Back to the cooler weather again overnight (global warming is so over-rated). It was an overcast day, and the temperature struggled up to 9°C. We headed out after breakfast for about a 70 mile journey to the west of New Orleans. Our destination was one of the many plantation houses situated on River Road. River road follows the Mississippi river along its south bank.
This particular house is called the Laura Plantation which is the plantation featured in the autobiography of Laura Locoul Gore called Memories of the Old Plantation Home.
Laura Plantation House
The tour started with an explanation of “Creole”. Many moons ago, back in the late 1600’s a mix of peoples arrived in the New Orleans area, primarily French, German, Swiss and Spanish. Native Americans were already living in the area, and amazingly the Europeans settled in with the natives rather than trying to beat the livi conquer them. They all worked together pooling ideas and resources; they were joined later by West Africans from Senegal. Today, to be classified as Creole you must be descended from this mixed group of people AND be French speaking. French was the only language spoken in Louisiana before it was bought by the US and became a state in 1845. Now very little French is spoken except in small country areas.
Balcony
The front of the house had seven sets of double doors facing the Mississippi River which was about 100 metres away. There was an avenue of trees down to the river which formed part of the “air conditioning” of the house. The three sets of doors on the right led to the men’s part of the house, the three on the left to the women’s side. In the summer the two sets in the middle were left open. They captured the cooler breeze off the river which was funneled towards the house by the avenue of trees. This cooler air then circulated through the house and exited out the back.
Not a single nail was used in the construction of the house.
Initially we were surprised to see a brightly coloured house, after all most of the plantation houses in the movies are white. Evidently this is only true for “American” houses not “Louisiana” ones. The reason for the colours was to aid in identifying the house from the river; the only means of transportation was the river, and people had to identify the house they wanted the boat to stop at, if they were all white, this could have been a problem!
Slaves Cabin
As you can see above the slaves didn’t have it as good, each family was allocated 16ft by 16ft.
A New Use For Old Wine Bottles
Evidently a lot of drinking went on in these plantation houses, as you can see from the photo they found creative uses for the empties. Not only were they around trees but also around the flower and vegetable gardens.
After the tour we had a decision to make. We had planned on taking a swamp boat tour, but the temperature was still around 9°C with a cold wind. Given that the swamp boat was open and would create it’s own wind chill as it moved, we decided to give up on that part of the trip. Instead we headed off to find lunch.
We found a truly unpretentious “local” restaurant and had a great meal of gumbo and shrimp.
On the way home we stayed off the interstate for a while and followed the Mississippi river along River Road. We couldn’t see the river due to the levee that had been built to contain the water during hurricanes and heavy rains. Having grown up in the era of “American Pie” I thought it only fitting that we took our chevy to the levee!
The Levee from the Chevy
The river is just beyond the trees on the left, the levee is about 30ft above the river level This particular levy is over 600 miles long and starts in Arkansas.
Tomorrow we head out towards San Antonio Texas, with an overnight stop just outside Houston.
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