Sunday in the Big Easy

Big Easy being New Orleans, as everyone knows.

So many miles traveled and so much to catch up on.

Thursday in Baton Rouge

We toured the USS Kidd, a World War II era destroyer in Baton Rouge harbor.  This ship was involved in a number of WWII battles, most notably Okinawa, where it was hit by a Kamikaze and 38 men died.  The ship was open for touring in and out.  Matthew and I went thought all the floors (decks?) while claustrophobic Beth enjoyed the sun on the main deck.

Matthew especially enjoyed the 20 mm cannon and the galley!  We met a sailor who had served on this ship.

We walked from the Kidd to the old state capitol building.  This was built before the Civil War and had been occupied by Union troops during the war. It was partially destroyed by a fire but restored in the 1880s.  It was very impressive.

We got quite a history lesson, especially about Huey P. Long, former governor and senator from Louisiana.  The story is told that because of his many battles with the legislature in this building, he built a new capitol building, which we also visited.  Some of the pictures below are from the 27th floor of this building.

 Long was assassinated in this building in 1935 (or maybe 36) by one of his many political rivals.  It is said he was considering a run for the Presidency.  People still debate whether he was a potential dictator or a populist.


Friday - lazy day

We needed a day to "decompress" a little (meaning do laundry, dump the RV tanks, go shopping, etc.) so we did that on Friday.  This part of the country is very involved with Mardi Gras.  It's much more than a few parades on Fat Tuesday.  It's an entire season from Jan 5 to Feb 21 (this year) - the whole time from Epiphany to Ash Wednesday.  Many houses are decorated with yellow and purple (which also seem to be LSU colors).  One popular tradition during this time is King cake (perhaps named after the three kings...).  This is a cinnamon role type of cake (sometimes decorated with yellow and purple) where a small plastic baby is inserted in the cake.  When groups get together and share King cake, whoever gets the baby is supposed to provide the cake for the next gathering.  Here is our version of it, with Aunt Joan.

Oh, another fun thing we did on Friday was have a video Skype session with Matthew's class.  We will try to do this every week during our trip. It was cool to see all the kids from Mrs. Dolder's class.  Matthew was quite adept at talking about Vicksburg, the Kidd, and the old state capitol building.

Saturday Plantations

There are a number of pre-Civil War plantations along the Mississippi river between Baton Rouge and New Orleans.  We drove to three of them.

Nottoway has been restored to its former glory.  All these plantations had raised sugar cane, the main crop in southern Louisiana.  This was built by one of the leading American families, the Randolphs.  The father of the owners was a Federal judge (and land owner/farmer) in Mississippi and his son was more ambitious so he moved to Louisiana and raised sugar cane rather than cotton.

We also visited Oak Alley.  Some of the trees are 300 years old.  They are Live Oaks and they do not loose their leaves in the winter.

Also, we visited the Laura Plantation.  This was named after the woman who was the last person from the original family (maybe 4th generation) to run the plantation.  This is a "Creole-style" plantation, meaning it followed the local traditions of the French and Spanish rather than the "American" traditions.  For example, Nottoway was painted white to symbolize wealth whereas Laura was painted (guess what?) yellow and purple!  The original owner was a Frenchman who had been in the French navy and had fought in some battles of the American Revolution.  When he was ready to step down from running the plantation he passed control on to his daughter because he thought she was the smartest of his three kids.  There were two older boys were were kind of ne'er do well types (spoiled rich kids).  Passing control to a daughter was something of a tradition in this family because it happened two more times (with the final passing going to Laura).  It was all very involved but we had a great tour guide who filled us with stories (like the family that went to Paris to have their daughter treated for acne, only to have the girl die from the treatment!).

Enough for now!  We drove the 60 or so miles from Baton Rouge to New Orleans today after going to church with Joan (the Episcopal service was very new and different for Matthew).  We are in an RV camp about two blocks from the French Quarter, right next to a major road - we'll see how the noise is tonight!  We have lots of RV schooling to do and things to see in the new week!