Day 25 - Vadalia to St. Francisville, Louisiana

Last night we were treated to the very WORST thunder, lightening, and rain storm either one of us had ever experienced in this life. At dinner time the weather was just fine and I was out on the road in front of the RV taking photos of the nearby Mississippi River bridge. A short time later it started to sprinkle a bit. We thought we heard faint rumblings of thunder way off in the distance. About the time we were crawling into bed around 10:00 p.m., the skies cracked open and Niagara Falls proceeded to dump a day's accumulation of water on us. Thunder and lightening began coming so fast it was like we'd been transported into the middle of the battle of Gettysburg. Cannons boomed and brilliant explosions of white light were bursting all around us. Pretty soon hurricane-force winds were tearing at the coach, making it shudder and sway. At one point I wondered if we might get to see our first tornado, perhaps as it lifted us up and dumped us into the nearby river. Fortunately that didn't happen, but for the next hour we had to just cower under the covers as the canons boomed and the explosions of lightening turned night into day.

But if yesterday turned out to be pretty off-putting, today was as close to perfect as we could honestly wish for. The sun came out, a light breeze kicked up, fleecy clouds scudded overhead, and Concetta and I spent all morning hoofing it around Natchez, Mississippi, just to see the sights and rub elbows with the locals.

Of course, Natchez has been on my bucket list since I was perhaps twelve years old and read -- maybe I should say devoured -- Mark Twain's, "Life on the Mississippi." Ah, to be a river boat pilot and expertly nudge your bow up to the teeming dock at "Natchez Under the Hill" to take on a load of cotton. What mental images that always invoked for me. So, today was the day I got to live the dream. Though we didn't venture down to the docks, we had a truly wonderful time wandering the oldest business and residential sections of Natchez on the hill. Everywhere we looked lay something colorful and nostalgic to photograph. Good thing I wasn't shooting film.

Our son Rob has been urging us to try eating what the locals eat so today we made a special point to do just that. As noon approached we wandered into a cozy restaurant called "Hot Biscuits and Cool Blues." Concetta had "crawfish corn chowder" and I had the special, "red beans and rice" which came with Andouille sausage and was just to die for. Along with this repast came the best biscuits you ever had in your life.

Today we spent most of the day on the Mississippi/Louisiana border, running on highway 61, and Concetta wants y'all to know that it's definitely the prettiest patch of country we've been in yet. So much greenery. So many flowers. It's just stunning. Of course there are other things to look at besides the local flora. Though I haven't done much roadside stopping to snap photos, I'm planning on doing a photo study one of these afternoons when I see a good subject. One subject that has me intrigued since we arrived in the south is abandoned houses. It seems to me that when a family gets tired of their house, they just move out and there sits the empty house forever more. Year after year it stands empty, melting into the ground, windows broken, a yard full of belongings. You see them everywhere, vines covering the front facade, roofs caving in, doors falling off hinges. It's eerie. They never seem to get torn down, like they're somehow untouchable. Like no one wants to get near them.

Traveling along route 61 today on our way to Baton Rouge we spotted a sign that said, "turn left here to see an honest to God plantation." At the first opportunity to reverse direction we went back. Moments later we were threading our way down this tiny little lane just inches wider than our RV. After about a mile we came around a bend and encountered an equally tiny bridge, looking, for all the world, like something that harkened back to the Civil War. The bridge came with an accompanying sign that warned us against actually driving on the bridge if you weighed more than a pickup load of watermelons. Deciding that we didn't want to find out if the RV weighed more than said watermelons, we backed around and beat it back to the highway.

Naturally, this got us in the mood for touring a real life plantation. When, just a few miles down the road, we responded to a historic interest sign for St. Francisville, we pulled onto a side road and soon found ourselves at a tiny museum and visitors center in the aforementioned town. It was here that the docent in residence recommended that we drive east a few miles along Louisiana route 10 and visit the Rosedown Plantation that, as fate would have it, was doing a tour of the house and grounds, the last tour of the day, in another hour. Needless to say, we got the RV turned around and beat it over there.

Let me just tell you that visiting Rosedown turned out to be the best thing we did all day. The plantation was just marvelous, inside and out. The gardens were just chock full of camellia bushes as tall as a house, and azalea bushes so brilliant in color that they just took your breath away. We had about forty-five minutes to wander the grounds before the tour was to begin and we took full advantage of the opportunity. I suspect that the garden encompassed around two acres and was criss-crossed with winding paths and secluded glens. Every so often you'd come around bend in the path and encounter a gazebo, a fountain, or some Greek statuary. Though the gardens looked like they could use a bit of tending (at least more than they were getting), it was still fun and richly rewarding to see.

The inside of the house was equally interesting for it's adherence to period design and decoration. Even though the plantation had gone through a series of owners since the original owner died in 1861, subsequent owners not only kept much of the decor, but what they did replace they did according to the original owner's design and purchase records. So, the house has it's original furniture in many cases, handmade wallpaper that matches the original, and even things like dishes and personal effects are original. The guide, unlike what you usually encounter in such tours, didn't get all hot and bothered when someone (that would be me) wandered away from the tour to shoot photos where the crowd of tour goers were not presently standing.

Consequently, I got to shoot photos pretty much wherever and whenever I wanted provided I didn't use a flash. The little Nikon does really well in low light so not using a flash was a piece of cake. The owner of the plantation had, back in the antebellum times, as many as four separate plantations and owned 450 slaves. Later he would manage as many as ten more. He must have been some businessman.

So, right now we're holed up in a tiny backwater of a RV park known "Shelby J's." We chose this place because it's just a few miles down the road from the Plantation house and it seemed too darned convenient to pass up. When we arrived I asked some of the other guests where I could find the manager, and they said they didn't really know since she didn't live on the property. They did give me a phone number to call. When I called, a lady told me to back in next to the old brown mobile home set up on blocks, pull the electrical cord out from underneath said old brown mobile home, and with luck I'd find the necessary water and sewer connections near the back fence. Said she'd be over directly to collect the entrance fee. That was about three hours ago and we still haven't seen her.

To say this place is on the casual side would be like saying that Barney Fife was not exactly a front line law enforcement officer. Still, I found the cord under the mobile as suggested and everything seem to work okay. The ground is a little on the "spongy" side from all the rain so I think my rear wheels are slowly sinking into the ground, the 17 dogs that the various semi-permanent residents have tied to their semi-permanent rigs set up a howl at the slightest disturbance, and the crickets sound like they're on steroids. But aside from those minor "stones in the road," everything is just right with the world. Amen!