View from Arkansas River camp site

On the road again May 14, 2008 – May 28, 2008 We are still in Mississippi and decided to take a tour of Biloxi, the first capitol of the territory. One of the things we learned was that the city had thought that hurricane Camille in 1969 was the worse thing that could happen to them and then along came Katrina; women can really be bitches can’t they? The city still has a lot of recovery to be done but is making headway slowly and steadily. We were told that the first things to be rebuilt were the casinos, not for the income, but so that the population had jobs so they would be able to do their own repairs. Due to the damage of the casino boats Mississippi changed the law allowing casinos to now be on land at sea side instead of on the water. The city has done a good job of cleaning up and removing all rubbish and destroyed buildings. It is sad to see all the empty lots that were once homes or businesses. For a city with a population of 51,000 there were 6,000 homes and business either damaged or destroyed with a total of 273 deaths. The water from Katrina stayed at high levels for 4 – 6 hours and even in Mobile, Alabama the level hit 5 feet. Along the tour we saw a place called Burger Burger which is owned by Ann Ray who used to tour with Elvis, and a weather witch which is one of only two left in the country. We have been trying to see all the National Parks, so one day we took of to find Jean Lafitte National Park, which is actually six different parks. Our first stop was at the Barataria Preserve where we took a walk out along the Bayou Coquille trail and then along the Lower Kenta canal, built for irrigation and drainage of plantation fields and later deepened and widened so loggers could access the swamps. Along the walk we learned that swamps had trees in them and marshes did not. Also that middens were 20 – 30 feet high and covered over an acre of land, they were Indian trash dumps where they pilled oyster shells, pottery and bones, later they were mined for the crushed limestone to be used as road fill. Another part of the park is Chalmette Battlefield which was the site of the Battle of New Orleans. During the battle the Americans were behind earthworks while the British charged across an open field, thus there were only 6 killed and 7 wounded among the Americans while the British had 2,00 dead or wounded. It reminded us of Pickets charge during the Civil War. In fact the battle was actually fought after the peace treaty had been written but before it was ratified. At the site there is the Chalmette Monument which was suggested by Andrew Jackson when he visited the area in 1840 on the 25th anniversary of the battle. The cornerstone was laid shortly after but construction didn’t start until 1855 and then stopped again for lack of funds. In 1894 construction began again and the monument was finally finished in 1908. On another day we took a boat ride out to Gulf Islands National Seashore, which are part of the barrier islands along the gulf coast, to spend the day. The only things on Ship Island, the one we visited, are Fort Massachusetts and very pristine beaches. It was a great day to play in the water and relax on the beach. Just before we left we had a tour of the fort, construction started 1859 and completed in 1866 though the cannon were never fully installed. During the war it housed Confederate prisoners-of-war and Union convicts. A large Rodman 15 inch cannon was installed when the U.S. felt threatened by the Spanish in 1873 but was never fired, finally in 1901 the fort’s guns were scrapped. Our last thing to do was to take a couple of tours of New Orleans, an over all bus tour of the city and a walking tour of the Garden District. The city was founded in 1718 along the banks of the Mississippi River by the French in the area now called the French Quarter and was built of wood in the French style. After the city was ceded to the Spanish there were a couple of fires that burned over 1,000 buildings which were rebuild in the Spanish style of concrete and stone. In the early 19th century when the Americans started moving in the French would not let them live in the area that they inhabited, so the Americans built their own community which is now called the Garden District and from 1820 until the Civil War would only allow 4 houses to a block. Porch ceiling in the district are painted blue to keep bees and wasps from building nest on them, the idea is that they think it is the sky and you can’t build on the sky. Supposedly it works about 98% of the time. Some of the houses have divided steps up to the front door; one side for the women who had to lift their skirts to climb the steps and to keep the men from seeing their legs, the men had to go up the other side of the steps. The word bayou for waters throughout the area is from the Indian word for “still waters”. Louisiana has parishes instead of counties because the original division of the state was made up of Catholic Church parishes and the name stayed. City Park in the city is the 12th largest in the nation at about 13,00acres. The bridge over Lake Pontchartrain, 24 miles wide and 45 miles long, is the longest one in the world over water at 23.87 miles. Many of the streets are lined with Live Oaks which are a type of evergreen; they lose some of their leaves but never all of them. Some of the houses are built in the early 20th century are on a slight angle so that no house blocks the breeze for the one next door. An unusual thing we learned that the song “You Are My Sunshine” is about a horse, would you have thought that? Due to the high water table, cemeteries have mostly above ground tombs with occasionally an in ground one and all of them are family tombs with many generations in each one. Most of the tombs are only big enough for 2 caskets, so when a third member of a family dies they take the oldest casket out, remove the body and place any remains under the lowest casket and then insert the new casket. This process continues through the years with each generation. The I 10 bridge on the east side of New Orleans got partially washed away during Katrina, so they are building a new bridge that is higher off the water to hopefully keep it from happening again. While here we went to a casino for dinner every Wednesday as they had a senior day and we could both eat for $20 and Jim could have all the crab legs he wanted. Shirley tried boiled crawfish, seafood gumbo, crawfish etouffee and boiled clams and mussels, she decided that the crawfish were too much work for so little meat. As we get ready to leave the Gulf Coast here are a few observations. In Mississippi along US 90 in the Gulfport and Biloxi areas everything has been basically torn down, repaired or in the process of being repaired. In the Bay St. Louis and Waveland area, where the eye of Katrina came ashore, all the businesses have been rebuilt and open along US 90, but along the shore line there is almost nothing left. A few houses have been rebuilt but for the most part all that is left are the stilts that homes were built on and empty lots. In all the areas we saw on some of the side streets you might see a house that was badly damaged listed for sale as is but for the most part everything has been cleaned up. The same can not be said for Louisiana. We saw businesses such as Wal-Marts, Toys-R-Us, Pizza hut and apartments that look like they just walked away from buildings and have no intention of reopening. We did learn that the levees on the Mississippi River held and all of the flooding was from levees along runoff canals from Lake Pontchartrain which gave out and since the lowest point in the city is 12 feet below sea level, it is not surprising thing got so bad. The areas along the River had little if any flooding as they were on the high ground. Lot of houses still need to be torn down and are a real eye sore. We wonder why the city of New Orleans does not consider raising the land that is so low to help prevent future problems. Galveston, TX raised itself 17 feet to keep from being flooded again by a hurricane and Seattle, WA raised itself to the point that the first floor of the old buildings were under ground and they started using the second floor instead, so it can be done. May 29, 2008 – June 16, 2008 Since Jim really likes hot things and wanted to try some authentic Cajon dining, we took a little detour to Lafayette, LA. Our first trip was to Avery Island, LA, a salt hill in the marsh, to tour the Tabasco pepper sauce factory and sample lots of Tabasco products. We did not know there were so many different products with at least a little pepper sauce in them. Tabasco pepper sauce was originally made for private use but so many people asked for it that the inventor, Edmund McIlhenny, finally started mass producing and the family is still at it. Avery Island at one time was a plantation owned by the Avery family who still live on the island. Later we went to the Konriko rice mill and country store. This is the nation’s oldest rice mill and is still in operation today using authentic equipment as much as possible, the founder; Phillip Conrad built it in 1912. He changed the C’s to K’s and used Kon from his name, ri from rice and ko from company creating Konriko as a name for his company. We learned that Arkansas is the nation’s leading producer of rice followed by California and then either Texas or Louisiana depending on the year. Another day we went to the Acadian Cultural Center of Jean Lafitte National Park. The word Cajun comes from Acadian which is what the French, who came from Nova Scotia, called themselves. The area that they settled in, west of New Orleans and south of Baton Rouge including Lafayette, they called Acadiana. We then went to the Longfellow-Evangeline State Historic Site in the Bayou Teche area to see an old sugar plantation home from the early 1800’s. The park is named in honor of Longfellow’s poem Evangeline which is based on the deportation of the Cajuns from Canada and settling in the area, some people think it is based on a true story. In seeing a copy of the poem we think it is more like a short story due to its length. Before we left the area we went to what is called an authentic Cajun restaurant for dinner and had a seafood variety plate which included frog legs and alligator as well as shrimp, catfish and oysters, an interesting meal. On Monday June 2nd we headed back to our trip up the Mississippi River and a camp ground in Port Gibson, MS called Grand Gulf Military Park, the site of a Civil War battle. It turned out that the park has only been open for three weeks after being closed for about three weeks due to flooding of the river which runs right by it. In fact on the first night we took a walk down a closed off road that was suppose to lead to the river but had to turn back because the road was still flooded. Our trip to this area around Vicksburg is a return since we were here in Oct. 2005 but we had lost a lot of our pictures with computer problems. We also enjoy Military parks so we went back to Vicksburg National Military Park and some of the areas associated with it. One of these was the Ruins of Windsor, an old plantation house that burned down in 1890 with only 23 of its 29 columns still standing. At the battlefield inside the Illinois monument there was a list of soldiers who served and one of them was James Graves. Also the Kentucky monument honored two of her native sons Abraham Lincoln and Jefferson Davis as a symbol of peace and brotherhood in a nation united. While in the area we decided to do some of the things we missed the first time through, so we took off to Natchez and antebellum homes. The first stop was Stanton Hall built in 1857 by Frederick Stanton for $83,000 after spending $1,500 for the block of land and had coal gas lights as well as coal heat. Stanton owned seven cotton plantations and was the richest man at the time but he died in 1859 shortly after his home was completed. The family stayed there until 1894 and then later the home became a boarding school before being a private home again. In 1938 the Natchez Pilgrimage Garden Club purchased, restored and opened the home to the public. Our next stop was Rosalie, located on a high bluff overlooking the Mississippi River on the site of the first settlement in 1716 named Fort Rosalie. During the Civil War, union General Grisom made this his headquarters and helped to protect the home by placing the parlor furniture in the attic and then when he left by returning the furniture to its proper place. He also shared the house with the owners and they became life long friends. Next we went to Magnolia Hall which was interesting but nothing special. We then returned to Melrose, part of the Natchez National Park, which we had visited before. The home still has 85% of the original furnishings and is one of the most intact homes from the times. Built in the 1840’s the family lived here until 1866, but the later owners worked to preserve it even though they never lived there. In 1990 the National Park service bought it as part of the Natchez National Historical Park. While here we learned that before the Civil war there were 17 millionaires in the country and 11 of them had homes in Natchez. Also Adam County, the one Natchez is in, voted not to succeed when the rest of the state did and became a Union city in the heart of Dixie. On the way home we stopped at Historic Jefferson College the first institution of higher learning in Mississippi that opened in 1811. During the Civil War, union troop occupied the college then in 1866 it reopened as a preparatory school. In 1893 it became a military preparatory school and remained as such until 1964 when it finally closed due to declining enrollment. The college was used as West Point academy in the North and South television series and in the films The Horse soldiers staring John Wayne, Mistress of Paradise and two versions of Huckleberry Finn. On Monday June 16th it was time to move on up the Mississippi to our next stop in Arkansas. We got lost trying to find our campground but found what looked like a really nice one right on the Arkansas River so we asked if they had an opening and found out we could transfer our original reservation to where we wanted to stay. We are now camped right on the river with a great view of both the river and the barges that go up and down it.