Southern Bygones

Our next campground was part of an equestrian center. In fact, it seemed to be pretty much a horse pasture with a fence separating the horses from the RVs. There were only a handful of other RVs, and it was quiet, except for some construction during the day. Downtown Baton Rouge was about five miles away. As we drove downtown, we noticed people walking and biking on the levee between the road and the Mississippi River. Aha, we said, a place to go biking! 

But first we visited the state capitol, which, at 34 stories, is the tallest capitol in the country. It is an impressive building to look at. The outside has elaborate carvings and statues and is surrounded by formal gardens. 

Inside, each floor has 26 kinds of marble. The main floor has murals, statues and a display where Huey Long was assassinated (or, more probably, accidentally killed by his bodyguards). He had been governor and later was responsible for the state capitol being built in 1929 to replace the old state capitol. We’ll have to watch All the King’s Men, which is about him. 

We went to the 27th floor for a good view of the town as well as its oil refineries. The town seemed pretty quiet for a state capital, but the legislature wasn’t in session. On another day we visited the old state capitol a few blocks away. It looks like a castle. On the first floor there is a big exhibit on Huey Long. On the second floor are portraits of all the governors of Louisiana. You can click their portrait on a computer screen and learn more about them. 

Antebellum plantation homes used to line the Mississippi from Baton Rouge to New Orleans. Most are gone. Many were destroyed during the Civil War, others fell down from neglect. White Castle had been moved four times because the river kept encroaching. Nothing remains of it now except the name of a town. 

We visited Nottaway, one of the most elegant plantations you can visit and the largest in Louisiana when it was built. Its owner had just finished building it when the civil war began. Mr. Randolph took the money he made in sugar to Texas to invest in cattle and thereby save his fortune, leaving his wife behind. 

When the Union soldiers showed up, she knew one of the officers and because of their friendship, their home was spared from being destroyed or even occupied. After that, we followed the so-called “scenic” road along the Mississippi. You couldn’t see the river, just the grass-covered levee beside it. Lining the opposite side of the road, petrochemical plants took turns with as-yet-to-be-planted fields. We stopped at another plantation, Oak Alley, 

to have a picnic and see the impressive row of oak trees leading to the home. 

We also visited Rosedown Plantation, north of Baton Rouge. The house is luxurious inside, and although it had no indoor plumbing, running water or temperature control at the time, it was worlds better than the slave quarters, which were no better than shanties. 

Pretty gardens surround the house and would be prettier later in spring when the azaleas and flowers are blooming. A few miles away is another plantation--the Audubon State Historic site. It didn’t have much to do with Audubon, except that he stayed there three and a half months to tutor the daughter. While there he killed a bunch of birds and drew pictures of them for the Birds of America book. This home was built in 1806, around 30 years before the other, and wasn’t as fancy or as well-furnished. 

A big turkey was gobbling loudly outside. He was all puffed up, proudly displaying his feathers. No female turkeys in sight, I’m afraid. 

One afternoon we biked the levee to Baton Rouge. Between the levee and the river is a narrow strip of land with some trees and a wide ditch. The vast wetland had been filled in and replaced by a levee. Now people try to control the water level, prevent the river from flooding, (which is why the land was so fertile to begin with), and imitate poorly what Nature had done so well. A story all too common. Huge barges floated on the river, some stationary, looking like small in-stream islands, others pushed by tugboats. 

Another day we visited the Wetlands Acadian Cultural Center run by the National Park service and were reminded of how, when the Acadians (French Canadians) were forcibly removed from Nova Scotia by the British in 1755, many of them ended up in Louisiana and eventually became known as Cajuns. We visited Laurel Valley, which had been a sugar plantation and still is, on a much smaller scale. Outside the general store, farm animals wandered about. The attendant explained that all the chickens and roosters go in their hutches at night. That way the coyotes can’t eat them. But the goat has learned how to open the hutches to eat the hay. So now he’s worried that the coyotes may get the chickens. 

Down the road a bunch of old, grey dilapidated huts slowly rot in fields overgrown with tall grass, weeds and yellow wildflowers. The buildings had originally been used in the late 1800’s by people working the sugar plantation. Now they are occupied by thousands of bees buzzing loudly.