist areas are safe. If you are considering coming to Cajun Country at all, call to check the status before you shy away.

Again, we were not permitted to take photographs inside the mansion, but we can tell you about some of the history we learned about the house, the gardens and Lake Peigneur. The 22-room mansion is a blend of styles that include Steamboat Gothic, Victorian, and Southern Plantation.

Jefferson was born in Pennsylvania, and since it was shortly after the Civil war, Yankees were distrusted and disliked in the South. Because he was a Yankee, Jefferson was told by the locals to never close his eyes in his new house or he would die. Jefferson was somewhat superstitious, and he feared the Voodoo practiced in this area. Therefore, he built a cottage behind the house where he would sleep. He spent his days and evenings in the house when he was there during the winters, but he retired for the night to the cottage out back. Today, the cottage is used as guest rooms for the bed and breakfast.

When Jefferson died in 1905, his heirs held onto the property for a while and eventually sold it to John Lyle Bayless, Sr. in 1917. John Bayless was not interested in the mansion, but in the salt that lay beneath adjacent Lake Peigneur. He and several partners began mining salt.

In the late 1950s, John Bayless' son and heir to the estate, John Bayless, Jr., began developing gardens around the mansion after selling the salt mine.

The path we followed back down from the mansion took us past Lake Peigneur. The lake has a very interesting story.

On Nov. 20, 1980, about 9 months after John Bayless, Jr. moved into his newly-completed, multi-million dollar dream home on the shore of Lake Peigneur, an oil-drilling team on a platform out in the lake (oil is frequently trapped in the rock strata surrounding salt domes) accidentally drilled into the salt mine under the lake. Water pouring through the original 14-inch diameter drill hole dissolved the salt making the hole bigger and bigger by the minute.

When it was all over just three hours later, Bayless' new home, two drilling platforms, a dock, 70 acres of the Jefferson estate, 11 barges and 3.5 billion gallons of water were sucked down into the mine by a giant whirlpool. The photo below shows all that's left of John Bayless' new home. The fireplace just above the level of the water was on the second floor.

The 12 men who were on the drilling platform realized something was wrong after their drill bit bound up in the rock and the platform started to list. They all got off in time. All 55 men in the salt mine miraculously escaped. There were no deaths and no injuries.

With the lake empty, the flow of the canal that originally flowed out of the lake and into the Gulf of Mexico was reversed, and over the next two days, water flowed from the Gulf into the lake refilling it with salt water. Nine of the 11 sunken barges popped back up in the refilled lake like corks. What was a 10 or 11-foot deep fresh-water lake is now a 1300-foot deep salt water lake.

Texaco and the drilling company paid $32 million to Diamond Crystal, the owner of the salt mine, and $12.8 million to John Bayless in out-of-court settlements.

John Bayless died in 1985, and the foundation he created to continue the operation of the gardens ended up selling the property 1996. The new owners kept the gardens open for a time, but closed it to the public in 2001.

Mike Richard, owner of nearby Live Oak Nursery, bought the old Jefferson mansion and gardens in 2003 and began renovations. In addition to the gardens, the mansion and the bed and breakfast, there is also conference center that is a favorite place for wedding receptions. It is already booked up for all of 2011.

The next photos show just a few of the many flowers we enjoyed on our visit.

As we left Rip Van Winkle Gardens, we noticed a large pond with several islands opposite the entrance to the estate. There were dozens of large birds flying about, and we realized the islands were a rookery for hundreds of wading birds like snowy egrets and roseate spoonbills. The trees and bushes were dotted with white and pink birds.

The photo below shows a pair of roseate spoonbills on their nest.

Seeing the rookery was a great end to an already enjoyable day. We made our way back to the motor home to rest up for our next adventure at another salt dome. Stay tuned.

New Iberia, LA Part II: Shadows on the Teche

Berwick, LA

After we visited the Conrad Rice Mill, we drove a few blocks to an antebellum mansion called Shadows on the Teche. The mansion is located on Bayou Teche (pronounced Tesh). Bayou is a Native American word meaning small river (usually slow flowing), and teche is an Native American word meaning snake. The name doesn't come from the fact the bayou has snakes in it, although it probably does, but from the way it twists and turns.

Bayou Teshe starts from a point west of Baton Rouge and winds its way south where it joins the Atchafalaya River at a point just west of where we were staying in Berwick. Bayou Tesh was once the main channel of the Mississippi River a few thousand years ago until silting caused the river to change its course.

Shadows on the Teche was built between 1831 and 1834 by wealthy sugar grower David Weeks. The Weeks' sugarcane plantation was on Grand Côte Island (now called Weeks Island), but the site of the plantation was considered too remote for the family. Therefore, Weeks bought a 158-acre tract of land on the banks of Bayou Teche in New Town, which is now known as New Iberia, where he built the home that became known as Shadows on the Teche. The house is built of brick in the Classical Revival style. It has 8 columns across the front.

As the house was being completed, David Weeks went on a trip to New England to find a cure for a recurring, unknown illness. He died while on that trip shortly after his wife Mary and their 6 children had moved into the new house.

After her husband's death, Mary was responsible for the daily management of both the family's sugar plantation and of the Shadows, and for raising her children. In 1841, Mary married a Louisiana lawyer by the name of John Moore. Although Mary kept her inherited properties legally separate, John frequently provided advice to her on business matters.

During the Civil War, Mary Weeks Moore was confined to the second floor of the Shadows while Union troops occupied the first floor and the grounds. Mary died in her sleep in 1863 in her second-floor bedroom. Out of respect for their former host, not only did they bury Mary on the property, but the Union troops did not burn the home when they left.

Tours at Shadows on the Teche are offered on the hour. We arrived after the hour, but the lady who was to be our guide graciously offered to take us on a tour anyway even though we were a little late and even though there were just the two of us.

The Shadows remained in the same family all the way until 1958 when it became part of the National Trust for Historic Preservation. This home became an extraordinary gem when it was discovered that the family never threw anything away. Consequently, original furniture, china, and even clothing and letters are all there. Unfortunately, we can't show you the inside because photography wasn't permitted, but the photo below shows some of numerous trunks and boxes that were found in the attic after the National Trust took possession.

The painting shown below of one of the daughters was hanging in a bedroom. Margery was particularly intrigued that the dress the little girl is wearing in the picture was found In the attic in perfect condition. The dress was displayed on the bed.

In 1919, William Weeks Hall, great-grandson of David and Mary Weeks, bought out his aunt's share of the house to become sole owner. William Hall restored the home in the 1920s and lived there until his death in 1958. It was William Weeks Hall who worked with the National Trust for Historic Preservation so the home could be bequeathed to them upon his death.

There is a beautiful view from the second-floor porch of Bayou Teche (the olive green patch toward the right) through the moss-draped live oaks.

Our tour guide offered to take our picture with the Spanish moss and the bayou in the background.

After our tour of the house, we strolled the grounds and headed down toward the bayou. As we looked back up the bank, a gnarled, old oak provided a nice frame for the view of the back of the house.

The bayou was running a little high, but there is no danger of flooding at this time.

Earlier, when our guide found out we wrote a travel blog, she asked us to spread the word that this area of Louisiana is not flooded and that they are open for business. Her request was echoed by so many business people that we ran across that depend on tourists. Not to minimize the plight of those who have been or will be flooded along the Mississippi River or in the Atchafalaya Basin; but the news media tends to sensationalize the news so much one might think the entire South is under water. We have been trying all week to take a Cajun swamp tour, but the tour needs at least 8 people to make the trip economically feasible. Every time they get several reservations, someone calls to cancel and they have to call off the trip.

After we finished up at Shadows on the Teche, we drove a few blocks to Duffy's Diner, which Margery found online while doing research. Since it was well after noon by the time we visited Conrad Rice Mill and Shadows on the Teche, and since it was about a 45-minute drive back to the motor home, we decided to go there for a late lunch. Duffy's got some pretty high reviews for their po' boys, their burgers, and their fried chicken.

Duffy's Diner has a 1950s look with Coca Cola memorabilia, a checkerboard floor, and pictures of Elvis and James Dean on the walls. Rock 'n' roll oldies played in the background.

We decided to try another po' boy - this time fried shrimp. They assured us we wouldn't be disappointed, and we weren't. In the next photo, Margery is saying, "Now, this is a po' boy."

This is more what we expected when we got burned when we splurged on the grilled shrimp po' boys at Mahoney's back in New Orleans. The po' boys at Duffy's were supposed to be 6 inches for a half, but they were closer to 8 inches long. The bread was much wider than at Mahoney's, and the shrimp were falling off the bread.

Like Mahoney's, these shrimp were fresh and delish. Unlike Mahoney's where half a po' boy was $15, the po' boys at Duffy's were $4.60 for a half and $7.95 for a whole. Since the price was so reasonable and since we didn't get enough to eat at Mahoney's, we ordered one and a half po' boys and a side of sweet potato fries to split. Boy, were we stuffed when we left!

Duffy's also specializes in old fashioned soda fountain favorites; and they had chocolate sodas, which are Margery's favorite. Unfortunately, we were way too full to even think about dessert, so we had to pass.

We have more Cajun Country sightseeing to report on, so look for our next post.

New Iberia, LA Part I: Conrad Rice Mill

Berwick, LA

Since we didn't have sewer hookup at Bayou Segnette State Park, we scheduled our departure for a Monday so we would miss any possible tieups at the dump station with weekenders departing on Sunday. As it turned out, there weren't many people at the campground during the week or during the weekend.

One possible reason the campground was fairly empty may be that people are avoiding New Orleans because they are uncertain about flooding. The opening of spillways north of New Orleans and north of Baton Rouge has actually reduced water levels in New Orleans. The level is expected to remain steady for the next few weeks until after the crest passes when the level will begin to drop.

Although the water level was high, everything in New Orleans is protected by levees to several feet higher than the the current water level. In New Orleans, it was business as usual, and as they say, "Laissez les bon temps rouler!" - let the good times roll!

Opening the gates north of New Orleans diverted water into Lake Pontchartrain, which will then drain into the Gulf of Mexico with few, if any, noticeable effects. The Morganza Spillway north of Baton Rouge, on the other hand, diverts water to the Atchafalaya (pronounced at-chaff-a-LYE-a) Basin, which lies to the west of the Mississippi. Our next destination was Berwick, LA. Berwick, along with the larger town of Morgan City a mile or so to the east, are at the southern end of the Atchafalaya Basin in the heart of Cajun Country.

We emailed the campground in Berwick when we first got to New Orleans, and we called them the day before we left. Both times they said they were well protected by levees and flood walls, and no flooding in the towns themselves or the immediate surrounding area was expected. The area to the west of Berwick, which is where we were planning most of our sightseeing, is not in the Atchafalaya Basin, so no flooding was expected farther to the west either.

As we crossed over the Atchafalaya River between Morgan City and Berwick, we could see the water level was high. If you look closely at the photo below, you can see a row of black posts running from the bottom right corner up toward the railroad bridge that crosses the river. Those posts mark what is supposed to be the edge of the river, and the water is a little beyond the posts. Behind the posts is the gray flood wall. The water is just barely up to the base of the flood wall in some locations.

The flood walls are at least 10 to 12 feet high. The water is expected to rise several more feet as the water from Morganza Spillway makes its way south, and it looks like that will be well down from the top of the flood wall. There will be some flooding of the river side of the flood walls, but as long as the flood walls hold, there should be no problem in town.

We reserved a week at Cypress Lake RV Resort in Berwick. Cypress Lake has full hookups and free Wi-fi. Roads and sites are gravel, and there is some grass between the sites. About half the sites are back-ins and half are pull-throughs. Although some of the back-ins are a little close together, the site width of the rest of the back-ins and most of the pull-throughs is pretty good for a private campground. The photo below shows our site at Cypress Lake.

There is a little noise from 4-lane U. S. Route 90 that passes the campground, but is diminishes somewhat at night. There are also train tracks nearby, and there are two or three crossings within earshot, one of which is fairly close. Fortunately, there weren't too many trains when we were there.

The next photo shows a view looking toward our site. You can see some of the many cypress trees from which the campground gets part of its name. Fortunately, they have some sites where the trees are more widely spaced, and they gave us one of those sites so we had no trouble getting satellite.

The other part of the campground name comes from a nice lake. There are paddle boats and canoes available. Paul enjoyed watching the sun rise over the mist on the lake on a couple mornings he was up early enough.

The fact that much of Louisiana is under a flood watch is ironic because they also have severe drought conditions. When we headed out the next morning for some sightseeing, we saw numerous, huge clouds of dust caused by tractors plowing.

For our first day of sightseeing, we headed west to New Iberia, LA and to the Conrad Rice Mill, which is the oldest rice mill in the country still in operation. New Iberia is about 45 minutes northwest of where we were staying in Berwick. The original part of the mill was built in 1914 with additions in 1917 and 1930. The mill still operates today producing the Konrico brand of rice which is sold in grocery stores all over the United States and Canada. The mill operates with only 23 employees.

Just past the mill is the Konrico Store where products from the mill are sold and where tours of the mill start.

The tour starts with a slide presentation that details some of the history of Cajun Country and of rice growing in Louisiana. After the French and Indian War, the British expelled the French from the area of Canada known as Acadia. The name Cajun is a corruption of the name Acadian.

Louisiana was settled by the French, so the people of southern Louisiana welcomed their French cousins from Canada, and the Cajuns ended up settling in an area to the west of New Orleans. Cajun Country is also known as Acadiana. Today, Cajuns are a mixture of mainly French along with Spanish, English, German and African-American.

Cajuns brought rice with them that they learned to grow when they passed through the Carolinas. They originally planted rice for their own use (mainly as animal feed) in areas that couldn't be plowed like in the wetlands and swamps. Commercial rice production didn't begin in Louisiana until the late 1800s. It was started by the Americans and English, and it was aided by the availability of railroads that could take the rice to market. Until Conrad Mill opened, growers used to have to ship their rice to New Orleans to be processed.

The tour starts near the front of the mill where the guide uses a model to demonstrate how the rice is processed. The model opens up to show where the machines and hoppers are located and how the rices moves up and down between the three floors of the mill. The rice first travels from the million-pound silo to the top floor of the mill, then it moves down through a couple of machines that remove the husk. The husks are sold as mulch for gardeners and for animal bedding.

The resulting brown rice and can be eaten as is. Like whole wheat, brown rice contains more fiber and nutrients than white rice.

To make white rice, the rice travels back up to the third floor by conveyor to pass down through another machine called a pearler to remove the bran. Bran is the hard outer coating of the grain. The bran that is removed is sold as chicken feed. From the pearler, the rice goes back to the third floor to pass down again through a couple more machines that sort out the broken grains. Broken grains are used in-house to make rice crackers, another Konriko product.

Instant rice is made by pre-cooking the rice, then dehydrating it so all that is needed to prepare it is to cook it quickly to rehydrate it. Instant rice is fast, but many people, including Margery, think instant rice does not have as good a texture as regular rice. The Conrad Rice Mill does not make instant rice.

Incidentally, wild rice is not really rice - is is a member of the grass family is more closely related to wheat.

From the sorter, the rice goes to packaging. In addition to packaging in consumer-size bags and boxes, rice is also packaged in 50-pound bags. The machine in the photo below sews up the 50-pound bags.

On the tour, we also got to walk up and down the aisles of the ground floor of the mill to see the machines that were located there.

After the tour, we wandered around the store, which sells the Konrico brand of rice products, seasonings and rice crackers. They had samples of some of their products available for tasting.

We went outside for a tourist photo with the 50-pound rice bran bag that is filled with lightweight foam.

 

From the rice mill, we stopped at another historic location in town. We'll tell you about it in our next post.

New Orleans, LA Part III: Botanical Gardens

New Orleans, LA

Last year when we visited New Orleans, we went to the City Park to see the Besthoff Sculpture Garden. To read last year's post about the Besthoff Sculpture Garden click here. Adjacent to the sculpture garden is the New Orleans Botanical Garden. We love to visit gardens; but unfortunately, we were there last year on a Monday, and the garden is closed on Mondays. Since we didn't have time to return on another day back then, we made the garden a priority this year.

The New Orleans Botanical Garden was a WPA project during the Great Depression. It originally opened as the New Orleans Rose Garden in 1936. The 12-acre garden, which is part of the 1,500-acre City Park, has over 2,000 varities of plants from all over the world. The entrance is shown in the photo below.

The next photo is a view from just inside the entrance toward the conservatory.

The first path we followed took us past a large southern magnolia tree. The white, waxy flowers are bigger than dinner plates.

We paused for another photo as we started down the path toward conservatory and the main part of the garden.

A vine-covered walkway provided welcome shade as we passed the tropical garden.

In the photo below, Paul stopped in another location to try a bench framed by a rustic trellis.

Behind the conservatory are rows of old brick cold frames. These structures were once covered by glass and were used to protect tender plants and seedlings in cool weather. They are now used for plant trials and to display plant collections.

There is also a fairly large train garden. The trains weren't running, but we enjoyed seeing the rustic-style buildings designed to look like some of the buildings in New Orleans.

One of the things we liked about the garden were some of the picturesque garden structures like the tea house in the Japanese garden.

The brick pavilion in the next photo reminded us of Williamsburg.

The garden was also dotted with numerous sculptures like the mythological water nymph in the water garden shown below.

Although there are undoubtedly even more flowers blooming a little earlier in spring, there were still plenty when we were there. The first composite photo shows several day lilies...

...and the next shows a variety of different flowers that include orchids, amaryllis and water lilies.

We really enjoyed our time at the garden, but Paul would liked to have seen more of the plants identified. Since he was a serious gardener back in our stick house he likes to know what everything is.

After leaving the garden, we headed to Mahoney's Po' Boy Shop. Po' boys are a hoagie or sub-style sandwich served on New Orleans French bread that is sliced lengthwise. Po' boys are traditionally made from seafood (oysters or shrimp, usually fried), but they can be made from anything - ham, beef, meatball or sausage. Mahoney's even has one made with chicken livers topped with Creole slaw that was a winner in the 2009 New Orleans Po-boy Preservation Festival.

The Southern Food and Beverage Museum that we visited the day before had some good information about how the po' boy got its name. There are several stories about the origins of the po' boy, but the one that is most popular and the the one supported by the Southern Food and Beverage Museum says the name is the result of a 4-month streetcar strike in New Orleans in 1929. Bennie and Clovis Martin were brothers who owned a restaurant. The Martin brothers were former conductors themselves, and they regularly gave free sandwiches to the strikers, whom they referred to as those "poor boys."  Southern dialect shortened the name to po' boys, and the name eventually came to refer to the sandwiches.

Mahoney's Po' Boy Shop is another Triple D restaurant. It's located in an old house on Magazine Street in the lower Garden District of New Orleans.

We kind of wanted to try a traditional seafood po' boy, but we have recently had quite a bit of fried seafood. So when we found out they had grilled shrimp, we decided to try that. The other thing that sounded good from the video of the Triple D program was the root beer-glazed ham. We ordered one of each in the 6-inch size to share.

Prices for po' boys at Mahoney's range from $7 to $9 for 6-inch to $11 to $14 for 12-inch. Prices do not include any sides. Six-inch shrimp po' boys (fried or grilled) were at market price, which was $15 when we were there. That's a lot of money for a small sandwich. We thought long and hard about it and decided to splurge when they told us the shrimp were caught less than 24 hours prior and had never been frozen. The shrimp po' boy was so expensive, we decided to skip the sides. After we cut the sandwiches in half, Paul couldn't decide whether to dig into the ham (left) or the shrimp first.

Both of the po' boys were excellent. Have we mentioned we like the good food in New Orleans? The saltiness of the ham was offset by the sweetness of the root beer, and the root beer added a unique flavor. The shrimp had a lot of shrimpy (not fishy) flavor with a hint of old bay seasoning, and the sandwich was topped with fried green tomatoes and house-made remoulade (a French version of tartar sauce, usually somewhat pink in Louisiana).

When we went on the shrimping trip in Biloxi we learned that much of the shrimp sold in grocery stores and restaurants is not only frozen, but it is farm raised and not wild. Fresh-caught wild shrimp is much more flavorful. The shrimp at Mahoney's was definitely fresh, wild shrimp

We liked the sandwiches; but we were disappointed at the portion size, especially for the shrimp. We knew a 6-inch po' boy wouldn't be that big, but the bread they use is a lot more slender than we envisioned. And as you can see in the photo above, they must have used the skinniest loaf of bread they could find for the shrimp po' boy. The ham was at least piled pretty high; but there were only 7 or 8 medium-size shrimp in the whole 6-inch shrimp po' boy. For the price they charged, we expected the shrimp to be overflowing and falling out of the sandwich.

Since the po' boys were a little on the small side, we weren't that full. It was only about 3:00 PM when we finished eating, and we knew we would be hungry later so we stopped for a quart of ice cream on the way back to the motor home. :-)

We had a few days to relax before we headed out to our next destination. During that time, we had yet more food adventures to report on for our next post.

New Orleans, LA Part II: The French Quarter, Beignets and the Southern Food and Beverage Museum

New Orleans, LA

After visiting Oak Alley, we were anxious to get into the French Quarter so we headed for the Algiers Ferry first thing the next morning. The Algiers Ferry runs back and forth between Algiers Point, which is on the side of the river where were staying, and Canal Street at the southwestern edge of the French Quarter in downtown New Orleans.

The ferry is free for passengers and only costs $1 for automobiles. However, parking in the city is expensive and sometimes hard to find, so we always leave the car at Algiers Point. The parking lot at Algiers Point is privately operated, so they can charge anything they want. Rates go up to at least $10 when there is a special event in the city, which is the case many weekends; but since it was a Tuesday, parking was only $5.

The crossing takes about 10 minutes, and the ferry runs about every half hour. We arrived a little before the ferry was about to depart to the city. Riding the ferry gave us another opportunity to get a good look at the Mississippi water level. The photo below is a view from the ferry just before we left the dock. The lower deck of the ferry is to the right with the railing around it, and the ferry dock is to the left. There should not be water behind the row of trees to the left of the photo. However, the levee beyond the trees still had several feet to go before the water reached the top. As we mentioned in our last post, the levees protect the city to several feet above flood stage.

The Army Corps of Engineers started opening spillways upstream of New Orleans to divert water to Lake Pontchartrain several days ago, so the water level in New Orleans is staying fairly constant. They are also considering opening spillways upstream of Baton Rouge, so no major flooding is expected in New Orleans.

The current was fairly swift, but commercial shipping in New Orleans remained unaffected. We saw numerous freighters and tankers passing by in just the few minutes while we were waiting for the ferry to depart.

When the ferry docked on the other side of the river at Canal Street, we headed toward the French Quarter along the Riverwalk. The Natchez is a stern-wheeler that does various sightseeing and dinner cruises on the Mississippi River, and it was just departing on a two-hour cruise.

One of the things we love about New Orleans is the charm of the old buildings in the French Quarter. The next photo shows the old Jackson Brewery. The brewery was originally chartered in 1890. It survived Prohibition by brewing near beer and other beverages like root beer. The brewery closed in 1974 and was later remodeled and converted into a shopping mall.

Jackson Brewery is located across from Jackson Square, which is named for Andrew Jackson who was the hero of the Battle of New Orleans in 1815. At the back of Jackson Square stands St. Louis Cathedral. The first church on this site was built in 1719. The third church, which was built in 1789, was remodeled and expanded into the current cathedral.

The French Quarter is filled with two and three-story buildings with the well-known filigree ironwork balconies and porches. Horse-drawn wagons carry visitors on sightseeing tours.

Our first stop in the French Quarter was Café Du Monde for beignets (pronounced ben-YAY). Beignet means "fritter" in French.

Biegnets are deep fried French doughnuts that are covered in powdered sugar. Did we mention we like the good food in New Orleans? We learned from getting powdered sugar all over ourselves last year, and we wore light-colored clothing and took along some Handi-Wipes.

Café Du Monde is located at the edge of the French Market. The first section of the market contains permanent shops, and the remainder of the market is an open-air farmers market/flea market.

Following Hurricane Katrina, it took several years for vendors to begin to return to the open-air part of the Market. Last year, there were some empty stalls, but this year it looked like they were just about filled to capacity.

After we accomplished our first major goal of the day of having biegnets, and after we walked through the French Market, it was time to move on to our second major goal of visiting the Southern Food and Beverage Museum. The French Market is at the far northeastern end of the French Quarter, and the museum is located beyond the opposite end of the French Quarter all the way at the far end of Riverwalk Mall. The plan was to take the trolley because there was a stop right at the French Market and another stop right by the far end of Riverwalk Mall.

The fare on the New Orleans trolleys and buses is only $1.25 for adults and $.40 for seniors over 65. You can also buy unlimited all-day passes good on all the trolleys and buses for $5.

Unfortunately, we found out when we boarded that the line was closed for repairs past Canal Street, which was only about 2/3 of the way to the museum. By that time we had only walked about a mile, but it was hot and humid so we figured riding 2/3 of the way was better than nothing, so we hopped on.

We got off the trolley at Canal Street and walked the last half mile to the third floor of the far end of Riverwalk Mall to the Southern Food and Beverage Museum. The museum details the history of foods, beverages and ingredients that are unique to the south and specifically to New Orleans. Since we like the good food in New Orleans (Did we mention that?), we wanted to learn more about it.

Sugar was (and still is) a major crop in this area. It was grown extensively at the plantations up and down the Mississippi River in Louisiana. In the photo below, Paul is standing by a centrifuge basket used in later sugar production to separate the molasses from the crystallized sugar.

Seafood is of major importance in the cooking of New Orleans. Margery watched part of a video about seafood.

The museum is fairly large, but we were a little disappointed because we felt their displays were a little sparse and a bit uninteresting. They had numerous plaques with excellent information about southern foods, but we were too hot and tired from all the walking we did and ended up just skimming most of the written information.

Regular admission to the museum is $10, but AAA members and seniors can get in for $5. We're glad we both got the discount, but we still question whether it was worth walking all that way to get there even at the reduced price.

Even though we didn't take time to read many of the plaques, a few things did catch our interest. One was the description of some of the problems early settlers had baking bread. Early settlers had to import flour. Flour didn't fare well on the long ocean voyage, and it frequently arrived moldy or rancid. Bakers experimented with mixing rice flour and wheat flour to stretch the wheat flour. A few unscrupulous bakers also tried to get away with mixing in a small percentage of rancid flour to stretch the good stuff. It was also difficult to get a nice, crisp crust on the bread because of all the humidity. With the Louisiana Purchase, New Orleans bakers finally had access to wheat from the Midwest, and the prospect for good bread improved.

Another interesting fact we picked up was about sugar. Sugar cane had been grown in the area around New Orleans since the time of the first settlement. However, we didn't realize sugar production didn't really take off until sugar growers began coming to Louisiana in the late 1700s and early 1800s to escape the slave revolt in Haiti. By 1853, Louisiana produced one quarter of the world's sugar.

There was also some interesting information about the origins of the sandwich called the po' boy, but we're going to save the po' boy for a future post.

After we left the museum, we again had to walk half a mile back to the ferry dock. We were really tired and hot by the time rode the ferry back across the river to Algiers Point and got to the car. We headed straight for the motor home to put our feet up. We need to recover quickly, because we have more to see and do.

New Orleans, LA Part I: Oak Alley Plantation

New Orleans, LA

It was another short drive of only about two hours from Biloxi to our next destination in New Orleans. It took us almost four years of full-timing to stop in New Orleans even though we passed close by every year when we left Florida on our way west. When we finally stopped last year, we wondered why we waited so long. We ended up really liking the good food, the laid-back attitude of the people, and the charm of the French Quarter. Did we mention we like the good food?

We stayed the same place this year as we did last - Bayou Segnette State Park. In fact, we had the same site we had last year.

As you can see from the view down the road in the next photo, it wasn't very crowded. There was a group of people around the other side of the loop most of the time we were there (those sites are closer to the bathhouse), but our side of the loop stayed relatively empty throughout our stay.

Bayou Segnette has 30/50-amp electric and water hookups only. They also have free Wi-fi. The roads, pads and patios are paved. Some sites, like ours, have wooden decks, too. The grassy sites are widely spaced.

Louisiana State Parks no longer accept America the Beautiful passes for half price camping (unless you're a resident of Louisiana or of one of the few other states that accepts the passes), so we had to pay full price of $24 a night. By the time they added a $6 transaction fee (charged by the Louisiana State Parks) and the $10 reservation fee (charged by the online reservation service), our total was $26 a night - a little high for no sewer hookups, but not bad for a nice campground near a big tourist city with 50-amp electric and free Wi-fi.

Like last year, they are still doing construction work on the levee beside the canal adjacent to the campground. Although there is no construction and it's nice and quiet on the weekends and at night, construction starts at 7:00 AM on weekdays, and you can hear the engines of the construction equipment humming and the backup beepers beeping. You can also frequently hear the thunk---thunk---thunk of the pile driver. It was a lot hotter this year in New Orleans, so we ran the air conditioner day and night for most of the time we were there. That pretty much covered up the construction noise.

This year, part of the road on the way to the campsites has been torn up and is now dirt/gravel, but at least it's relatively smooth. The road in the camping area is still paved so there's no dust around the sites.

We had a lot we wanted to do while we were in New Orleans, so we headed out the next morning to see Oak Alley Plantation. There are quite a few old plantations between Baton Rouge and New Orleans along the Mississippi River. We enjoyed our visit to two of them last year, so we decided to see another one this year. To read about last year's visits to Houmas House and Laura Plantation, click on the highlighted names.

Oak Alley Plantation gets its name from the long, double row of live oak trees lining the way from the entrance of the house to the Mississippi River. In the early 1700s, a settler built a small house on the site of the current mansion. It is he who planted two rows of well-spaced live oak trees. All but one of the trees are original which makes them about 300 years old. One was struck by lightening and had to be replaced.

Visitor parking and the entrance to the grounds are in the rear. The grounds of the plantation are well-groomed and attractive. The flowers in the photo below greeted us as soon as we had paid our admission fee and started down the walk toward the house.

There is another tree-lined walkway up to the back of the house, but the view is not as spectacular as the one in front.

The large kettles in the two photos above were used for sugar making. Sugar cane was a major crop for plantations along the Mississippi River in Louisiana. The stalks were crushed and pressed to extract the sweet juice, and the juice was then boiled in the large, iron kettles to thicken it. When the sugar crystallized, it was placed in barrels. Molasses, the syrupy byproduct of sugar making, is used to make rum.

The next photo shows the rear of the house. Costumed interpreters greeted us on the back porch and directed us around to the front where the house tours start.

As with many historic houses, photography is not permitted inside. One notable exception was Houmas House Plantation we visited last year. Not only was photography permitted, you were also allowed to sit on the furniture and play the antique piano if you knew how to play.

Our tour guide, who is shown in the next photo, told us about the history of Oak Alley.

Jaques Telesphore Roman was a the son of a prominent New Orleans family who made their money in sugar. Jacques was a Creole, which means he was of French descent, but was born in the New World.

In 1836, Jacques wanted to be a sugar grower like other members of his family, so he and his wife Celina purchased the land where Oak Alley is now located. Celina was reluctant to move out from the city, but Jacques promised to build her a grand house overlooking the river.

Jacques built the house in the Classical Revival style with 28 columns surrounding the house to match the 28 oak trees that stood in front. The porches are deep and totally surround the house to provide shade. The walls are solid brick 16 inches thick. Ceilings are high to allow the heat to rise, and there are central hallways on the first and second floors running the length of the house to allow breezes from the river to enter.

Jacques died in 1848. His widow was totally inexperienced in running the plantation as a business, so her son eventually took over. Unfortunately, pressures of the Civil War, the period of reconstruction that followed, and Celina's excessive spending forced the sale of the estate and most of the furnishings in 1866.

The property changed hands a couple of times, and Oak Alley flourished for a while. The owners who bought the plantation in 1905, however, didn't fare well. The plantation was boarded up and became a victim of the elements and the creatures that took up residence inside.

Finally, in 1917, Oak Alley was purchased by Jefferson Davis Hardin, Jr., who poured his fortune into Oak Alley in an attempt to restore it, but he ran out of funds before it was completed. Can you say, "money pit?"

In 1925, Mr. and Mrs. Andrew Stewart became resident-owners of Oak Alley. They completed the restoration of the house and installed modern conveniences like electricity and indoor plumbing. The Stewarts, who are buried on the grounds, also set up the non-profit foundation that runs Oak Alley today.

The house is furnished with pieces true to the antebellum period, but very few items original to the house remain because most everything was sold after Jacques died.

When we finished the house tour, we took time to pause for a couple more photos at the front of the house.

Then we enjoyed more of the gardens around the house.

We're not sure what the next flower is, but it certainly was striking. It's possible it is a member of the iris family. It is only about 2 inches across.

On Mondays, Thursdays and Fridays, the "Colonel" talks about the Civil War behind the house. We listened from a distance for a short time; but even though there was shade available, it was too hot and humid for us to hang around very long.

Oak Alley also has guest cottages and a restaurant on the grounds.

Before the current 15 or 20-foot levee was built by the Army Corps of Engineers following a massive 1927 flood, there used to be a grand view of the Mississippi down the rows of oak trees from the second-floor porch. However, the close proximity of the river meant there was a threat of flooding, especially in the spring. Back in the day, the landowners were responsible for their own levees, and they were only about 5 feet high. The landowners needed to work together because your protection was no better than the weakest levee.

As we left Oak Alley, which is about 50 miles upstream from New Orleans, we parked across the road and walked up to the top of the levee to take a look at the Mississippi. We have been monitoring the reports of flooding up and down the river since before we got to Biloxi.

They are predicting record floods for many areas (we already canceled a stay in an RV park overlooking the Mississippi River across from Natchez, MS due to flooding, and we're hanging loose on another stop in southern Louisiana Cajun country), but New Orleans is well-protected by levees. Even though the river is predicted to crest a little above flood stage, the levees protect to several feet above flood stage. The water at Oak Alley was high, but there was still at least 6 or 8 feet to go before the water got to the top of the levee. The crest was only predicted to be another foot or two higher at the most, and the crest wasn't expected for almost another week.

Last year, we discovered the great New Orleans tradition of the muffuletta sandwich. Did we mention we liked the good food in New Orleans? We were hungry for a muffuletta, so we stopped at a restaurant called DiMartino's to pick one up on our way back to the motor home from Oak Alley.

The muffuletta is an Italian submarine-style sandwich with meats like ham, pepperoni and salami, and with provolone cheese. Rather than a hoagie bun, the muffuletta is made using round, Sicilian bread that is 9 or 10-inches in diameter. The sandwich is topped with chopped olive salad and drizzled with olive oil.

Last year, we got great muffulettas from Central Grocery located in the French Quarter. Central Grocery claims to be the inventors of the muffuletta back in the early 1900s. Our neighbors up the road at the campground, who were locals, told us about the excellent muffulettas at DiMartino's, which is only about a mile or so from Bayou Segnette State Park. DiMartino's has tables inside so you can eat in, or you can order your food to go like we did.

When we got back to the motor home, we couldn't wait to dig in. The photo makes it look like the muffulatta is on a hamburger bun, but it's 9 inches in diameter, and one sandwich was almost more than the two of us could eat.

Wow! Central Market may be the inventors of the muffuletta, but DiMartino's sure makes an excellent sandwich. We think we like them better than the ones from Central Market, and the best part is we don't even have to go downtown to get one. The bread was outstanding - a little softer than at Central Market, and we also like the fact DiMartino's serves their muffulettas warm. Did we mention we like the good food in New Orleans?

As we said earlier, we have a lot we want to do while we're in New Orleans, so we'll have more posts coming up.

New Orleans, LA, PART VIII: New Orleans School of Cooking

The New Orleans School of Cooking was something that came up in Margery's online research of things to do in New Orleans. We both enjoy watching cooking shows on the Food Network, and we both like to eat. Therefore, a demonstration of New Orleans Creole and Cajun cooking followed by samples seemed like a no-brainer.

In addition to group cooking demonstrations, the school has private demonstrations and hands-on cooking classes. We opted for the group demonstration. There is a different menu for each day of the week, and you can pick the day and menu that suit you best. We decided to go on Thursday, the last day of our stay, because we liked the menu of corn and crab bisque, shrimp creole, bread pudding and pralines. We always pronounced it pray-LEANS, but we quickly found out it's pronounced praw-LEANS in the South.

We arrived a little early for our 10:00 AM demonstration and had a little time to look around the school's gift shop. The photo below shows the outside of the school. That's Margery in blue waiting by the door.

Each demonstration seats over 60 people, so the shop soon got pretty crowded. If you're going to a demonstration, reservations are required, and make them early because your name will be called for seating in the order of when your reservations were made.

During the demonstration, iced tea, water and coffee are provided. Each guest also receives either a complimentary Abita beer or Abita root beer. Abita is a small brewery about 30 miles north of New Orleans. They brew about 90,000 barrels of various kinds of beer a year and about 5,000 barrels of root beer. We choose the root beer, which was excellent.

The chef, Kevin, was a hoot. His quick wit and humorous stories made the demonstration even more enjoyable. He started with a little history of New Orleans cooking, which is a blend of styles and flavors. Creole is city-style cooking, and Cajun is country. Both styles use of lots of spices and herbs which were introduced from the French colonies in the West Indies.

Although recipes for all the dishes were provided, Kevin said most cooks in New Orleans cook by taste. They also cook according to what they have available. For example, if you have shrimp, you make shrimp Creole. If you have chicken, you add chicken instead. If your short of cash, you put in fish, but you call still it shrimp Creole.

As another example of using what's available, traditional cooking uses onions, celery and carrots to add flavor to dishes. New Orleans doesn't have sandy soil, so they couldn't grow carrots. Instead, they use onions, celery and bell peppers. This combination is widely used in New Orleans cooking and is known as "the trinity."

Kevin started off with the bread pudding since it had to bake the longest. He used French bread, and added the other ingredients as he broke the bread into smaller and smaller pieces as he stirred. Then he poured the oatmeal-like mixture into pans and topped it with brown sugar for a nice crust.

After getting the bread pudding into the oven, it was on to the shrimp Creole. The first step in making shrimp Creole is to make a roux (pronounced rue). Roux is a mixture of flour and a fat or oil and is used as a thickening agent in soups and gravies. Combing the flour with fat prevents the flour from clumping as it would do if you added it to your soup directly. In French cooking, roux is made from butter, but you can use almost any oil (except olive oil - the flavor is too strong) or even lard. One part flour is added to one part fat or oil in a skillet. The mixture is cooked and stirred for at least a few minutes to remove the raw flour taste. Cooking longer will make a peanut butter-colored roux which is good for soups and gumbo, and cooking it to a chocolate color is good for adding rich flavor to meat gravy.

One great takeaway we got from Kevin was how to shorten the time it takes to make a roux by toasting the flour ahead of time in the oven. By baking flour 350 degrees for 1 1/2 hours to a peanut butter-color or 3 hours for chocolate-color. The flour (without the fat) is spread in a thin layer on a cookie sheet or shallow pan in the oven and stirred every half hour. After you achieve the desired color, cool, sift, and store in the pantry. When you're ready to make the roux, melt the fat (or heat the oil), stir in equal amount of the browned flour and you have instant roux without further cooking. Then combine your soup or gravy with the roux and heat a few minutes until thickened.

Kevin sauteed a large quantity of "the trinity" in his roux to make the base of the shrimp Creole. Stock is then added (use what you have - either chicken or vegetable, but fish isn't recommended because the flavor may be too strong). Then add tomatoes (use what you have - fresh or canned chopped tomatoes or tomato sauce), spices (use what you have - Cajun spice, paprika, shrimp boiling spices or whatever).

As the demonstration progressed we could watch what was going on in the pots and on the counter by means of overhead mirrors.

Simmer the Creole mixture 45 minutes to an hour, then add pre-cooked shrimp (or chicken or fish) about 5 minutes before serving.

While the bread pudding was baking and the shrimp Creole was simmering, Kevin made the corn and crab bisque. Then he and his assistants began serving generous samples of all the dishes. Everything was yummy! Even Paul who isn't a big fan of bread pudding, thought this one was pretty good.

Finally, Kevin showed us how to make pralines. Pralines are essentially a candy made from sugar, butter, pecans and milk. We sampled some previously at a store in the French Quarter, but they couldn't even begin to compare to the ones Kevin made, especially since his were served warm.

The greatest thing Kevin demonstrated is how recipes can be flexible. Just like you can add shrimp, chicken or fish to the Creole, you can also add any number of things to the bread pudding. Kevin doesn't like the traditional raisins unless you simmer them a while in rum, brandy, or a flavored liqueur to plump them up a little before adding them. You can also make pina colada bread pudding by substituting pina colada mix for some of the milk, then adding coconut and crushed pineapple before baking. The possibilities are almost endless.

Afterward, Kevin chatted with the guests, answered more questions and posed for photos. As you can see, Kevin is a big dude.

The cooking demonstration was over around 1:00 PM, and although we weren't hungry after all those samples, we decided to walk up to the Central Market to get yet another muffuletta to take back to the motor home for dinner.

Apparently the street entertainers we saw the previous Friday weren't only there for the festival that was going on because we saw entertainers around Jackson Square on this day as well. There was this interesting musical combination of Sousaphone and clarinet.

The cooking school is only about two blocks from St. Louis Cathedral, and we walked past it on the way to the Central Market. The cathedral is open to visitors if there isn't a mass going on, so we went inside to take a look. We're used to more contemporary church services held in more modern buildings, but there is certainly something to be said about the dignity and majesty of a large church or cathedral like St. Louis.

After we picked up our muffuletta, we headed back to the ferry and back to the motor home. After spending a little time relaxing and doing a few things in preparation for our departure the next day, we sat down to enjoy our muffuletta. We had only gotten halves to share before, but this time we got a whole since it was for dinner. The things are almost a foot in diameter, and we almost finished it all.

We were both really surprised at how much we liked New Orleans. We liked the laid back attitude, the huge variety of things to do and see, the food and the people. Almost everyone we ran across seemed friendly and happy, even after all they have been through. New Orleans also reminds us a little of our old hometown of Pittsburgh. Unlike Pittsburgh, New Orleans has no hills, but the cities both share a river heritage. Both cities have a mix of old and new buildings in the downtown areas, and they both have ethnic neighborhoods. Even though we extended our stay a day, we feel like we still have a lot we want to see and do in New Orleans, so we'll definitely be back.

From New Orleans, we headed west. Look for our next post to see where we ended up.

 

New Orleans, LA, Part VII: More French Quarter

On our city tour, we passed a museum that was in the Old U. S. Mint at the far end of the French Quarter. After the tour, we decided to walk down to the museum to see what it was all about.

Incidentally, another good way to get around the city if you don't want to walk is by streetcar. New Orleans has three different lines that travel different areas. One travels up and down Canal Street, one travels from Canal Street along St. Charles Avenue to the Garden District and one travels along the riverfront from upstream of the French Quarter to the far end of the French Quarter where the old mint is located.

 

Fares are reasonable at $1.25 per ride, but you will have to pay each time you get off and back on. Transfers from one line to another or to a bus are $.25. You can also get an all-day pass good for unlimited rides and transfers for $5 or a three-day pass for $12.

We learned some interesting facts about the streetcars on our city tour. Streetcars have been a part of the transportation system in New Orleans since the 1800s. Except for a period following Hurricane Katrina, the St. Charles line is the only line that has been in continuous operation since the first use of streetcars in New Orleans. Most of the cars are of the type that were used in the 1920s and 1930s.

Since the type of streetcar used in New Orleans is no longer being manufactured, New Orleans now builds their own cars. They were already adept at replicating all the parts because of all the repairs they had made over the years. Although the newer cars look very similar to the originals from the 1920s and 1930s, the new ones are handicap accessible and some are air conditioned, a big plus with the hot, humid summers in New Orleans.

Rather than take the streetcar, we walked to the mint because we wanted to stop on the way at Cafe du Monde for more beignets. This time it was Paul who forgot and wore a dark shirt, but at least we had Handi-Wipes to get rid if the stickiness afterward. Look how much powdered sugar is on that thing!

The museum in the old mint is operated by the state of Louisiana. It has a display of silver coins and some of the old equipment from New Orleans and from other mints.

In the 1830s, President Andrew Jackson (hero of the battle of New Orleans) fought for the establishment of a mint in New Orleans to help finance western development.

The mint produced U. S. gold and silver coins until 1861 when Louisiana seceded from the Union. The state took over the mint to produce coins for the Confederacy, but the Confederacy ran out of gold and silver bullion within a few months.

After the Civil War, the mint finally resumed making U. S. coins in 1879. The New Orleans Mint permanently ceased operations in 1909.

In the photo below, Paul is checking out an old analytical balance that is very similar to the one that was in the lab at his first job out of college with Westinghouse. The balances are so accurate, there is a glass door to prevent drafts from changing the readings, and the weights have to be handled with tongs to prevent skin oils from adding to the weight.

The next photo shows a machine that was used to weigh the coin blanks. If a blank didn't meet the weight requirements, the machine ejected it.

After seeing the mint, we headed back to the Central Grocery for another muffulletta. On the way, we passed a statue of Joan of Arc. Joan of Arc was a peasant girl who led the French army against the English in the Hundred Years War back in the 1400s. Margery's family on her mother's side is related to Joan of Arc. Her mother was Swiss, and her maiden name was von Arx (the German version of the name).

Following our walk through the French Quarter, the visit to the mint, more beignets and another muffuletta, we headed back to the motor home. Tomorrow, we'll have something new, so stay tuned.

New Orleans, LA Part VI: City Tour

With the French Quarter Festival starting the day after we arrived in New Orleans, we postponed the city tour we wanted to take until after the weekend. Margery researched tours online, and we read numerous brochures. We finally decided on Celebration Tours. They had a "City of New Orleans and Katrina Recovery Tour" that sounded interesting, plus one of the guide books we picked up in the visitor center in the French Quarter had a coupon for a $10 per person discount.

The tour van will pick you up at most downtown hotels, but since we obviously weren't staying in a hotel, they picked us up at the foot of Canal St. right by the ferry dock. And they were right on time.

The tour started out driving through the French Quarter, and we again got to enjoy the unique architecture with the decorative ironwork.

We passed St. Louis Cathedral and Jackson Square. The existing cathedral, which is the third church built on the site, was built in 1789. The cathedral was expanded and largely rebuilt in 1850. Carriages line up on Decatur Street with the cathedral in the background waiting for customers.

Most of the tour companies now include the 9th Ward area in their city tours. It was the 9th Ward that was so devastated by Hurricane Katrina back in 2005. The 9th Ward is one of the easternmost parts of the city, which means it is down river. Being down river means it has a lower elevation.

On our way to the 9th Ward, we passed the former home of legendary singer, Fats Domino. His most famous hit was "Blueberry Hill" in 1956.

 

Next door is his former office.

We all heard a lot on the news about New Orleans after Katrina, but it was interesting to hear from someone like our tour guide who is a native and who knows what REALLY happened. For example, most news reports said levee failures caused the flooding. That's only partially true. It turns out the Army Corps of Engineers widened a couple of canals at some time in the recent past. They removed the earthen levees that successfully held back flood water for decades and replaced them with concrete flood walls. It was some of the concrete flood walls that failed. The walls have now been replaced with an improved design.

Most places in New Orleans that flooded had only a few feet of water. The problem was the flooding was so wide spread and took so long to subside that residents were not allowed to return for a long time. By the time most residents were allowed back, most homes were filled with mold from all the standing water. Some homeowners were kept away as long as 6 months. By that time, wood had started to rot.

With all the wind damage, mold and rot, most of the houses in the 9th Ward have been razed. There are still a few that are standing, but which have not been restored like this shotgun house in the photo below.

 

 

We also got to learn about some of the unusual housing styles in New Orleans like the shotgun house. In the 1800s, property taxes were based on lot frontage. Smart home builders began building long, narrow houses on very narrow lots to lower property taxes. One theory about the name says if you opened all the interior doors and fired a shotgun, the pellets would exit out the back without hitting anything.

The next photo shows a newly built shotgun house in the 9th Ward. Even though there is no longer a tax advantage to this style house, many of the new houses are shotgun houses because that's all the wider the lots are.

Shotgun houses are usually not more than 12 to 14 feet wide. To make better use of the small lot size, they started building two-story shotgun houses. Then the city fathers got wise, and began taxing the property based on the height of the house. Since the height was measured at the front, a new design called the camel back emerged where the front of the house was only one story high, and the back was two stories. The next photo shows an example of a new camel back. Again, there is no longer a tax advantage to this style, but people build them because of tradition.

Rebuilding is being aided by numerous groups such as Habitat for Humanity and various other service and religious groups. One area of the 9th Ward is being rebuilt by a foundation started by Brad Pitt called Make It Right. Brad and Angelina have a home in the New Orleans Garden District, and they have taken a interest in helping their part-time home town. The housing designs are non-traditional, but they seem to be trying to make sure the houses are designed to withstand storms and floods. For example, the houses are up on stilts to prevent flood damage and roofs are metal to prevent wind damage.

As we drove through the neighborhoods, our driver could tell us which areas flooded and which didn't. He would occasionally point out water stains on various buildings to show us how high the water got. In some areas, one side of the street flooded and the other, which was slightly higher, didn't.

Our guide told us about 80% of the residents have returned to New Orleans, but there is still a lot of rebuilding in the 9th Ward and elsewhere that needs to be done. Almost all tourist activities are back up and running, so if you're thinking about coming to New Orleans, don't hesitate for a minute because they're ready for you. The French Quarter had very little flooding, and other areas of downtown are fully functional.

From the 9th ward, we went to a cemetery. The cemeteries in New Orleans are another curiosity for most visitors because they are built above ground. Our tour guide, who was not only very knowledgeable, was also quite humorous, and he had us all in stitches with his story of how the cemeteries came to be built above ground. We can't begin to duplicate his humor, so we'll give a simplified version.

In the early days of New Orleans, they tried to bury their dead in the ground as they always had. The water table in New Orleans is so high, the caskets would pop out of the ground every time it rained. They tried weighing the caskets down with rocks and scrap iron, but the bodies still popped up. Eventually, they began building tombs above ground. Since the bodies weren't embalmed back then, gasses given off during decomposition sometimes blew the tombs open. When they put vents on the tombs, neighbors complained about the smell. Moving the cemeteries out of town and the advent of new embalming methods finally solved the odor problems.

The cemeteries are called "cities of the dead" because the tombs, which come in all sizes, look like houses, churches, or temples. All the streets in the cemetery have names, and each tomb has a unique address.

The interesting thing is each tomb can accommodate as many as 100 bodies. That is accomplished by a unique method of burying. Depending on the size of the tomb, the upper part has a space for one or two caskets. A floor separates the upper part of the tomb from the lower part. After a casket spends about a year in the upper part of the tomb, the body has decomposed to the point where all that's left are bones. The tomb is reopened, the bones are placed in a bag, and the bag is placed under the floor in the lower part of the tomb. The casket is discarded, and the upper part of the tomb is ready for a new occupant.

From the cemetery, we drove to take a quick look at Lake Pontchartrain. Unfortunately, we couldn't get a good photo. Like most of the tour companies, Celebration Tours uses 12-passenger vans because anything bigger like a mini-bus would likely have difficulty negotiating the narrow streets of the French Quarter. The van was completely full for our tour, and with all those people on board and with reflections on the windows, it was hard to get the camera into position in time for pictures. An open tram would make it easier for everyone to see, but would be impractical because of all the rain New Orleans gets (an average of 60 inches a year).

We were surprised to learn Lake Pontchartrain is brackish water. Actually, Lake Pontchartrain isn't really a lake at all, but an estuary, which is a place where fresh and salt water mix. The estuary is fed by several smaller rivers and bayous, and is connected to the Gulf of Mexico by a straight called The Rigolets. If you consider Pontchartrain a lake, with an area of 630 square miles it would be the second largest saltwater lake in the United States after the Great Salt Lake.

From Pontchartrain, we drove through City Park where we stopped a few days ago to see the sculpture garden. Then from the park, we drove southwest to the Garden District. The area was originally plantations that were sold off in parcels to wealthy Americans who came to the area after the Louisiana Purchase. The Creoles thought the Americans were uncouth and didn't want them living in the French Quarter. The Garden District got its name from the fact that many of the lots were large enough for a large house and showy garden. The gardens are almost all gone now, and so are some of the old houses. But many of historic houses remain.

After the tour, we decided to take another walk into the French Quarter since it was still early afternoon. We'll tell you about our walk in our next post.

New Orleans, LA, Part V: Besthoff Sculpture Garden

After leaving Longue Vue, we swung around to City Park, which was only about 10 minutes away. City Park is a 1,300 acre park in the northern part of New Orleans that has something to do for just about everybody. There are places to picnic, walk, boat, play tennis, horseback ride and play golf. In addition, there is a botanical garden, an art museum, the Carousel Gardens Amusement Park, Storyland themed playground, and an outdoor sculpture garden.

City Park was once part of the Jean Louis Allard Plantation that was established in the 1770s. Philanthropist John McDonough bought the land in 1845, and donated the land to the cities of New Orleans and Baltimore upon his death in 1850. New Orleans was able to buy Baltimore's share of the land when Baltimore failed to pay taxes. It was designated a park in 1854.

City Park was once favorite the location for Creole gentlemen to settle matters of honor by means of duels. Duels were originally fought with fencing foils. When one of the gentlemen drew first blood he was declared the winner. When the Americans arrived, they fought duels with pistols, which tended to be more deadly than the first blood method used by the Creoles. For this reason, dueling was eventually outlawed.

We decided to stop and look around the Besthoff Sculpture Garden. We weren't sure what to expect, but we found the sculptures were all pretty contemporary. We should have known because the sculpture garden is right next to the New Orleans Museum of Modern Art. We generally prefer more traditional art and sculpture, but the sculpture garden was free so we figured why not give it a try. It turned out some of the pieces were kind of interesting.

The photo of the piece below titled "Overflow" ended up looking better (in our opinion) in the photo than it did in person. In person, you could see the figure was made up of thousands of stainless steel letters, but in the photo, the sculpture takes on a translucent, ghostly look.

The next shape made from copper and titled "Acme" reminded Paul of a large rivet.

There were several sculptures in the small lake that was in the middle of the garden. The obelisk below is made from bronze and looks like a big stack of violins.

The next piece titled, appropriately enough, "Tortoise," is a little more whimsical.

 

Margery joined the next sculpture, but there was no way she could blend in. Her friends are just too pale.

The horse in the next photo is made from cast iron, but it looks like it is made up of wooden sticks and branches.

There were lots more sculptures in the sculpture garden, but we've just shown a few that we thought were interesting. After walking around the house and gardens at Longue Vue earlier in the day and then walking around the sculpture garden, our feet were getting tired so we headed back to the motor home.

Next on our agenda is a city tour. We usually like to start off our visit to a new city with a guided tour, but with the French Quarter Festival going on during the weekend, we postponed the tour until early the following week. Stay tuned and we'll tell you all about it.

New Orleans, LA, Part IV: Longue Vue House and Gardens

For our next sightseeing outing in New Orleans, we decided to visit Longue Vue house and gardens located in the northern part of the city of New Orleans. The estate was designed for Edgar Stern, a New Orleans cotton broker, and his wife, Edith Rosenwald Stern, who was heiress to the Sears-Roebuck fortune.

The house that stands at Longue Vue today is the second house the Sterns built on this site. The first was started in 1924. In 1934, when the Sterns hired a landscape architect to redesign their gardens, they realized the old house didn't allow them to fully enjoy their new gardens, so they moved the old house to a new site and started the current house in 1939.

The house is an example of Classical Revival architecture. A row of live oak trees lines the driveway and frames the view of the house.

The next photo is a little closer view of the front facade.

 

Longue Vue has 20 rooms on three stories and contains furniture, art and antiques that are all original to the house. The house has a basement, which is highly unusual for this region because of the high water table. The basement, along with most of the gardens, were flooded following Hurricane Katrina. Fortunately, the water did not get high enough to reach the main floor, although some peeling paint was still evident on a second floor ceiling as a result of a roof leak caused by Katrina. A few of the larger live oak trees were lost as well as many smaller landscape plants. The gardens have been largely replanted and look great.

Unfortunately, Longue Vue is a bit more stuffy than the plantations we visited, and photography isn't permitted inside, so we won't be able to show you any of the rooms. However, we can show you the gardens, which were blooming with a variety of spring flowers.

 
The south side of the house (to the right in the two top photos) had a formal garden near the house.

Beside the formal garden and to the left in the photo below was the yellow garden.

Beyond the yellow and formal gardens is the Spanish Court, which is a large lawn area surrounded by brick walls and fountains. The day we were there, the lawn was set up for a conference luncheon being held at Longue Vue. It was a beautiful setting.

The walls and fountains at the end of the lawn provided a nice frame for the southern facade of the house.

The Sterns were art collectors, and much of the collection remains on display in the house. Some of the pieces in the house are copies because the high humidity of New Orleans tends to be unkind to some artwork. The originals are on display or are stored at other locations.

In her later years, Edith Stern collected a good bit of contemporary art. Beyond the Spanish Court is an untitled work made from wood that looks like a giant wave. Paul is trying to imagine what it might be like to swim against the tide.

Working our way around the gardens, we next came to the pigonnier (French for dove cote, a.k.a. pigeon coop).

Along the walkway near the pigeonnier were dozens of varieties of Louisiana iris which were in full bloom.

 

After we left Longue Vue, we decided to stop at nearby Besthoff Sculpture Garden. Look for more info about that in our next post.

New Orleans, LA, Part III: Laura Plantation

After we toured Houmas House, we had time to stop at another plantation on our way back to the motor home. Our next stop was at Laura Plantation.

As we said in our last post, we had a lot of difficulty deciding which plantations we wanted to visit. We picked Houmas House because it was one of the largest sugar plantations in Louisiana and was therefore probably one of the most opulent. We also chose Houmas House because it has fairly extensive gardens. We certainly weren't disappointed with what we saw and learned.

We made our choice of Laura because it was a Creole plantation which was operated differently than the Anglo plantations. The way the Creoles ran their plantations is best summed up in their saying, "The business is family, and the family is business."

Creole has meant different things to different people at different times in history. Originally, it meant anyone of French heritage who was born in the colony as opposed to a new immigrant. Today, Creole usually means someone of mixed heritage - French (and sometimes Spanish) plus African and/or Native American.

Incidentally, the other ethnic group that is unique to the area of southern Louisiana are the Cajuns. The name Cajun is a corruption of the name Acadian. When the British won the French and Indian War in 1863, they ousted the French from Acadia, Canada. Some went back to France, and some went to the French city of New Orleans.

The other reason we chose to visit Laura is it has the most remaining out buildings of all the plantations in the area, including six original slave quarters.

The first thing we noticed about Laura was the house was only one story, and it was much smaller than Houmas House. Again, the house is painted an ochre color instead of white.

On the house tour, we learned the history of the plantation, which was founded in 1804 by Guillaume Duparc. The plantation was originally called l'habitation Duparc.

Guillaume died in 1808, and his wife took over as head of the plantation. Creole custom was different than most other cultures where property passes to the eldest son. To the Creoles, the plantation was their life and their livelihood, and they believed in passing control to the child who is most capable. For that reason, control of the Duparc plantation was eventually given to daughter Elizabeth Duparc. Elizabeth later married Raymond Locoul and had two children.

In 1874, Elizabeth divided the plantation between her son Emil and her daughter Aimee. In 1876, Emil, whose portion of the plantation included the main house, renamed the plantation for his daughter Laura. Laura, who was the last family member to run the plantation, did so from the time of her father's death in 1879 until she sold it in 1891.

We entered the house through one of the plantation offices, and were immediately struck by how simply the house was furnished.

Although the family spent the entire 9-month growing season at the plantation, they considered their real home to be their townhouse in the city of New Orleans. They also didn't want their customers to know well off they were, so the Creole plantation houses were rather small, simple and unadorned. They saved all the fancy stuff for their homes in the city.

After business was conducted, clients were led into the parlor where they would have been served wine and refreshments. The wine would have been imported from Bordeaux, France, where Laura's grandfather's family made the wine.

The dining room was also simply furnished. There is no marble fireplace, silver candelabras or silver serving pieces like there were at Houmas House.

We exited at the back of the house. From the veranda you can see the bare spot at the end of the walk which was the former location of the two-story kitchen. The kitchen, which was separate to help protect the main house from fire, was quite large because it prepared food for all 200 slaves on the plantation. The slaves who worked in the kitchen lived on the second floor.

A road extended south from the main house a distance of 3 1/2 miles. The road was lined with 69 slave cabins. The old photo below shows the cabins along the road back in the day.

Six of the slave cabins remain. Some of them were occupied by descendants of the original slaves until 1977. Each cabin was divided in two - much like a duplex. Eight to ten slaves would have lived in each half of the cabin.

The next photo shows the inside of one of the cabins.

 
Guillaume Duparc's widow, Nanette Duparc, had the two-story building in the next photo built as a mother-in-law house when she retired after running the plantation for 47 years. Nanette negotiated a monthly stipend to be paid by the family for her support. The stipend was considered a "consulting fee," and she used to stand on the second-story porch and give orders during much of her retirement.

Laura Plantation didn't have much in the way of gardens like Houmas House, but they did have a few citrus trees planted, and they were blooming. The fragrance was intoxicating!

Another interesting fact about Laura Plantation is that it was here that West-African Senegalese slaves brought stories of Compair Lapin, the clever rabbit, and Compair Bouki, the stupid hyena to Louisiana in the 1720s. The story known as Br'er Rabbit: The Classic Tales was translated from Creole French, and was first recorded and published by Alcée Fortier in 1894.

We really enjoyed seeing the differences between the two plantations we chose to visit and the contrast in cultures. It was a long day, and it felt good to get back to the motor home and put our feet up. We need to rest up because we still have lots to do, so look for our next post.

 

New Orleans, LA, Part II: Houmas House Plantation

Having seen the French Quarter on Friday, we left the city to the festival-goers for the weekend and took a day trip east of New Orleans to visit a couple of plantations.

There were over 400 plantations along the Mississippi between Baton Rouge and New Orleans in the 1800s. Today, there are only a handful left. Fortunately, many of those remaining have been preserved and restored. At least 8 of these "grand ladies of the Mississippi" are open to the public for tours, and many of those also are bed and breakfast inns.

As we read through the descriptions online, in the AAA Tour Book, and in the brochures we picked up, we had trouble deciding which plantations we wanted to visit. The first one we finally settled on was Houmas House. Not only did the house itself sound very interesting, Houmas House sounded like it had fairly extensive gardens.

Houmas House, today known as the "crown jewel of the Mississippi River Road," takes its name from the Houmas Indians who were the first inhabitants. The Indians sold their land to Maurice Conway and Alexander Latil in the mid 1700s. The men built a two-story French Provincial house that is still situated behind the present-day mansion.

In 1810, Wade Hampton of Virginia purchased the property and began construction of a one-story, West Indies-style house directly in front of the original house.

It was not until John and Caroline Preston took over the property in 1825 that the grand mansion started to take shape. Second and third stories were added and the house was expanded to its current size. The two-story columns are typical of the Greek Revival style.

We always think of plantation houses as being painted white, but this is not the case in Louisiana. The humidity is much too high in the Mississippi Delta area, and white paint is too susceptible to mildew. The wood siding of Houmas House is shaped to look like blocks of stone, and the wood is faux-finished in ochre to look like sandstone.

By the late 1820s, the land holdings of Houmas House totaled over 300,000 acres. In 1858, John Burnside  purchased Houmas House and increased sugar production until it was the largest sugar producer in the country. During the Civil War, Burnside, who was an Irishman, saved Houmas House by convincing advancing Union forces he was a British subject, and his property was therefore immune from occupation.

Houmas House continued to flourish as a sugar producer under new owners into the early 1900s. In 1927, there was a great flood, and the Mississippi inundated the surrounding area. The local economy never recovered from the flood because the Great Depression began just two years later.

The mansion was closed and fell into disrepair until Dr. George Crozat from New Orleans bought it as a summer home in 1940. The doctor renovated the home and added modern features such as indoor plumbing. Dr. Crozat's heirs eventually opened the house to tours.

"Hush...Hush, Sweet Charlotte" starring Bette Davis was shot at the plantation in 1963 and also starred Joseph Cotten and Davis's good friend, Olivia de Havilland. Since then, Houmas House has been featured in a number of films, including A "Woman Called Moses," starring Cicely Tyson, as well as in commercials and television shows.

Kevin Kelly, a coffee warehouse magnate from New Orleans, is the current owner. He fulfilled a like-long dream when he bought the property in 2003 and embarked on an extreme makeover; stripping the mansion down to its elegant bones; working with historical documents and blueprints, and bringing the antebellum palace back to life.

In the past seven years, Kelly has spent $7 million obtaining many of the items relating to the Sugar Palace's early history, including the 1847 La Tourrette map of Louisiana and the Houmas china, as well as 19th century furnishings owned by some of the South's wealthiest families.

We had a little time before the next tour of the house started, so we wandered through part of the garden.

Though the gardens aren't necessarily true to the mid 1800s period of the house, they are still quite beautiful. This bed of pansies was especially striking.

We strolled around to the eastern side of the house for the tour and met up with our guide, Judy Whitney-Davis. Judy was a real gem. She kept the historical facts well balanced with humor. She was so funny she probably could do a successful stand-up routine at the Comedy Club. The next photo shows Judy in the reception parlor.

One of the unusual things about Houmas House is, not only do they allow photography inside, you can also sit on the antique furniture. Kevin Kelly lives in the house and uses the furniture himself, and doesn't mind if visitors use it if they need to rest. They also have weddings and receptions in the house, and the furniture gets used then, too.

We then moved on to the the entry hall which has a three-story, self-supporting, spiral staircase.

The view up from below shows the graceful curves of the staircase.

The next photo shows the dining room.

Houmas House is not a bed and breakfast yet, but they're working on adding an 88-room inn and spa. However, they do have a cafe and a fine-dining restaurant on the premises. If you want something more special than just eating in the restaurant, and if have deep pockets, you can rent out the house and have dinner served right there in the dining room on the antique table using antique china and all the antique silver serving pieces.

The fireplace behind the table is imported Italian marble. It would have been extremely expensive to have even one marble fireplace back in the day, but Houmas House has 8 of them.

The men and ladies would have separated after dinner with the men going off by themselves to smoke cigars, play billiards, drink brandy and talk politics. The ladies would have gone to the ladies' parlor to gossip and play music.

The music room has one of only a few Steinway pianos that exist today made in Hamburg, Germany. Most Steinway pianos were made in New York, but the company opened a factory in 1880 in Germany to serve European customers. Judy played and sang for us. She was good at that, too. Even though the piano is a rare antique from 1901, it is played daily. She invited anyone in our tour group to play, even if it was just Chopsticks. Alas, no one took her up on her offer.

Another rarity at Houmas House is a small sculpture of Abraham Lincoln by famed Mt. Rushmore sculptor, Gutzon Borglun. Only a few of these statues were cast - 122 in bronze, 56 in silver and one in gold. This approximately two-foot high statue contains over 1,000 ounces of 99.99% pure silver.

The next photo is the 1800s kitchen in the original French Provincial house. The kitchen is still used to demonstrate 19th century cooking techniques to school groups.

After the tour of the house, we walked around the rest of the garden. A walled garden, known as the Hampton Fountain Court, features a 50-foot-wide water-lily pond that might have been painted by Monet. We met owner Kevin Kelly, a very unpretentious gentleman, trying to net some of the larger koi to transfer them to another pond on the property.

There is a relatively new section (they're still working on parts of it) that has a Japanese influence. As we said earlier, Houmas House can be rented out for weddings and receptions, and we're thinking the new garden is intended to be used for that purpose.

We stopped for a photo on one of the terraces leading up to the pavilion.

When we finished our tour of Houmas House, it was still fairly early in the day. Houmas House is about a 90-minute drive from New Orleans, so while we were that far from the motor home, we decided to stop at another plantation on our way back. It was very different from Houmas House, and it was very interesting. We'll tell you all about it in our next post.

New Orleans, LA, Part I: The French Quarter

From Mobile, it was about a three hour drive to our next stop in New Orleans, LA. We drove by New Orleans without stopping our first three years of full-timing on our way west, so we decided it was finally time to pay a visit.

Our home base for our stay was Bayou Segnette State Park located in Westwego, which is a suburb just to the southwest of New Orleans. Bayou Segnette has 30/50 amp electric and water hookups only; but, surprisingly, they also have free Wi-Fi. The roads and pads are paved, and the sites are generously spaced. You can sometimes hear a little distant traffic noise and a few distant trains, but the campground was fairly quiet, even when it was full on the weekend.

The other good thing about Bayou Segnette is the Louisiana State Parks honor the America the Beautiful Senior Pass for half-price camping. That means this campground is a real bargain for only $9 a night (plus a little extra for the online reservation fee). The photo below shows or site at Bayou Segnette.

And the next photo is a view looking down the road past our site.

As we researched things to see and do in New Orleans, we were almost overwhelmed by the number of sights and potential activities. To complicate things, we arrived on Thursday afternoon, and the 27th Annual French Quarter Festival started Friday. The French Quarter Festival is one of many festivals that are held in New Orleans, the most famous of which is Mardi Gras. Although the French Quarter Festival has been going on for quite a while, we got the impression more festivals have been added recently to try to let visitors know that at least the tourist areas of New Orleans have recovered from Hurricane Katrina.

The French Quarter Festival consists of crafts, food and music, and is primarily located along the Riverwalk and in the French Market and Jackson Square areas of the French Quarter. The festival meant even more things to do, but it also meant more crowds. We decided to go over to the French Quarter right away on Friday while the festival was going on, but before it got even more crowded on Saturday or Sunday. We were anxious to get a flavor of the city, and the festival sounded like a good way to do it.

New Orleans was founded in 1718 by the French Mississippi Company under the leadership of Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne de Beinville. The French colony was ceded to Spain in 1763, but Spain returned it to the French in 1801. France sold the area around New Orleans to the United States in 1803 as part of the Louisiana Purchase.

New Orleans expanded rapidly as a center for growing and processing sugarcane. Since the city sits near the mouth of the Mississippi River, it became a major port for both imports and exports. New Orleans was the largest and most wealthy city in the antebellum South.

As we learned when we visited Vicksburg a few days ago, New Orleans was captured by the Union in 1862. The fact that this capture was relatively early in the war spared New Orleans much of the destruction that was the fate of some other Southern cities.

We took the 10-minute ferry ride from Algiers Point on our side of the Mississippi over to the end of Canal Street on the downtown side of the river. The ferry carries pedestrians for free and cars for $1 each. We decided to park on the Algiers Point side ("special event" parking rate of $10 rather than the regular rate of $5) in order to avoid even higher parking rates on the New Orleans side of the river. It turned out that was an excellent choice with all the festival crowds, traffic, narrow one way streets and no left turns in the French Quarter.

The French Quarter runs along the river and is about half a mile wide and a mile long. It covers an area of about 78 square blocks and more or less coincides with the city originally founded by the French. Depending on how energetic you are, most of the French Quarter is within walking distance of the Canal Street Ferry dock.

We started out walking along the Riverwalk, which runs between the river and the French Quarter. There were numerous food booths and several large stages featuring jazz bands in this area of the festival. Then we cut over a block or two into the French Quarter itself and walked along Decatur Street to Jackson Square.

Jackson Square is named in honor of Andrew Jackson who successfully defended the city against the British in the Battle of New Orleans during the War of 1812. Actually, the battle took place a few weeks after the war, but neither side had gotten the news the war was over. A statue of Jackson is in the center of the square.

The square was filled with people, crafts, more food booths and another music stage. Behind the square is the beautiful St. Louis Cathedral.

We don't know if it was because of the festival, or if it is just the way it is in New Orleans on a sunny Friday, but there were a number of street entertainers like this guy pretending to be a robot...

...and this fellow making balloon animals for the kids.

We stopped at Cafe du Monde, which is well known for its beignets. Beignets are French doughnuts made from fried dough buried under a mountain of powdered sugar. Even though the lines were long, we had to try the beignets. There was indoor and outdoor seating, most people wanted an outside table on such a nice day.

We were afraid the table service would be slow because of the crowds, so we opted for the take out window.

The take out line turned out to be even slower than the table service because the three ladies in line in front of us were place holders for their field trip charges of 9 to 10 girls all making their purchases individually; but it was worth the wait. The beignets were delish, but messy. Our hands were sticky and we had powdered sugar all over our clothes by the time we were done. Lesson: If you know you're going to stop at Cafe du Monde for beignets, take along some packets of Handi-Wipes and wear light-colored clothing.

The French Market is located just past Cafe du Monde, and consists of shops, a farmers' market and a flea market. The farmers' market is just getting restarted after being closed down following Hurricane Katrina.

All through the French Market area were smaller stages with jazz bands playing. In front of most of the stages were couples, or even large groups of people, dancing to the music.

The next photo shows more dancers. To the left was what looked to be a bar mounted on some sort of trailer or float. Recorded music was blaring from speakers. The guys dressed in kilts would have a drink at the bar, then they would climb down from the float and dance with the ladies in the crowd. When they got hot and thirsty, they would go back to the bar for a while. The sign on the side of the bar read, "Free beer tomorrow." They looked like they planned to keep going well into the night.

The Beignets were good, but they were just enough to whet our appetites. There is a sandwich that New Orleans is known for called the muffuletta. Muffuletta is actually the name of the large, round, flat loaf of Sicilian bread that is used to make the sandwich, but the sandwich has taken over the name for itself. There are lots of places in New Orleans that serve the muffuletta, but it is generally accepted that the sandwich originated around 1906 at the Central Grocery, which is located on Decatur Street right across from the French Market. In addition to selling sandwiches, Central Grocery is also still a working grocery store...much like the stores in Pittsburgh's Strip District...not as in, well you know, 'strip,' but as in the strip of land beside the old railroad yards along the Allegheny River where fresh produce was shipped in. It is now the location of many ethnic grocery stores and restaurants.

Although there are counters and stools in the back of the store where you can eat your muffuletta, it was pretty crowded so we went across the street and found a bench.

A muffuletta sandwich consists of olive salad (chopped green olives and pickled cauliflower, celery and carrot) spread on the bread with capicola, salami, and several types of cheeses. The sandwiches are supposed to sit 24 hours to allow the flavors to blend, but we think the grocery was serving them as fast as they made them considering the line we had to wait in was 20 minutes long. By the way, the muffuletta with all the olive oil is another good use for Handi-Wipes.

With our bellies full, we were prepared to walk several more blocks to the infamous Bourbon Street. Along the way, we enjoyed the French Quarter architecture with the typical balconies and decorative ironwork.

When we finally got to Bourbon Street, we made a left and headed down Bourbon Street toward Canal Street and back toward the ferry. Bourbon Street is a popular place for carriage tours.

But Bourbon Street is also popular for drinking and for its girlie bars. Bourbon Street wasn't nearly as busy as we would expect it to be at night, but it was still buzzing with activity, even for early afternoon.

 

 

Recorded music blares from the bars during the day, while live bands entertain at night. Some of the bars, like the one in the photo below, have walk-up windows where you can buy drinks to go without even having to go inside.

When we got to Canal Street, we made a left and walked another 7 or 8 blocks to the ferry dock. We figured we walked a total of about 3 1/4 miles. Our legs were tired, but Margery's knees held up amazingly well.

On our way back to the motor home, we stopped at a multi-vendor seafood market that is about half a block east of the entrance to the state park.

The merchants sell a variety of seafood including talapia, catfish, live crabs, live crawfish and our favorite - shrimp. We came across this little 8-year old girl in one stall helping her mom weigh out shrimp for a customer. The rubber glove is almost as big as she is.

We got about 1 1/2 pounds of whole shrimp. These were the medium size. They had at least two sizes that were bigger.

Back at the motor home, it was Paul's job to remove the heads.

Margery removed the shells and de-veined the shrimp. She steamed them, chilled them, and we ate them cold with cocktail sauce. Yum! With the seafood market right up the road, we're gonna eat a lot of shrimp while we're here.

We have only scratched the surface of things to do, so look for our next post.