The Great River Road

Friday April 5th, New Orleans, LA. 

The weather continues to be crap — and the forecast says it will remain so until Monday at least anywhere within 500km of this place. This morning it was pouring rain and thunderstorms rolled in the distance waking me up at 5:30, but not bothering the dogs or Lorraine much. Swiffer was happy to replace me in bed and I got up to work on the Blog and read the paper while Lorraine and the dogs slept in a little. 

Even given my early start we didn’t get out of the trailer in pursuit of Antebellum mansions until after 10:00 under low clouds and frequently heavy rain. We headed west through downtown and across the river and west toward Baton Rouge but only after I snapped at Lorraine in heavy traffic as I tried to navigate and drive at the same time and then handed off the navigation to Lorraine when she wasn’t prepared. In retrospect, it’s better to prepare — especially in a city with stupid roads, a major river and pouring rain. We’re still married but it was touch and go for a while.

I’d considered that we might be able to take the River Road from Algiers out to where the plantations are; mistake number two. The river road these days is a narrow strip between a 40 foot tall earthen levy towards the river and endless chemical plants on the other. Every 200 metres there is a giant puddle covering half of the road — almost all on the side I drive on. Eventually we navigated back out to the highway and figured out where we were really going. The chemical plants gradually gave way to bayous and gray wet cane fields; Just before one pm we got to Laura Plantation.

Laura was originally a 12000 acre Creole plantation with a building built in 1805. It has a relatively simple central hall design, originally a horseshoe design like Beauvoir — very similar in fact but somewhat larger. We learned what the formal definition of a Creole is — French Speaking, Catholic, Born in Louisiana or France prior to the Louisiana Purchase in 1804. The bright colours replicate the original colours which are not atypical for a Creole Mansion. American Mansions would be white fronted.

The tour guide provided a great deal of emphasis on the life and work of enslaved peoples on the plantation. We got to see the construction detail — timber framed cypress with dovetails, pegs, and similar jointing. The house is in remarkably good repair despite a 2007 fire from computers in the gift shop. There were a number of photos of the original family and a wealth of detail about their soap opera lives. We made a quick tour of the nice little museum and then headed off to find a second museum before closing time.

San Francisco Plantation is on the other side of the river a little closer in to New Orleans; we managed to get there at 3:30 for a 4pm tour. It too is a brilliantly coloured Creole plantation built in the early 1840s. On our own, we toured a slave cabin from Destrehan Plantation and the first public school house in the Parish from about 10 miles inland in the 1870s while waiting for our official tour. The site was beautiful and covered in massive 200 year old live oaks covered in Moss, Resurrection Ferns and Spanish Moss. The ferns had been brown just two days before and in the rains had immediately resurrected.

Our tour guide Dudley ( I am not making that up), looked like a cross between my cousin Cliff and Santa Claus with a half waxed Dali moustache and an accent that seemed more Ohio than New Orleans — we have learned that many real New Orleans accents are a little elusively northeast in Sound. Dudley, definitely even spoke like Cliff which was very charming. More charming, if occasionally embarrassing, was that his tour was done as a one-man play; He acted out the part of every owner, their spouses, the man who did the tromp l’oiel paintings and fake wall coverings throughout the house. The house was immaculately restored to it’s grandeur of about 1860 just after the original owner added the exterior walls on the ground floor as exterior staircases were taxed. I was very impressed with the restoration and historically accurate decoration of both houses. Even the China in San Francisco was replaced based on shards and fragments found in their midden. Dudley also told us the ghost stories of the place — all of which revolved around him personally and which he’s not supposed to tell unless someone asked... In 1981 — before his career as a high school teacher he was the head of security there and after having the alarm go off at 4am three nights in a row he planned a stakeout. At 4am the alarm went off as usual as Dudley watched the ghost, in a tux carrying a tray of drinks, walk through the door. His partner saw nothing... He’s seen several other ghosts there since as well including one who complimented him on his tours.

At 5 we were back on the road headed toward the Camellia Grill back in New Orleans. This is a famous old diner near the University that was featured on the “Somebody Feed Phil” TV show. We were really too tired to have fun with the chatty waiters and the food was good ordinary diner stuff so Dinner was quick and simple and we were back at the Camp before 7. Tomorrow we’ll travel.