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Wallace, LA - April 11, 2016

4/11/2016

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Today was our last full day in Louisiana. Sarah had mentioned that she wanted to visit a plantation. Most of the plantation tours down there paint a picture of a genteel pre Civil War white South. Slavery is glossed over if it is mentioned at all. I was really not interested in that.
Over the weekend, my colleague Ann posted an article about Whitney Plantation (http://www.whitneyplantation.com). It was not a “chandelier tour” like the others. It was actually a memorial to the people who were enslaved at the plantation and throughout Louisiana. That sounded like something I could appreciate.
We left the hotel and headed over to Wallace. It took about an hour and a half to get there. It was about 10:45 when we arrived. The next tour was at 11:00, so we purchased our tickets and waited for the tour to begin. Our tour guide was wonderful. She was a wealth of information.
Our first stop was the Antioch Baptist Church. The church had been moved to the property from another location in Louisiana. It was originally named Anti-Yoke Baptist Church. The members were anti-slavery, thus the name anti-yoke. At some point they came across the word Antioch in the Bible and decided to rename the church.
Inside the church were clay statues of African-American children. The reason for the statues was explained in a video we watched in the church. In the 1930’s Franklin Delano Roosevelt started the Federal Writer’s Project as part of the WPA (Works Progress Administration).
The writers went all over the country writing down stories. It was a precursor to the current Story Corps project. In the South, they talked with many former enslaved people. It had been about 50 years since emancipation, so most of the people who were still alive had been children or teenagers at that time. The clay statues represented children from the plantation whose voices told the story.
Our fabulous tour guide
Antioch Baptist Church
Two windows from the church

From the church, we went to three memorials on the grounds. The first memorial is the Wall of Honor. It has the names of the individuals who had been enslaved on the Whitney Plantation. Most of them only had first names. They also put the tribe of origin if known and what the individual’s job was on the plantation.
The second memorial is called
Allées Gwendolyn Midlo Hall. It is a memorial to all of the individuals enslaved in Louisiana. The names came from the Louisiana Slave Database built by historian Gwendolyn Midlo Hall. She is quite an individual. (As an aside, she did part of her graduate work at the University of Michigan.)
The final memorial was called the Field of Angels. It is a memorial to children in Louisiana who died enslaved. The memorial is watched over by a statue of an African angel holding a baby.
Outside the Field of Angels there are two sculptures, Middle Passage and Hallelujah by sculptor Ken Smith. Hallelujah is a man with arms up stretched. It is a depiction of emancipation Smith donated the statue to the Slavery Museum in Fredericksburg, VA. The museum then commissioned the other piece, Middle Passage, which depicts people being pulled into the vortex of slavery.
Because of financial problems, the museum never opened, and the Hallelujah statue sat on the property surrounded by weeds. Smith donated Hallelujah and Middle Passage to the Whitney Plantation. The Plantation has commissioned him to do more pieces on the property.

The Wall of Honor
The Wall of Honor
Quote from Allées Gwendolyn Midlo Hall
Allées Gwendolyn Midlo Hall
Field of Angels
The angel
Middle Passage
Hallelujah
After the memorials, we went on to tour the actual plantation. First we stopped at a row of huge cast iron pots. These were used to cook down the juice from the sugar cane. They started with a very large pot, as it cooked down, they moved it to smaller pots until there was nothing left but sugar crystals. When this process was going on after harvest, they fires and the pots ran 24 hours a day. It was extremely hot and dangerous work. People lost limbs and their lives to the fires.
Next we stopped at the slave quarters. The houses (shacks) are not original to the property. They were brought in from another plantation, but they were actual slave quarters. Each house was set up like a duplex with a single chimney and a fireplace on each side sharing the chimney. They were sparse. If the enslaved person was lucky, they had a bed with rope lattice holding up the thin mattress. Most just had a pallet on the floor.
We saw a reproduction of a cell where individuals would have been kept until they were sold. It was a reproduction, but it was built by abolitionists to show the deplorable conditions to people in the north.
Cast Iron sugar cane juice pots
Slave quarters
Children
Rope bed
Another rope bed
A pallet for sleeping
Row of slave quarters
Reproduction cell
Plantation manager's house
The next building was the kitchen for the plantation. It was a small building separate from the big house. That was not unusual in the south. You did not want the kitchen attached to the house, because it would heat up the house in the summer and there was always a risk of fire.
The Whitney Plantation was unusual in several ways. First, a woman, Marie Azélie Haydel, ran the plantation during its most profitable years. She managed to purchase the plantation at auction after her husband and later his brother died. Another unusual thing about the plantation is related to the kitchen. Marie had cooks prepare food for the enslaved people. Earlier, the enslaved people had to cook their own food, but Marie got tired of having to rebuild slave quarters that burned down because the enslaved people had to cook their own food.
The kitchen building
Crocks on the porch of the kitchen
The cooking hearth
Cooking utensils on the table
Stand alone cabinet
Mortar and pestle
​Finally, we went into the big house. This is what most people want to see when they go on a plantation tour. It was certainly interesting to see how the people in the big house lived compared to the people in the slave quarters. There were a couple of things that were interesting thing to me. One was a utensil on the table that was used to nip sugar. The sugar was not refined the way it is now. It was put on the table in clumps. When you wanted sugar in your coffee or tea, you used the sugar nipper to cut off some from the clump. The other interesting thing was the large crock buried in the floor. This was used for refrigeration.
The big house from the back
Painting over the mantel
Sugar nipper
Crock buried for refrigeration
Another angle
More crocks
After the tour, I talked to the guide for a few minutes. I told her I appreciated the way she talked about enslaved people rather than calling them slaves. She told me she thought of slavery as the condition they were in, not what they were. I told her my thought was that saying “enslaved people” gave them back some the dignity that was stripped from them by being bought and sold.
There is so much more I could say about the Whitney Plantation. It was an amazing experience. Do yourself a favor. Go to Wallace, LA and take the tour. 
​

We left the Whitney Plantation after the tour and headed back to Baton Rouge. On the way, we stopped for lunch in Sorrento at the Cajun Village Coffee House. I had gumbo (it came with potato salad!!). Kate had a roast beef po-boy, and Sarah had vegetarian red beans and rice (no sausage). We had beignets and Cafe Au Lait for dessert.
When we got to the hotel in Baton Rouge, we were pretty tired. We rested for awhile and then went to dinner at Don’s Seafood. I had the stuffed eggplant. Sarah had Don’s Cajun Shrimp Pasta, and Kate had red beans and catfish. It was not the best meal we had, but it was still very good.
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Drive-Thru daiquiris - only in Louisiana
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Grand Isle, LA - April 10, 2016

4/10/2016

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Today we went to Grand Isle. Grand Isle is the tourist beach spot of Louisiana. LA 1 ends (or begins depending on your point of view) on Grand Isle. We drove over to LA1 and drove along Bayou LaFourche through Larose, Cutoff, Galliano, and Golden Meadow. When we got to Leeville, there was a toll bridge to Grand Isle. That was not there the last time I went to Grand Isle, about 18 years ago.
As we drove over the bridge, I could see why they built it. What used to be marsh is mostly open water now. This process has been happening for a long time, but it was sad to see how much marsh was gone.
Picture
Open water that used to be marsh
When we got to Grand Isle, we drove down the main street past all of the vacation cottages until we got to Grand Isle State Park. It only cost $4.00 for the three of us to get into the park. We found an area that had an elevated observation deck, a fishing pier built out over the Gulf, and a beach for Sarah.
It was a really nice area. I walked up to the observation deck and took a few photos. Sarah had already been up there and was off exploring the fishing pier. Kate and I went to the fishing pier. We met Sarah coming back from the pier and headed to the beach. The pier was nice. There were less than half a dozen people fishing. We saw one person reel in a fish, but it was too small to keep.
Kate waving up to me
Fishing pier
We met Sarah on the beach. I took a few photos of birds on the beach and Kate decided she would go back up to the observation deck and read. Sarah and I walked along the beach for awhile until it was time for lunch, so we went back and headed back into the main part of town.
Seagulls
Little blue heron wading in a tidal pool
Little blue heron in flight
Seagulls hanging out
When one takes off they all take off
Spotted sandpipers
We had lunch at a small place called Surfside Grill. It was mostly seafood but with a Mexican/South American flare. They had flounder on the menu, and I was really looking forward to it, but they were out of fish. I wound up having a shrimp quesadilla. Kate and Sarah both had shrimp tacos. We had some chips and salsa for an appetizer. Everything was very good. The chips were very fresh. They were still hot from the fryer. The quesadilla itself was pretty standard, but the sauce I dipped it in was really flavorful. My only complaint was that their credit card machine was not working, so we had to pay cash. That wiped out all of the cash I had.
​
After lunch, we went back to the State Park. There was a nature trail around the lagoon, so Sarah and I walked the trail. There were a couple of spots where there was a water over the trail. We were able to go along the edge to stay out of the water most of the time. At one point, we came across an area that had so much water we had to take off our shoes and wade through it. The water was shallow so we were able to see where we were walking.
Along the way we saw some birds and some very pretty flowers. Because it was inland, the breeze we experienced on the beach was blocked. With the sun on us, it started getting very hot. When the trail crossed the road, we decided to take the road back to the car. At that point, it was mid afternoon and I knew Sarah wanted to go to the pool at the hotel, so we headed back.
Lantana
Zinnia
Watching for speeders
Sarah spent a little time at the pool while Kate and I rested. For dinner, we decided to go to 1921 Seafood. It was only a short walk from the hotel. We crossed a drainage ditch on the way, and we saw an alligator hanging out in the water. It was not huge, but it was much bigger than the babies we had been seeing.
Picture
I wanted to go to 1921 Seafood, because boiled shrimp sounded good plus it would be more healthy than all the fried food I had been eating. Instead, I wound up splitting a huge platter of fried food with Kate. We had shrimp, oysters, catfish, soft shell crab, and sweet potato fries. Sarah had a big platter of boiled crawfish. The food was very good.
It was getting dark when we walked back to the hotel. The alligator had moved along somewhere else.
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Avery Island - April 9, 2016

4/9/2016

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We started the day by doing something we planned to do the day before. We went to Avery Island (http://www.tabasco.com/avery-island/) where they make Tabasco sauce. It was only about 20 minutes from our hotel.
When we got there, we drove over by the Tabasco factory. The smell of the Tabasco was overpowering first thing in the morning. They offer tours (for a fee), but we decided to explore the Jungle Gardens instead. The Jungle Gardens (http://www.junglegardens.org) are are set on 170 acres alongside Hayes Coulee.
We drove through a stand of Spanish moss covered Live Oak trees that are hundreds of years old. They provide natural air conditioning as the breeze blows through the leaves.
We stopped at a Marsh trail and walked for a bit. We saw a small snake in the water, and as we walked further, Sarah spotted a water moccasin next to the trail. We almost turned around, but the snake went into the marsh. On the way back, the snake was in the same spot again. Once again, it went into the marsh. We also spotted an alligator in the water. We almost did not see it, it was so well camouflaged.
Entrance to Tabasco
Kate and Sarah
The marsh trail begins on the other side of the trees.
A small snake in the water
The trail looked mystical
Camouflaged alligator
We got back in the car and drove a little further. There were a series of ponds, and we saw alligators all along the way. We stopped further down the road and walked around a small island. There were three alligators in the water surrounding the island. It was fascinating to watch them glide along in the water.
Alligator on the bank
Waiting for a meal
Something got its attention
Ready to go
Caution!
Gliding through the water
Waiting in the algae
This angle makes it look huge
Full length shot
The next stop was the Asian garden where they have the statue of Buddha. The statue is said to be over 900 years old. Local Buddhists perform ceremonies there throughout the year, especially on the Buddha’s birthday. The statue sits in a glass case. I would like to have seen the statue without the glass, but I understand why the glass is there. Many people go through the gardens, and not everyone would respect the statue. It could easily be damaged by accident or by vandalism.
Arch at the entrance
The shrine of the Buddha statue
Bridge behind the shrine
View from in front of the shrine
Reflecting tree
Reflecting shrine
We drove through some other areas before making a stop at Bird City. We walked down to an observation platform where we could see out over a lake. On the lake were large platforms where hundreds if not thousands of snowy egrets were nesting. I was able to get quite a few photos. In one of the photos, a young bird has a parent’s beak in its beak and appears to be biting down. No matter the species, children have to give their parents a hard time.
Bird City began in the 1890’s as a conservation project. The number of snowy egrets had dropped due to overhunting. The feathers were used in ladies hats. Ned McIlhenny raised eight egrets in an aviary. In the fall, he released them to migrate across the Gulf. The next year, six came back to the spot (with their mates). Over the years, it has grown to the incredible preserve it is today.
Along with photos, I also made an audio recording of the birds. We were fortunate enough to be on the platform by ourselves for a few minutes. The sounds of the birds was fascinating.
One of the platforms
Taking care of the little one
Flying in
Giving the parental unit a hard time
Time away from the children
Dad and Sarah
After Bird City, we drove through the rest of the gardens and then headed over to the Tabasco Country Store. Sarah and I tried a few of the hot sauces. After three or four, all I could taste was heat.
Tabasco Country Store
That's a lot of Tabasco
Bottles, bottles, and more bottles of Tabasco
We left Avery Island and headed to the Marriott Courtyard in Houma. It was a pretty long drive to Houma. We drove through Morgan City in St. Mary Parish. That city and that parish are my least favorite places in coastal Louisiana. When I worked down there the people in Morgan City were nice to me as long as they thought I had money to give them. When they found out we did not have grant money, they were actually quite rude. I know I should not judge the entire Parish by a few people, but these were the leaders of the Parish, and their actions left a bad taste in my mouth. It has been 20 years, and it still bugs me.
When we got to Houma, we checked into our hotel and brought in the luggage. Then we drove down to Cocodrie along Grand Caillou. We stopped at Ceana’s Cajun Cooking for lunch. It was another great fried feast. Sarah had a shrimp po-boy, Kate had a catfish po-boy, and I had a bowl of chicken and sausage gumbo.
Best little food place in town
Ceana's to go menu
Typical condiments in South Louisiana
Home in Cocodrie
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Cameron, LA - April 8, 2016

4/8/2016

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Yesterday it was fun to see where we used to live and work, but today was much more interesting. We drove through part of the Creole Nature Trail (creolenaturetrail.org) starting south of Sulphur. We drove through Hackberry and into the Sabine National Wildlife Refuge.
Our first stop was a small recreation area where people were fishing. There was not much to see there, but Sarah got a chance to see some open water and a lot of marsh.
Picture
Our first stop on the Creole Nature Trail.
The next stop was the Blue Goose Trail. There was an observation deck at the trail head where you could see miles of marsh. We walked to the end of the trail and back. The only wildlife we saw were a couple of rabbits and a snake.
Tree along the Blue Goose Trail
Snake beside the trail
The photographer
Rob and Sarah
​Our next stop was the Wetland Walkway. It was about a 1.5 mile trail through the marsh. Part of it was on a boardwalk built out over the marsh. This walk is where we saw our first alligators. Most of them were pretty small, no more than three feet. We also saw a turtle and a small snake.
Wetland Walkway
Our first alligator!
The Cameron Prarie
Turtle in the shade
Another alligator
A little closer
Little one in the marsh grass
Little blue heron
Little blue heron flying
View of the prairie from observation deck
Bayou running alongside the Wetland Walk
Small snake on the trail
Picture
Panorama of the Cameron Prarie
​Near the end of the trail, we saw a big alligator. It was at least 8 feet long, probably more like 10 feet. Fortunately it was on the other side of a small bayou so we were able to see it from a safe distance.
At the very end of the trail, we saw an older couple looking at birds. They had spotted a scarlet tanager and were very excited about it. We told them about the big alligator just a little ways down the trail. They were not interested in alligators, only birds.
I don't want to get that close
​From there, we went down to Holly Beach. It looks very different than it did 18 years ago. Hurricane Rita pretty much destroyed everything there. From the looks of it, they just started from scratch.
Holly Beach was one of the communities where I did an economic valuation of infrastructure 18 years ago for the Coast 2050 report. I drove around, took pictures and did an inventory of the infrastructure including roads and power lines. When I was there, the streets were numbered, 1st, 2nd, etc. There had been so much erosion, 1st and 2nd street no longer existed. All of the homes had washed into the Gulf.
Today, the streets are named after birds. There is a large beach providing buffer between the Gulf and the homes. And, many of the homes are quite nice. When I was there before, most of the places were either small shacks or trailers up on pylons.
Stop signs along the streets
Shrine to a plastic bunny on the beach
There is a story here I'm sure
Black necked stilt
Black necked stilt with mate
Black necked stilts
As we drove down the beach road toward Cameron, we saw miles of snow fence that was placed to help build sand dunes. They have done a lot there to make things better, but there are still no trash cans on the beach.
Snow fence building dunes
Brown pelicans skimming the water
We drove on to the Cameron Ferry. Even after all these years, they have still not built a bridge. You can only cross the shipping channel by car ferry. When we arrived, there was a delivery truck waiting to cross. The ferry began loading the cars and the driver came out to talk with the crew. He was upset because he could not take the ferry across. Apparently, the normal ferry had been damaged, and the ferry they were using that day was smaller. It could not accommodate the truck. It was interesting to see a little drama as we waited to cross.
The ferry ride is less than ten minutes, maybe even less than five, but it is the only way to get across. The truck driver was going to have to drive two hours out of his way to make his delivery.
​We found a little restaurant in Cameron called Anchors Up Grill. It was very good. Sarah and I had shrimp po-boys, and Kate had a catfish po-boy. We also got an order of fries and an order of onion rings.
Welcome to Cameron
Helicopter, car, and a trailer home on pylons
Anchors Up Grill
From Cameron, we drove to Creole to find a couple of cemeteries with Sarah’s biological ancestors. The first cemetery was attached to Sacred Heart Catholic Church. The church itself was quite interesting. The bell tower had four gargoyles, one on each corner. We were able to find most of the graves that were there. I also saw a place where they buried eight unidentified victims of Hurricane Audrey in 1956. That part was sad.
The next cemetery was the Chenier Perdue Cemetery. We did not have an address for it, just a general area. We stopped at a little store in Creole to see if anyone knew where it was. When we told the woman we were looking for the Chenier Perdue Cemetery, she said, “You are not! That’s where I live.” She was able to give us excellent directions directly to the cemetery. She also told us how to pronounce Sarah’s ancestor. It is spelled Baccigalopi. We were pronouncing it Bass’ i gu lo’ pee. She said it is pronounced Bass’ u gal’ upee.
On the way to the cemetery, there was a marsh and a ditch alongside the road on the passenger side. There were a lot of nutria in the ditch. Sarah was very excited, because she had never seen nutria. Unfortunately, she was not able to get a photo of them.
At the cemetery, Sarah found many of the graves she and Kate wanted to find including Bartholomew Bassigalopi. (He was the original, and the tombstone was spelled with “ss” instead of “cc.”) Bartholomew came to Louisiana as a stowaway on board a ship (probably a pirate ship) in the early 1800’s. The captain got mad at young Bart and threw him overboard along the coast of what is now Cameron Parish. Bart swam ashore and was found by a local family who let him move in with them.
​When we finished looking around the cemetery, we headed to New Iberia. We had planned to go to Avery Island (where they make Tabasco), but it was too late, so we headed to the hotel. The GPS took us down a gravel road for about eight miles before we connected back to the main road. We had to drive slowly, but it was a very pretty drive. Marsh and small bayou were visible most of the way. We saw hundreds of birds in the marsh and the bayou. We also saw quite a few small alligators.
We got to the main road and headed to New Iberia. The route took us through miles of rural roads. It also took us through Abbeville. It would have been nice to spend some time exploring Abbeville. It is a beautiful old town. However, that will have to wait for another time.
By the time we got to the Hampton Inn in New Iberia, we were all pretty tired. We looked for a restaurant close by and found a Vietnamese restaurant. We all love Vietnamese food. Sarah ordered a pho (soup) with shrimp and crab. Kate and I split a grilled shrimp Bun. It is a salad made with rice vermicelli, bean sprouts, lettuce, and other veggies. The dressing is made with fish sauce, oil, and peppers. We thoroughly enjoyed our dinner! It was not cajun, but it was a wonderful treat we have not had in a long time.
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South Louisiana - April 7, 2016

4/7/2016

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Today was a whirlwind. We left the hotel in Baton Rouge around 9:00 a.m. and drove over to the Southern University campus again. From there we drove past the state capital and then on to Louisiana State University. Everything has changed so mu ch since I worked there 17+ years ago. Surprisingly, the Quonset hut where I used to work was still standing. I would have thought they would have torn down that building long ago.
Historical marker at Southern University
This was the scenic route
Louisiana State Capitol
Entrance to the Capitol
Death Valley
On the new Sea Grant building
When we left LSU, we got on Interstate 10 and crossed the Mississippi River Bridge and we were off to the west side of the state. Traffic on I-10 is worse now than when I drove it every day. We saw an incredible number of trucks. Crossing the Atchafalaya Swamp bridge was interesting as usual.
We stopped at a Target in Lafayette to pick up a few things. They also had a Starbuck’s there. After Target, we went to Crowley to have lunch at the Boudin King, Cajun Way restaurant. It was as good as I remembered. I had a fried catfish Po boy. Kate and Sarah had fried shrimp Po boys. We also got an order of fries, hushpuppies, and fried okra. It was a wonderful cholesterol laden meal.
The next stop was Iota, where we used to live. A lot has changed there, but a lot of it looked the same. We were disappointed to see our old house. It is in dire need of a paint job, and it looks like the people who live there are pretty trashy.
We stopped to see if Clint Bischoff was in his office. He was our lawyer when we adopted Sarah. Unfortunately, he was not there. We will probably not get back there to see him while we are here.
Boudin King
Our old house
We headed to Lake Charles and stopped at our hotel in Jennings along the way. Kate and I had some miscommunication about where to get a hotel. Jennings is about half an hour away from where we should be. That means we drove about an extra hour today, and tomorrow, we will drive an extra half hour. It is not a big deal though. We will still have a great time.
While we were at the hotel, Kate looked up a couple of graves in Lake Charles where some of Sarah’s biological ancestors are buried. We found the three graves and took a few photos of the graves. When we left there, we drove by the house where we lived in Lake Charles. It is still there. We drove through the McNeese State University campus and then past the hospital where Sarah was born. After that, we headed to downtown Lake Charles. We never spent any time downtown. We were always too busy, but it was a nice downtown area.
While we were downtown, we stopped at Lake Charles, the lake. We saw quite a few ducks and other water birds. It was a nice walk along the water.
Our Lake Charles rental
McNeese State University
Breathtaking Lake Charles skyline
Poulet eau - water chicken
Poulet eau
Calcasieu River Bridge
For dinner, we went to Steamboat Bill’s restaurant on Lakeshore Drive. Sarah had the crawfish Étouffée. I had the Atchafalaya catfish (fried catfish served on rice and topped with shrimp Étouffée), and Kate had the fried shrimp. We also had an appetizer of 3 shrimp Pistolettes. They were rolls with a hole poked in them and topped with shrimp Étouffée. Everything was really good.
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    Robin ROberts

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