April 2019

2019-03-31 – Airstream Cajun Country Caravan – New Iberia, LA – The Swamp Tour!

Today is The Swamp Tour! I had no preconceived notion what a swamp tour was going to be, but this tour was not what I expected… My picture of a swamp was an area of low-lying, muddy, bug-infested, uncultivated ground where water collects; a bog or marsh. I think mud, puddles, stagnant, smelly water, and dangerous critters – bugs, snakes, and alligators…

In reality, the better definition is that a swamp is a forested wetland. Many swamps occur along large rivers where they are critically dependent upon natural water level fluctuations. Other swamps occur on the shores of large lakes. The swamp we toured was both – adjacent to a large lake and fed by a bayou (a slow moving, muddy river).

But as for my preconceptions, I did not expect this…!

We boarded a boat with 25 of our friends and slowly cruised though the forest. The water was covered with green stuff, what most people would call pond scum or algae. It is neither…

The reality is this: it is Lemna Minor, or duckweed. If you look closely it is like tiny water lilies; it forms an archetypal river scene of muddy, green waters lazily flowing under bald cypresses and water gum tupelos. That’s what these trees are.

Duckweed is a very natural part of the enclosed environments of such swamps, and is a valuable source of protein for animals that consume it, notably most kinds of waterfowl. It has more protein than soybeans, and some parts of the world actually raise it commercially as a food crop. To our “manicured lawn” mentality, it appears to be scum, the sign of stagnant water, as it no doubt did for generations of settlers who avoided swamps like the plague. The ducks and other birds apparently disagree.

The swamp was quiet, cool, bug-free, and odor-free. It was a beautiful, quiet time to contemplate the beauty of a fully functioning ecosystem. The water here is 1′-2′ deep, but during spring flooding it can rise another 4′-5′. The adjacent lake, in contrast, is 8′-10′ deep normally.

As we floated along we saw wonderful vistas into the forest…

These larger plants growing along with the duckweed are an invasive species, and the State does eradicate it when necessary…

We saw birds. Lots of birds. The tour bordered on a bird sanctuary where we could see hundred of nesting egrets. We also saw ibis, heron, and ducks…

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And, yes, we saw a small alligator. Normally, on warm days, alligators are everywhere. But today is cold and the water is warm. so the alligators stay underwater as much as possible…

We spent two hours on the swamp. It was delightful, something that should not be missed if you have the opportunity…

We returned to the docks:

We drove back into “downtown” St. Martinville. Another totally dead town… We ate at Clambaugh’s – sort of an event venue with no decoration or atmosphere at all, but pretty good food. Then we walked over to the cultural center to see more displays of the Cajun and Creole cultures. Interestingly, there were three or four exhibits that purported to explain the difference between Creole and Cajun, and they all contradicted each other…

As best as I could figure, Cajuns are descendants of the Acadians who were deported from Nova Scotia in the late 18th century. Creoles were here when the Acadians arrived. There are Creole who are white and there are Creole who are people of color – African, Spanish, Mexican, Indian. They all seemed to assimilate until the Civil Rights movement in the 1960 encouraged them to reclaim some of their ethnic heritage.

Also at this location we saw the Evangeline Oak, made famous by the Longfellow poem, “Evangeline”, about Acadian lovers who were separated during the Nova Scotia deportation and who tragically meet again here. The poem is based on a semi-true story.

We had another stroll along The Bayou Teche…

We returned to the Villa. We had another Drivers Meeting, and we turned in early. It was cold!

And an enjoyable time was had by all…

April 4, 2019 0

2019-03-30 – Airstream Cajun Country Caravan – New Iberia, LA

Today we get to see a Big House! No, this isn’t it – this is the Visitors Center, across the street. The house is called “Shadows on the Teche”. Shadows is the house, named for the shadows from the giant Live Oak trees that envelope the house and grounds. Teche is the name of the bayou the house faces. (A bayou is a shallow, slow moving, muddy river…)

Here is the Big House, in all its glory…

The house was built between 1831-1834. It was occupied by four generations of the same family until 1958. Ownership was transferred to the National Trust for Historic Preservation one day before the fourth generation occupant died…

The house today sits on 2 1/2 acres near the center of the town of New Iberia. When it was built it was the center of a 158 acre farm. The farm was only as wide as the current property, about 325′, but it stretched over two miles in either direction. The family’s wealth came from their sugar cane plantation about 15 miles away. (Due to swamps, bayous, and water being generally everywhere, it took 5-6 hours to travel from this house to the plantation…) This farm was used for growing food to feed the family, their employees, and their 200 slaves. Fortunately, right before the Civil War the owner subdivided the farm with the intention of selling town lots and small farms. The war interrupted all that. However, after the war, they were able to sell the lots as needed to raise cash, and they were able to hire and pay their former slaves to keep the plantation going. In contrast, many (most?) plantation owners lost their land to pay taxes and other debts…

The grounds are beautiful, shaded by these 250 year old Live Oak trees…

Behind the house is the Bayou Teche…

We began the tour of the house on the front porch. In contrast to plantations in Virginia (Mt. Vernon) the front door faces the street, not the bayou. The stairs are here on the exterior, because interior stairs would block the breezes. Everything about the design of the house is intended to maximize bringing the cooling breezes through the house. Another unique thing is that the main living quarters are on the second floor, as protection from potential flooding. This house has never flooded, but it has come close. It is on the highest land in the area – about 18′ above sea level…

The first room we saw upstairs was the master bedroom and its adjacent sitting room..

The Living Room is in the center of the house, facing porches in the front and in the rear.

Two secondary bedrooms complete the rooms on the upper floor…

We noted that these clerestory windows are for decoration only – inside is a plastered wall…

On the ground floor is a work room and storage room… The Kitchen was in a separate building behind the house.

The formal Dining Room, used only for parties and distinguished visitors, is in the center of the ground floor.

In a corner of the Dining Room is a “cellarette”, where wine and other beverages were kept. Ice was inserted into the drawer below the bottles…

There was also an Office and a “Bathing Room” on the ground floor. The Bathing Room contained a bathtub. Other bodily functions were handled via a chamber pot or a commode chair… and slaves to empty them…

During the Civil War Union Troops occupied the ground floor rooms. Mrs. Weeks refused to leave, and she continued to live upstairs.

After the war Mr. Weeks was able to retain the former slaves as contract workers on the plantation and to pay them in cash, probably thanks to having the ability to sell lots carved out of the original farm.

The final owner and resident of the house was Weeks Hall, great grandson of David Weeks, who had built the house but died (in New Haven, CT) before the house was finished. Weeks Hall moved in around 1922. He never married and had no children. He added a bathroom and a Kitchen and lived in the house until his death in 1958. He had started to restore the house, and the National Trust for Historic Preservation finished the job, taking out the kitchen and bathroom and adding climate control to protect the contents.

After our very fun tour we traveled a few miles away to Rip Van Winkle Gardens and The Joseph Jefferson House… Joseph Jefferson was a wealthy actor who played Rip Van Winkle in live theater productions all over the country. He bought and built this place to have a country vacation home.

The house was an ugly conglomeration of Victorian kitsch…Fortunately for you, dear reader, interior photos were not permitted, so you didn’t have to look at it; however, we did…

The grounds (Rip Van Winkle Gardens) are beautiful…

We started the tour with lunch in the delightful cafe. We had seafood bisque and muffuletta, a sandwich made with round Italian bread and filled usually with cold cuts, cheese, and olive salad. The muffuletta is one of the great sandwiches of New Orleans and southern Louisiana. Food was great!

The fun history story here is that in the 1920s the house was bought by the neighbor, Mr. Bayless, a horticulturist. He designed and planted the gardens. In 1980 his son inherited the property. Having the same opinion of the house as I do, he had a new house built not far from the current cafe. Unfortunately, the entire property sits atop a salt dome, which was being mined, and oil drilling was taking place around the salt dome, which is quite common in this area. Oops! A drilling rig punched a hole into the salt dome and within a few minutes the lake dropped 150′ as it flooded the mines. The receding lake also took about 60 acres of land with it, including the brand new house of Mr. Bayless. Within a few hours the lake filled up again from the Gulf of Mexico via the local bayou. Today the lake is brackish, it contains some salt water fish, and all that remains of the brand new house is the chimney…

We returned to the Villa, and we had another GAM, where we met another five of the caravan couples…

And an enjoyable time was had by all…

April 3, 2019 0

2019-03-29 – Airstream Cajun Country Caravan – Traveling to New Iberia, LA

Travel days are generally slow and relaxing, especially when we are only traveling 41 miles…

We left Breaux Bridge (actually closer to Butte La Rose…) and proceeded on the route. We are traveling in a clockwise manner around southwestern Louisiana…

GPS devices on the computer, on our phones, and in the truck all told us to turn right when exiting the RV park. Our leaders, and our caravan driving instructions, said turn left. Apparently to the right is a pontoon bridge with overhead clearance of 9′-6″ (most Airstreams are just under 10′-0″…); also there is a levee to be crossed – steep up, then a steep down, leaving a rig bottoming out at the top. Bad idea!

So we turned left. We stopped to fuel the truck and to restock the refrigerator. Then we stopped for a flagger at road construction. Then we stopped to wait for a coal train… This is why a 41 mile trip took almost 3 hours… But the countryside was beautiful. This is a prosperous part of the state, with many McMansions and starter castles lining the highway…

This RV park is part of the Sugarena, sort of a fairgrounds type of place. The parking spots all have concrete pads and full hook-ups, including cable. And no trees to get in the way of my satellite TV…

Shortly after we arrived most of the folks set out to do some shopping… very few trucks to be seen…

As a side note, when we were at the State Capitol yesterday we saw these water-filled areas next to the Mississippi River:

What you don’t see here is that for most of the year these areas are parking lots. There are floodgates in the levees that are usually opened in April to help relieve the spring flooding down stream. This year these floodgates have been open, and these parking lots and other overflow areas have been fully flooded, since February. And the spring surge hasn’t started yet…

So after a relaxing afternoon we gathered at 4:00 for a GAM – Get Acquainted Meeting. We will have four or five of these in the next few days. We met with five other couples and we, well, got acquainted. Tomorrow is our turn to host another five couples…

After the GAM/Happy Hour broke up some caravanners got together to play a little music…

We turned in early, as is out custom. And speaking of customs, here are a few pictures of some of our grandchildren

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And an enjoyable time was had by all…

April 2, 2019 0

2019-03-28 – Airstream Cajun Country Caravan – Baton Rouge, LA – State Capitol and Rural Life Museum

We boarded the bus again for our ride back to Baton Rouge…

Our first stop was the Rural Life Museum, run by Louisiana State University. It is on land that was originally a plantation; the family which owned the land donated it to preserve a record of plantation and rural life in Louisiana. While the buildings on display are not original to this plantation, they were moved here from nearby plantations and restored. The museum exhibits and the buildings were very interesting. Our tour guide knew EVERYTHING about these buildings, and he was intent on telling us everything he knew… It was a bit of a bore. But I loved looking at the buildings…

My only disappointment was that thee was no Big House here – apparently the house that was slated to be moved here was demolished one week before the legislature voted for it to become an historic landmark… We will see a Big House in a few days, and maybe more after the caravan is over…

The museum is set in a plantation-like setting…

These are stone columns taken from a demolished library at LSU. The scale is impressive. They are solid, carved stone. Many plantation houses had columns that looked like stone, but were, in fact, wood. (IE: Mt. Vernon…) Why plantation owners had this perverse desire to live in the Parthenon escapes me, but I just love houses…

The museum exhibit rooms contained many impressive mid-19th century funeral coaches…

The exhibit room was mostly filled with old junk that people had sitting around their garage and that they wanted to get rid of; they jumped at the chance to donate it for a tax deduction…

The Commissary or “Company Store”… Sharecroppers were paid in script that could only be spent at the company store…

The Overseer’s Home… There were three classes of overseers: the professional overseer, who was in a social class similar to the plantation owner; the middle manager, often the owner’s son; and the hired hand, an itinerant farmer with little training or skills.

These buildings were wood framed; soft brick, made on-site, was used as infill for insulation. It was either plastered over, or was covered with wood siding…

The kitchen… This would usually be directly behind the Big House…

The Sick House, or slave hospital… One room for examinations, one room for “lying in”…

Typical slave cabin… Two rooms sharing a central chimney…

Blacksmith shop…

Single room slave cabin…

Sugar House… Sugar cane was processed and boiled into sugar and molasses here. Sugar Cane was a VERY lucrative crop, but its processing was VERY labor intensive. There were over 1,000 sugar plantations in Louisiana before the Civil War. Once the slaves were freed fewer than 100 sugar plantations remained…

This is a cane grinder… The canes were ground up here, the husks were taken away and burned, and the pulp was sent to the Sugar House to be boiled into sugar and syrup…

Pioneer cabin… This is for a yeoman farmer, in northern Louisiana who was not in the same class as a plantation owner, but who struck out on his own to make his living as a farmer… Many of these farmers were Creoles – more on the difference between Creoles and Cajuns to come later…

Baptist Church, founded and built by ex-slaves in 1870; It was used until 1960, and former congregants still come here once per year for a “homecoming” style gathering…

Typical Acadian dwelling… This one was built in 1805 and occupied until about 1960. Note the exterior stairs to the attic sleeping loft…

Rather than bricks, the spaces between the wood framing were filled in with a mixture of mud, moss, horse hair, and manure… It was generally covered with plaster or wood siding…

Another Acadian dwelling; this one had three rooms front to back – a “shotgun” house…

A “Dog-trot” house has two rooms separated by a breezeway…

A barn…

Inside the museum is an artist’s expression of his feelings toward the legislature…

It was a fun place to visit – full of information about life in rural Louisiana in the 19th and early 20th centuries…

We were served a lunch of Jambalaya… Spicy rice with hearty smoked beef. It was different than the seafood Jambalaya I was used to…

Back on the bus, we headed to the State Capitol – the tallest in the union…

There are 48 steps, one for each of the 48 States when the building was built. Alaska and Hawaii have been added off to the side, starting new columns of names… Who’s next? The huge statue on the left depicts the founding fathers; on the right are the pioneers…

Inside the Grand Memorial Hall is all this beautiful marble. These flags represent all the nations that have held sovereignty over Louisiana…

At the far end of the hall is a mural that is obscured in this photo by the chandeliers…

Here is a close-up of the mural. I thought this was Louise, the woman they named the State after, but apparently it is not…

At either end of the hall is an antechamber with a stair for the legislative chambers… Very nice…

We were told of the bomb that was exploded in the Senate chamber in 1970. The room has since been restored to its former glory…

We took the elevators to the 27th floor – the observation balcony… This is the Mississippi River, looking north-west…

Looking East we can see the Governor’s Mansion…

The industrial north-east…

Barges being pushed up-river…

We were shown to the hall outside the governor’s elevator where Huey Long was shot and killed. They tried to make a case for some sort of mystery along with conspiracy theories; I checked it out on-line and nothing they said holds any water. He was killed by the son-in-law of a judge that Long had had disbarred… End of story…

We returned to the bus and to the Villa…

We had a drivers meeting – we are moving to a new RV park tomorrow…

Then we all car-pooled together to Pont Breaux Cajun Restaurant…

It was a real dive of a place, and we totally overwhelmed the wait staff… Even though we had called and told them that there would be 50 of us, somehow they were WAY under-staffed. But the music was good, the food was OK, and…