April 25

When this adventure began Paul told me he wanted to go to New Orleans.  I was not too excited about that.  I don't like jazz music and I don't drink (much, hardly ever).  Our trip had been pretty full of bad weather, we had only made one stop in Mississippi at the last home of Jefferson Davis in Biloxi, and the #1 listed thing to do in Gulfport was a local "disco".  Well as wonderful as it  might have been to go to the disco we decided to motor on to "Nawlins" after all and ended up spending a week there!

We stayed at a wonderful state park, Bayou Segnette, which unfortunately I did not take pictures of.  Dumb.  There were wide spaces, lots of grassy areas between spaces and we were only about 15 minutes from a free ferry at Algiers Point, which was located directly across from the French Quarter.  I learned from messages online that it was a free ferry and that the ferry wharf was right on the border of the area we wanted to tour.  It was all good.  I enjoyed the French Quarter much more than I expected to.  There was no big celebration going on so tourists were civilized and mostly sober.  It was a little weird to see people walking down the street carrying plastic cups full of "adult beverages".

I loved looking at all the wrought iron balconies full of flowering plants and vines.  Just lovely.  We also enjoyed the requisite beignets at a lovely restaurant called Cafe Beignet (recommended by sister-in-law Karen.  Thanks Karen!).  We did add some strawberries so it was a semi....very semi..."healthy" afternoon snack.  We toured the  house of a writer who was famous a long time ago - she restored the house to it's original 1800's grandeur - it was definitely interesting but I loved the plantation we visited more.  Although it's sad to see something so beautiful and know it was built on the backs of enslaved human beings, the history behind the house was fascinating.  It sat right on the banks of the mighty Mississippi so the plantation owners could ships their products easily to market.  This area mostly grew sugar cane.

I have to say the might Mississippi was a bit of a surprise - it's totally brown.  Paul reminded me it is called the Big Muddy.  All the rivers in the southern states were brown - it made me homesick for those beautiful rivers in California!

Once again we survived a HUGE storm - lightening struck so close to us, thunder boomed and shook the COW which made Callie quiver and shake.  Paul had left to go to the store right before it hit and I was worried until he walked back into the door - he got caught in the downpour and was soaked through and through.  The park was well protected with many trees so we did ok - no damage - but one of the trees came down between the time Paul left and returned.  Kind of scary.  We hope to finish the trip without experiencing any more storms, at all!!!  Pictures to follow in next post.