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1 to 15 March 2015 16 to 31 March 2015

Monday March 16, 2015

A slow morning. By 10 am, I decide to check our departure date on the RV Park receipt just to make sure.
Oh no! We are supposed to leave today!?!?! We are not taking an extra day at $58 a night. I wake up Michele and we both decided to leave. We both have to work to get the motorhome ready to roll.
We finally leave by 11:30 am.

Some little musician frogs.

One of two big bridges we will be traveling on today.

Michele is good with the camera, she manage to take a photo of this airplane just as it came out above the trees and flew over us!

Yes, in Texas, everything is big!

Just like back home in Canada, lots of infrastructure work going on.

Ah! Let the good times roll!

And another big bridge.

Louisiana, land of the boudin & cracklings and other delicacy.

You do not have to tell me twice!

We are getting close to our new home, Poche's (pronounce Poshe) RV Park.

We finally pull in at 4:30.

We were treated to a nice sunset.

I cannot believe we have to use the AC! It is 30°C outside.

Tuesday March 17, 2015

Another 30°C day for us.
The view from the front of the motorhome.

As usual after pulling the car, we have to go to the car wash.

We are on our way to Baton Rouge and the LSU Rural Life Museum, this is a museum with all kinds of artefacts and old homes from the turn of the century. The get there we have to take the I-10 and here we are driving over the Atchafalaya Basin. The Atchafalaya Basin is the biggest wetland, swamp in the United Sates. The bridge over the basin is 29.290 km (18.2 miles) long. This is the second longest bridge in the US.

Just as we get off the bridge, we stopped completely for a good 25 minutes.

Finally, after about one hour it started to move again, but very slow.

Being close to lunchtime, we have lunch before the visit of the museum.

The "LSU Rural Life Museum".

A spaghetti maker from the 1900.

The inside part of the museum is a lot bigger then anticipated. Tools and other things use in everyday life in the south.
They have quite a collection of hearses.

In the early 1900, many coffins were made of cast iron with a window over the face of the deceased. This allows you to have one last look at a loved one.

An indoor toilet!

This was a bathtub for the rich in its day!

It is very rare we see baby strollers.

The upper arrow is a wooden gas pipe! The bottom arrow is a wooden pipe for water.

A few of the wheelchairs they have. Some even have the "potty" part built-in!

This is the first loom we see that small.

A house "Dog Trot" style. This one was built in the late 1860 and the Neal lived in it until 1976.

With the warm temperature we have been having, the geckos are out and so are the tree frogs.

You have to have a church and this one is a very simple church. It was built in 1893 and services were celebrated until 1960.

An Acadian style home.

The Germain Bergeron house is the oldest Acadian house in Louisiana. It was built in 1805.

This barn is built in the style of "grange pieux" or split cypress. They were built quickly and did not cost a lot on money.

The slaves houses, they were simple construction with very few pieces of furniture inside.

Not every slave had a bed. Notice the curtains in the window, they is one on the doorway. It was believed the wind-blown cloth would ward off evil spirits.

The "Overseer's" house. Notice the fan on the ceiling of the porch.

One of the four rooms of the overseer's home. A slave's house was the same size as one room here.

A dove cote from 1890. The "pigeonnier" was very important, it supplied you with food and fertilizers. It was also a mark of standing in the society at the time.

The general store.

We think these buckets are for holding hot coals, the inside is in terracotta and absorb the heat and it could be used as a bed warmer once placed under the bed, but we are not sure.

Our first "Longhorn".

They are really docile animals!

The trip back from Baton Rouge went smoothly.
We saw this bird in our park as we drove in.

Bonus! Another nice sunset.

Another great day.

Wednesday March 18, 2015

We wake up to a cloudy sky, but it is warm and humid. I am not complaining.
With Michele still in bed, I go for a walk around the park.
The motorhome in the distance and closer.

We have to go to town for some grocery shopping.

After lunch, Michele goes to Lafayette for some shopping and I stay home.

This morning we notice that the Chinese Buffet has "all you can eat crawfish".
We are having crawfish for dinner...

We come out of there with our bellies full. We went in without really looking at the cost. We are expecting to pay at least $20 per person. When the bill arrives, we are very surprised to see a total of $26.00 for both of us, including a beer! WOW!
I think we will come back before we leave...

Not as pretty, but still.

One more day in the 30°C.

Thursday March 19, 2015

This morning we are on our way to...

We will be visiting the "Crystal Rice Plantation".

Our luck is holding, we are the only two for the visit.
Our guide, Mona, is very good and interesting.
On the bottom of the page, rice still on the stalk, next up, the rice is removed from the stalk, next, the rice is cleaned and brown
Next it the finished rice and polished.

Rice farmer rotate the cultures in the fields. One year is the rice and the following year is crawfish.
Here is a crawfish trap.

What you see here are the same trap, but in the field.

More luck, as we drive away, a harvesting boat is on the side of the road next to a crawfish field.
The right arrow point to the driving wheel that moves the boat in the field. The water is only 12 to 18 inches deep.
The left arrow point to the table where the trap are emptied and sorted out by size and fall in the purple bags.

A different view of the boat. The left arrow point to the table and you can see the purple bags and the arrow on the right point to one of the wheels on the front of the boat. Why wheels? With them, you can go from one field to another by just rolling over the banks.
I also have to mention that the driving wheel is driven by hydraulic pressure. To make sure no contaminant enter a field, they use vegetable oil for hydraulic fluid. So, even if a leak happen, it is all natural hydraulic fluid so no contamination. Smart isn't!

After the visit at the plantation, we are on our way to Lafayette and the "LARC's Acadian Village".
Many people have told us it was not that great. We decide to go anyway, it is on our way.
Most of the homes you will see are from around the "Acadiana" part of Louisiana.
Aurèlie Bernard home. The oldest home in the "village". It was built in 1800, which is the left part of the house, the right part was built in 1840.

Many rooms in the houses are little museum in itself.
In this room, you have artefacts related to funerals and cemetery ornaments about 100 years ago.

"Bousillage enter poteaux" or mud between posts. It is simply mud and Spanish moss mixed together and place between post to make a wall.

The Thibodeaux (1820) home. This home is built with cypress wood because it is called the eternal wood. It resists to insects and rot.

In this home, to get to the "girls" room you have to go through the parent's bedroom. That is the left photo. On the right photo, you see the stairs to go in the "Garçonnière" or the boy's room in the attic.

The LeBlanc home, built between 1821 and 1856. This is the home where Senator Dudley J. LeBlanc was born. He acquired a reputation by creating a tonic with vitamins said to cure everything. It was called "Hadacol" and had a 12% alcohol contain!

The Saint-Jean home , about 1840.

Most Canadians know this flag.
"The flag of Acadia was adopted on August 15, 1884, at the Second Acadian National Convention held in Miscouche, Prince Edward Island, by nearly 5,000 Acadian delegates from across the maritimes. It was designed by Father Marcel-Francois Richard, a priest from Saint-Louis-de-Kent, New Brunswick. The Musée Acadien at the Université de Moncton has the original flag presented by Father Richard to the 1884 Convention. It was sewn by Marie Babineau."

The next flag...
"The flag of Acadiana, representing the ethnic Acadiana (Cajun) region of the United States in the state of Louisiana, was designed in 1965 by Thomas J. Arceneaux. Arceneaux was a professor at the University of Southwestern Louisiana, now the University of Louisiana at Lafayette and had derived the flag from the University seal. In 1974, the Louisiana legislature officially adopted Arceneaux's design as the official Acadiana flag. The three silver fleurs-de-lis on the blue field represent the French heritage of Acadiana, the gold star on the white field symbolizes Our Lady of the Assumption, patron saint of Acadiana (the star also symbolizes the active participation of the Cajuns in the American Revolution, as soldiers under General Bernardo de Gálvez, Spanish governor of Louisiana). The gold tower on the red field represents Spain, which governed Louisiana at the time the Acadians arrived."

This bar belonged to Monsieur Fernand Stutes. He was the bar owners, the barber, the grocery, a farmer and Justice of the Peace.
This is a replica of the bar from the 1940.

The Billeaud home, which is now used by the looms club.

Chapelle de Nouvel Espoir. This little church is a replica of the original built in 1850.

The Castille (1860) home. Not much is known about this home, it was built by a Mr. Castille, he was a European.

The home of the right is the doctor's cabinet, but it was the cabinet of a dentist.
The home on the left is the home of doctor Hypolite Salles.

Some of the locals.

The next two photos are a collage of many photos.

Before we head back to Breaux Bridge, we look for some caches

A very nice day, hot and humid. It is so nice to have warm temperature compare to what we had down in the "Valley".

Hard at work!

It was a busy day.

Friday March 20, 2015

We are really in the "tourism" mode this week!

We are on our way to Avery Island and the Tabasco factory.
We even take time to look for a cache.

I just love the Spanish moss hanging from the trees.

Do this means turn left?

Tabasco makes many different flavours of sauces.
The least "hot is on the right and as you taste and move to the left it gets hotter.

With our purchases done, we continue toward Morgan City for a visit of a drilling platform.

As I have mentioned before, this is bridge country.

Before the visit, we have lunch in this restaurant called "Castalano's".
We just picked it because the parking lot was full so we assume it was a good place to eat.

This is a small restaurant, but very busy with take-out and eat-in.

My "Fish Poboy" is very good and Michele's half-Muffalutta is also very good.

This was a very good meal and the portions are so big!.

We have one hour before the guided tour so we look for some caches.

Cute boat.

We are at the drilling platform museum.
The platform is also a training facility for future employee of the oil industry.

The rig "Mr. Charlie" drilled over hundreds of wells in the Gulf near Morgan City between 1954 and 1986. The Mr Charlie is the first mobile drilling platform in the world. For more information, check out this link Mr Charlie.

On the left is the pumping platform and on the right is the drilling platform. That we will tour.

This rig is huge, on the right, you can see the "legs" of the rig. This rig could only get to and drill in a depth of 40 feet of water. The legs had to sit on the gulf floor to be able to drill.

One of the under water unmanned submarine.

Everything is big here! On the left, a tackle and on the right the crown. On the far right a swivel.

How does this works? I sure hope not to make a mistake here!
The tackle is hooked to a hook, next is the swivel and the crown, which sits on the rotary table on the next photo.

The "elevator/basket" for moving workers between the platform and the supply ship.

Here is a supply and crew ship coming back from a rig.

It was a really good visit and our tour guide was perfect.

On our way back, we hit some heavy rain for about 10 minutes and back to sunshine.

One of the cute little towns we went through.

One more busy day.

Saturday March 21, 2015

They forecast thunderstorms for the last three days and nothing so far!
It is already 19°C and 98% humidity at 8 am. This is going to be another hot one.

Lafayette has a flea market and we are going there this morning. It turns out it is not our kind of flea market because it is 99% new stuff and we like old stuff.

The rain has finally come at the end of the afternoon.

So, we keep busy indoor!

Our friends Charles and Agnes were supposed to arrive today, but their truck broke down just as they left Mission. So, we are having crawfish again, but without them.

We sure ate a lot of crawfish today.

Sunday March 22, 2015

It is a little cooler today and we are looking for some caches in Breaux Bridge.
It is not a good day caching for us, we still manage to find a few.

We found 5 and 4 are DNF.

We were supposed to leave today, but we are staying an extra day.

Monday March 23, 2015

A quiet day at home. The view east and west.

We will be leaving this little piece of paradise tomorrow morning. We will be continuing our trip back home at a slow pace.

Tuesday March 24, 2015

One last look at the lake behind us!

After we have been stopped for more then a few day, I always check the tire pressure.

Once ready for travel, we head to Breaux Bridge to fill up on propane and diesel.

We really needed propane and I think we would have run out in a week or two. Also, it is better to be full of propane before heading north.

Our destination is Vidalia, next to Natchez, Mississippi. To do this we do have to travel a little ways on I -10.

We have to go through Maringouin, meaning Mosquito, with a population of about 1,000 souls.

Once we were out of I-10 we ended up on secondary roads and a lot less traffic.

We are next to the Mississippi river now and the water level is 18 inches above flood level. The flooding is minor. We are driving next to and on top of the levee protecting the people from major floods.

With spring come baby animals. They do not know how to cross roads yet and many are run over in the spring. A feast for the turkey vultures.

After about two and half hours of driving we make it to our new home on the Mississippi river. The "River View RV Park and Resort" in Vidalia, Louisiana. We so close to the Mississippi river, you can see the river behind the office.

After we got all set-up, we washed the motorhome and the car. They really needed it.
Michel sprayed a fire ants nest and what you see are the ants coming out. After the nest dried out, we sprayed it with ant killer stuff and a few hours later they were all gone...

We love to take back roads to travel, we get to see more. We will be here for at least a week.

Wednesday March 25, 2015

We are visiting two information center this morning. One in Louisiana and one in Mississippi.
What a weird looking bug!

The Louisiana information center.
The woman was very good and she gave us so much information, even about Natchez that is on the Mississippi side!

After the Louisiana information center, we are somewhat disappointed with the information center of Mississippi.
The woman basically gave us printed information and did not talk about much... She basically told us to "read it".

A view of Natchez, Mississippi.

So, we headed back home to "read" about the information of the area. The arrow indicates our RV Park.

Our new home...

We meet Dan and Liz from Ontario, really good people.

A collage of barges going up-stream.

Now we do have a better idea of what we want to visit in the next week.

Thursday March 25, 2015

Between the river and the RV Park they have a walking path. Why not try it!

These barges look like they are hitting shore! Not! He is just waiting for another barge to get by.

With both bridge in the back ground. The names of the bridges are, drum roll, "Natchez - Vidalia" bridges.

We are going to Mammy's Cupboard for lunch. You can read all about it below.

We have heard good and not so good about this place. I have today's special, roast-beef, barely above average, but Michele has the Reuben sandwich and it is very good!

We spend the afternoon in downtown Natchez. We leave (uptown) Natchez behind is and go down to Natchez-under-the-hill and have a peak at the casino Isle of Capri. Yes, it is a ship!

Back in the up-town, we leave the car for a tour of Natchez by foot. There is many circuit to do, you just pick a color and follow the arrows.

Some of the nice houses we saw in Natchez.

King's Tavern...

The Mississippi looking north.

Natchez is a very cute little city with 15,000 souls. Lot of history took place here over the years. This is also where the "Natchez Trace" ends.

Friday March 27, 2015

As you probably remember, our plans are written on sand and sometimes it gets windy. So, we were supposed to follow the "Great River Road", but after thinking about it we chose to follow the "Natchez Trace" instead. The Trace is 708 km (440 miles) long.
This morning we are doing a portions of the Natchez Trace with the car. We want to check out the type of road we will encounter with the motorhome. We also want to check out the first of three campground that are free on the Trace. There are private RV Parks close to the Trace also.
Here we go!

Nice roads!

I better let you read it then trying to tell you the same thing.
Fro more information about the Natchez Trace, click here.

Emerald Mound was impressive to see.

We even saw some wild turkey.

A "Loess" is basically sand deposited after the last ice age, for more information, click here.

The people traveling the Trace had to sleep some place during their travel. Many inns and plantation grew along the Trace. This is one of the few that survived.

Taking a break!

What a view from the porch!

We were wondering why the two sand boxes by the fire place. Two reason, first one, a place to put the hot pats from the fire. Second, the fire place has no spark protection in front. The sand was use to put out the amber flying out of the fire.

A short distance further we walk a short trail with information bout the local flora. Here you can see a tree with a "gall". It simply is a "growth" where the tree was damage by insects or other source.

Reading some information about this Magnolia tree.

The "Sunken Trace", here the trace is sunken by hundreds of feet and later horses that used the trace over hundreds of years. We are also in a "Loess" area, meaning this is mostly sand and is not a very stable which explains the sunken part.

The Natchez Trace is a beautiful road and I think we will drive with the motorhome. It will be easier to drive this trace than the "Blue Ridge Parkway" we drove in 2010.

A very small and almost dry fall. It must be nice when the water level is higher.

Our destination for today, the campground "Rocky Spring". We want to check it out and see for ourselves if it will be a good place to spend a few days.

We are very happy with what we see. We will come here Wednesday morning and hopefully spend six or more days. It will all depend on our water usage and waste water tanks. By the way, it is a free campground with absolutely no services.

Saturday March 28, 2015

We are back in Natchez to look for some caches and continue our visit of the city.
Our first cache is near the information center. Some old cars in the parking lot.

The next cache is a little harder to find, but we manage to get it.

Now, when is too many lawn ornament too many?

Yep! The name of the cache is "cardio" and yes, we do have to get to the bottom of the stairs to get the cache.

I was talking about floods earlier, well, here you see some of the minor flooding along the Mississippi.

The next few caches take us in an area of town with beautiful home. Many years ago, there was a road here and houses on the left.
This being a loess, sandy soil, over time the houses ended up down in the river. Today the soil is better protected from erosion and the houses are safe.

A very good day!

Sunday March 29, 2015

I am doing some caching this morning while Michele is sleeping in.
Beautiful red flowers.

While we were looking for book in the exchange bookcase in the RV park office, we stumbled on a CD of a, audio tour of the city cemetery. Of course we took it and this afternoon we are doing the guide audio tour.

All along the road for the tour, they have placed number matching the CD.
One of the road we took in the cemetery. Notice tall the cast iron fencing. They are gorgeous.

The CD is telling us all kinds of information about important peoples who lived here in Natchez, some famous and some not so famous.
This tomb is where Florence Irene Ford (3 Sept 1861 - 30 Oct 1871) died of yellow fever. Because Florence was afraid of storms, her mother had a window placed on the side of the tomb and a stair to go down to the window so she could see her daughter coffin during storms and make sure nothing happen to her. After the mother died, the covered the window with cement to prevent vandalism. Since the mother died, they placed a small angel looking down the stair to protect Florence during stormy night.

We also learned that when a column is broken like this one, it means a life cut short.

There are always big old trees in cemeteries.

The cemetery has a Catholic section, a section for coloured people, a section for babies and one for Jewish people. Jewish and Christians dead are to be place in a certain position (east-west), well it turn out they are opposite from each other. To keep the cemetery uniform looking, the headstones for Jewish people are placed at the foot of the tomb!

A view of a small part of the cemetery.

As with most cemeteries, there are two caches located in this cemetery. Here is one of them.

This CD was great and we really loved the tour it gave us of the cemetery.

One of the trailer in the RV Park. A 1955 Executive Mansion from Spartan. 50 feet long!

Good time in Vidalia / Natchez.

Monday March 30, 2015

This morning we are at the Frogmore Plantation & Gins near the town of Ferriday.

The guide tour starts with a video presentation narrated by the owner of the plantation, Lynette Tanner. The video was about 20 minutes long and well done. We learned that this museum is not supported by any level of government. It is privately owned by the Tanner family.

The photo speaks for themselves!

The bigger house is the home of the overseer. The overseer was generally a slave that was "trusted" more and had proven himself.

A typical slave home in this plantation. On the right, this is the garment the laves wore.

Our guide, behind the table, is explaining the "normal" diet of slaves. On the right, a higher end washing machine.

The slaves could only take a bath once a week and this is the bathtub in front of the fireplace.

A barn on the left and the gin on the right. Here are some of the machineries used at one time or the other on the plantation. They are painted the original colours. You can see the John Deer and IH and other company's colours.

Lynette, the owner, came and took over the guided tour. Here, she is talking about the cotton and the way it was harvested by the slaves.

A male slave could pick-up on average 240 pound a day, it means four bags like this one. Women and children were not expected to pick-up as much.

Our next stop on the tour is the "gin". The word gin comes from the abbreviation of the word engine.

So what is a gin?
Basically, it is a device that separates the seeds from the cotton ball. The cotton balls are sucked by a fan and sent to a separator (#1). The cotton balls fall on a conveyor (#2) which sent it to two "separators" (#3) that will take the seeds out of the cotton balls. The clean cotton travel to the back to the "bailer" and baled into large compressed bale (#5). The seeds fall to the bottom (#4) to be used as fertilizer in the fields. Now a days, the seeds are used in many products.

A view from the gin looking towards the plantation.

We rally enjoyed the tour at the plantation Frogmore.

On our drive back, we stopped at the town of Ferriday and the "Delta Music Museum".
Jerry Lee Lewis, Michey Gilley and Jimmy Swaggart, were born and raised in this town. The museum is nice, but for us, French Canadians, it does not mean much. The cost for this museum is $0.

After the music museum, we start looking for caches in the area. One was near all the flags and one we could see, but not get to because of too much water in the ditch.

The last cache we look for is in the tube in this fence. The fence has been repainted since the last person found it and the painter, un-knowingly pushed it back and it is on the edge and ready to fall into the vertical tube! I tried to get is with pliers, but only manage to push it in the vertical tube. It is gone. I will have to write an e-mail to the owner of the cache and explain what happened so he can put another one.

We are having chicken tonight.

We had a very good day.

Tuesday March 31, 2015

A relax day for us today. I walk the "Riverwalk" and take some photo of a few tugboats.

If you want to read information about this tugboat, click on the name, Bettye M. Jenkins.

If you want to read information about this tugboat, click on the name, Lindsay Ann Erickson.

The paddleboat on the left is a real paddleboat, it is the American Queen. The one on the right is not real, it is boat, but it houses the casino "Isle of Capri".

Until next time.

Life is good...