Frogmore Plantation, nr. Natchez, MS

Before we left Texas, neighbors recommended that we visit Frogmore Plantation. So, we built it into a day trip in conjunction with a visit to Catahoula National Wildlife Refuge. Frogmore is appropriately located in Frogmore, LA, just across the Mississippi River from Natchez. It’s named after a town in England by the same name. The Plantation’s website noted at the end of this post is exceptionally well-done!

This place is a definite “must-see”! It’s devoted to the history of slavery, on a general level and particularly how it related to local history. At the beginning of the tour is an introductory film narrated by Lynn Tanner who, with her husband, owns Frogmore. The film is very professional and well-researched. What fascinated us was the portion on the Emancipation. What we DON’T learn in history classes is that freeing the slaves was not always a good thing for them. First, they no longer had a place to live, no source of income or livelihood, no supportive community, and nowhere to go in order to find those things. Second, out of desperation, many of them returned to their previous plantations. Third, for some, their masters made them sharecroppers. They now had land to live on and work but they didn’t own it. They were obligated to share a certain percentage of the income derived from crops harvested off the land. Finally, a very small minority were given land to own. Still others managed to move to other states where slavery wasn’t allowed.

The main house at Frogmore is not part of the grounds tour. The 19 dependency buildings (outbuildings) were well-preserved, modest, not too noteworthy nor photo-worthy. The tour guide does give a good idea of how slaves lived during this era.

This property is still a working cotton plantation and the modern cotton gin is on the second part of the tour. However, we visited during the off-season so the gin was inactive and undergoing maintenance. During the introduction, we had viewed a second film which explained the ginning process: how the cotton balls are cleaned of trash (stems & leaves) and seeds, then baled, and readied for shipment to cotton mills. Both films are worth seeing by themselves!

Helpful website:

http://www.frogmoreplantation.com/

Welcome to Natchez!

5/29/09

(NOTE: Not posted in order time-wise; should have been inserted earlier. Sorry!)

Our first destination in Natchez was the Visitor Center, well-located just across the bridge from our RV park.

We opted for a 1 1/2 hour bus tour to get an overview of Natchez. With some time to spare, we dashed to the “Pig Out Inn” nearby for a delicious BBQ sandwich for lunch. (We liked the food and atmosphere here so much, we returned one evening for dinner! Customers are given stickers reading “The Pig Out Inn BBQ, Best Smelling Pits in Town!”)

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The Pig Out Inn’s interior is delightful! Various signs, compatible with a old river town, warn of avoiding gamblers, pickpockets, and women of ill-repute. The more recent and featured sign above reads: “We were invited to the recession but we declined.” Now isn’t that just SO southern in tone – so polite??!!

Our tour driver, Doris, spoke in a southern accent as thick as molasses on a cool day! Plus, she spoke in a type of local dialect which meant we had to ask her to repeat several things!! This just added to our discovery process – Doris was so agreeable and her summary of Natchez history was a great help. We were Doris’ only passengers, a real treat for us. Doris made 2 brief stops, one at Melrose, an antebellum mansion, and at Forks In The Road, the site of an enormous slave market many years ago. Slaves were dressed in fine clean clothing and paraded slowly in a circle; if not immediately purchased, they were waited until the next “parade”. (For more information about slavery, please see our blog posting about Frogmore Plantation.)

Melrose, now owned and maintained by the National Park Service is a “must-see” when visiting Natchez. On the grounds, various outbuildings still exist, one of which houses an exceptionally good slavery exhibit. Melrose has remained relatively unaltered, unlike the bed-and-breakfast conversions elsewhere in town. We feel that’s kept it more authentic.

Once our driving tour was finished, we returned to Melrose for a longer visit.

At this time of year, the magnolia and mimosa trees are all in bloom. Magnolias are so fragrant and the tree is quite handsome! The leaves are shiny green on one side and bronze on the other. Mimosas are covered with a haze of feathery pink blooms and are everywhere! They’re a very common native tree.

Also in bloom everywhere this time of year is Crape Myrtle, a flowering tree which blooms in several different shades of pink (both soft and bright), red, purple, as well as white. (I borrowed the photo below from HowStuffWorks.com) It has no scent and is a delightfully showy shrub or well-formed small tree. Southern gardeners use it with great spirit to add color to the landscape. It’s in the median of highways, in front of banks, in parks, and seems unparticular as to where it’s planted.

After wandering through Melrose, we came back into town and did the “Walking Tour”.  We recommend it! (Maps are available at the Visitor’s Center.) “Downtown Natchez” is filled with dozens of tidy red brick, stone, and stucco buildings, many on the National Register of Historic Places. Several are currently being restored. There’s a real pride in preservation here. We apologize for not providing photos -- there were too buildings from which to choose! The websites below might be helpful.

FACTOID: the area near the border of LA & MS is known as “Miss-Lou”. So, the local newspapers and radio stations frequently use this as a point of reference. (For a brief moment, Richard and I had wondered just who this important “Miss Lou” was!!!)

Here’s a couple of good resources:

http://www.visitnatchez.org

http://www.allthingsnatchez.com

North to Natchez, MS

5/27/09

Interesting drive up through Alexandria, LA, to Natchez. We passed through the “Nursery Capital of Louisiana” from Forest Hill to Woodworth: acres of flower, shrub and tree nurseries. An enormous and stunning “crazy quilt” of color, though the individual color blocks were extremely neat and tidy.

After a stay in the Texas Tropics, Louisiana’s countryside looks so lush and green! Blooming along the roadside are magnolia and mimosa trees, lilac, and others I have yet to learn.

Churches of all types and sizes are in abundance – the South is known as the “Bible Belt” for good reason! We’ve seen several mega-churches up through Texas and into Louisiana. It’s comforting to know we’re in such good hands!

Our home for the coming week was the River View RV Park in Vidalia, LA, just across the bridge from Natchez, MS.  We found this park through RV Park Reviews. River View honors the Escapees RV Club 15% discount as well as Passport America (50% discount for first 3 nights). The park graciously gave us the Passport America for our 1st 3 nights and Escapees for our last 4 nights. The park is clean, quiet, and very convenient to Natchez, and nearby grocery stores. Our site had a pretty good view of the Mississippi River, so we enjoyed watched the tugs and barges navigate up and downstream. We quickly became tuned to the thrumming of an approaching tug.

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Our week was exciting (we viewed it as the official kickoff to our summer tour!); it was also educational, and restful. Natchez itself was not damaged by Civil War battles; the fighting occurred further north, thus its buildings remain well-preserved. It was a cotton capital and wealthy plantation owners built numerous antebellum mansions now available for tours. (We were reminded that “antebellum” means “before the war” -- in this case, the Civil War –- therefore, before 1863.) They’ve been beautifully restored and preserved, though many have been converted to bed-and-breakfasts. Ironically, the actual plantations were across the Mississippi River on flat Louisiana floodplain; the Natchez bluffs and hills discouraged such agriculture. However, the bluffs offered panoramic view of the River.

And, next, our tour of Natchez…

“Creole Nature Trail” – Part 4 (Final-5/26/09)

After Holly Beach, LA 27 heads east along the coastline and, just before reaching Cameron, there’s a free ferry which crosses the outlet of Calcasieu Lake (Remember, that’s “Calca-shoo”!). The ferry was named “Cameron No. II”, and carried the Louisiana Dept. of Transportation’s motto “Louisiana On The Move”. That struck me as pleasantly reassuring, given the wreckage from Hurricane Ike we’ve been seeing!! Makeshift repairs to buildings, blue tarps, snack shops operating out of RV’s. A lot of RV’s were moved down here to live in while debris was being removed and current efforts are made to rebuild. New construction is now all up on stilts, including mobile homes! Some homes are being built up on berms or raised mounds. Many new churches are being built. Humor still survives, as shown by the “Hurricane Cafe” we saw in town! However, don’t trust any area where the trees lean inland!

The Trail continues north from Cameron on LA 27 through the village of Creole to the Cameron Prairie Refuge. We arrived just as the Refuge’s Visitor Center was closing for the day. We were still able to see Red Eared Slider turtles floating or sunning on a rock in the pond in front of the Center building. Look at this guy’s pretty red streaks behind his eyes!

Within the Refuge, we drove the 3-mile Pintail Drive. This was really fun for us! Lots of wildlife sightings! (OK, you non-birders can just move on to the next posting! All birders can appreciate the following list.) We saw Glossy Ibises, Black-necked Stilts, Egrets, Common Moorhens, White-face ibis, Tri-color Heron, Little Blue heron, Anhingas, Grackles, and –- drum roll, please –- Roseate Spoonbills! (Tried for a close-up picture of the latter but wasn’t successful. They are so stunning!) We also spotted 2 small alligators: one in the roadside slough and one lurking in a culvert beside the road. (See pictures below)

Doesn’t look like much, right? Look closer at the opening of the culvert…look for his eyes and forehead. You may need to increase the magnification just a bit. (MS Vista users: look in the lower right of your task bar. You’ll see 100%; click on the "Plus" sign just before it. This will increase your image size. The "Minus" sign decreases the image size. Cool, huh? Windows XP users: I dunno what to tell you!)

And a few birds…Black-necked Stilt, Glossy Ibis, Great Egret.

If you squint while looking at the shot below, you can just make out the Roseate Spoonbill in the center, surrounded by various kinds of egrets! (OK, it’s a lousy shot!)

We covered a lot of country today. Thanks for following us so far! We drove north back up toward Lake Charles and saw a mini-storage business named “Cajun Storage”. Do you suppose this was a place to store Cajuns????????????

“Creole Nature Trail” – Part 3 (5/26/09)

After lunch, we continued on our drive, stopping at the Sabine National Wildlife Refuge Walking Trail, but the bugs chased us off in short order. There were hideous biting flies and mosquitoes – vicious! Insect repellent didn’t phase them. So away we went!

LA 27 leads down to Holly Beach on the coast. It and 26 miles of Gulf Coast beaches have been known to locals as “The Cajun Riviera”!! However, it was decimated by Hurricane Ike (2008); a good percentage of this community was simply washed away. Now, only concrete slabs remain as monuments. Mangled roofing is still trapped in fencing or in roadside ditches, along with entire vehicles and boats now rusting away. A surprising number of hearty souls are hanging on; houses have blue tarps for roofing; and small businesses cling to life with measured breaths. The post-hurricane debris has been transported to a centralized location, where it is sorted and gradually trucked away. Meanwhile, shreds of people’s former homes now lie there in huge mounds of wreckage. There are stories and heartbreak in those mounds. Just east of town were two ENORMOUS red buoys beached forever above the waterline.

Life perseveres here. Along the way, we’ve seen plenty of Red-winged Blackbirds. At a roadside fishing spot, we saw an enormous flock of Laughing Gulls. Their name is apt – they do indeed sound like they’re laughing! In addition, we’ve seen Black-necked Stilts, a Brown Pelican, Egrets, of course, Great Blue Herons, signs of raccoons, deer, and armadillos.

“Creole Nature Trail" – Part 2 (5/26/09)

The Creole Nature Trail is just over 180 miles long. It can be accessed from Sam Houston Jones State Park, from I-10/Exit 20 at Sulphur, LA, or from I-10/Exit 36, LA 397. The tour route signage is good. The tour route heads south toward the Gulf Coast, primarily on LA 27. In addition to seeing some wildlife, we wanted to see how the coastal communities have recovered from Hurricane Ike last fall (2008).

We began on the western arm of the tour route, coming down from Sam Houston Jones State Park. The route passes through agricultural areas until reaching the Intracoastal Waterway just north of Hackberry. Then we started seeing signs for fishing guides, RV parking, crawfish and crab for sale – the focus now changes to water activities.

We crossed the Waterway on the Ellender Bridge, and stopping for lunch at the Intracoastal Park on the south side of the bridge. This was a really pleasant stop. The Intracoastal Waterway goes from New England all the way down to Brownsville, TX. We watched a couple of long barges – one going in each direction – as they navigated these protected waters.

Here’s a link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intracoastal_Waterway

“Calcasieu” Parish is pronounced “Calca-shoo”! We’ve really enjoyed listening to everyone’s Cajun accent. The Cajun (really Acadian) French dialect is now being taught in southwest Louisiana schools as an effort preserve the Cajun heritage. For so many years, the Cajun people have been the brunt of derogatory humor. Only recently has the richness of that culture been recognized and efforts made to save it.

“Creole Nature Trail” – Part 1 (5/26/09)

We began at Sam Houston Jones State Park, just northwest of Lake Charles, LA. (Since our interest is birding and wildlife viewing in general, that bias will show in our report!) This park would be a great base camp for birders visiting during the spring and fall migrations. Approximately 200 species of birds have been identified at this site or within 30 miles of here.

NOTE: Louisiana State Parks offer a discount to seniors presenting the National Park Service “Senior Pass”!

We’d love to stay at this park some time. There’s lots to do and see here – hiking and biking trails, fishing, wildlife viewing, etc. The camping areas are quite pretty, though there are few spaces long enough for today’s big RV’s, and the campground roadways are a bit narrow. Also, the campsites are located in wooded areas where connecting to satellite TV and Internet would be challenging. However, a return visit is very tempting.

Armadillos have been rummaging everywhere in the park. We could hear birds (particularly lots of cardinals) everywhere but the foliage was too thick for us to really see them. There’s a resident herd of deer which wanders at will through the park. These 2 were in a group of about a dozen.

Here’s a good example of a cypress swamp seen as you drive toward the day use area.

For further information:

www.crt.state.la.us/parks/iShjones.aspx

www.creolenaturetrail.org

Mission, TX - Thursday, May 21, 2009

It’s departure time – off on our summer’s adventures. We’ve got mixed emotions about leaving – contented in our “winter perch” here, yet excited to be on the road again! Our route will take us north through Louisiana to our first major stop in Natchez, MS. We’ll make a brief stop en route in southwest LA, near Lake Charles, where we’ll drive the “Creole Nature Trail” down from Sulphur, LA, to the Gulf Coast at Holly Beach, over to Cameron, and back up to Lake Charles. Anxious to see how well that area has recovered from Hurricane Ike. And how wildlife has come back after the trauma.

Our overall route this summer will take us to or near numerous Civil War historic sites. This will be an excellent opportunity to “re-learn” about that important event. We’ve all studied it in school, but how much of it do we remember? Did we care about it? (Kind of like algebra!) Happily, as adults, now we’re truly interested.

Our itinerary includes the Natchez Trace Parkway which begins in Natchez and ends just outside of Nashville, TN; Great Smoky Mountains National Park; Asheville, NC; Blue Ridge Parkway; Skyline Drive and Shenandoah National Park; family in northern VA and Washington, DC; West VA, the one state in the Lower 48 we’ve never visited; the Kentucky Horse Park in Lexington, KY; Berea, KY, an Appalachia crafts center; Memphis, TN (BBQ & Blues); and the Great River Road from Memphis down into Louisiana.

We’ll be back home by about mid-October. Y’all, come along with us!