Holidays in Louisiana
Though my brothers and sister grew up in Virginia, after graduating from college we all ended up in different parts of the U.S. We are far enough apart that we do not get together very often but in the past have tried to meet at one of our homes for the Christmas holidays. This post is from two of the times we got together with my sister, Maylee, who lives in Louisiana. Both visits were quite some time ago.
A visit to Louisiana is usually not complete without visiting New Orleans where we did a walking tour of a little of the French Quarter. This is one of two Parisian-style row house buildings built in the late 1840s by the Baroness Micaela Almonester Pontalba. The building has shops and restaurants on the ground floors and apartments on the upper floors.
The building with the white squares is known as Madame John’s Legacy and was completed in 1788 making it one of the oldest houses in the French Quarter. The house’s name was inspired by George Washington Cable’s 1874 short story Tite Poulette, in which the character Monsieur John bequeaths a Dumaine Street house to his mistress, Madame John.
This building known as Lafitte’s Blacksmith Shop was built sometime between 1772 and 1791 by Jean and Pierre Lafitte (later found to be spelled Laffite). According to legend they posed as blacksmiths as a front for their smuggling operation. The building escaped two great fires due to slate roofing. In the mid-1940s it was turned into the Café Lafitte and is now a bar.
This contrasts the new and old buildings in New Orleans.
Our Dad could not resist a photo opportunity with one of the local celebrities.
Looking downstream with a barge and riverboat on the Mississippi river.
About 80 miles upstream on the banks of the Mississippi river is Nottoway Plantation located near White Castle, Louisiana. It was built by John Hampden Randolph in 1859 and is the largest antebellum plantation house still standing. The house is 53,000 square foot with 64 rooms, 7 staircases, and 5 galleries. Because of rain I was only able to take pictures from the shelter of the balcony.
In the middle of Baton Rouge, Louisiana we came across these horses under a tree. They are Arabian horses and are part of the Live Oak Farm owned by Phil Witter whose family has lived there since the 1700’s. The farm once stretched from one side of Baton Rouge to the other encompassing 1,800 acres but now has 250 acres. Today show horses and cattle are bred there.
On our second holiday visit to Louisiana we also walked around the French Quarter and enjoyed some of the street performers like these musicians.
And this juggler.
The St. Louis Cathedral is the oldest continuously active cathedral in the U.S. where New Orleanians have worshiped in churches on this site since 1727 with the present structure dating to 1850.
In downtown Baton Rouge there was quite a display of Christmas lights. The story of these lights began in 1977 when Al Copeland founder of Popeyes fast-food empire put up a display of Christmas lights at his home in Metairie, Louisiana. He added more and more until there were 60,000 strings of lights in 1985. This was drawing lots of sight-seers which caused traffic problems resulting in a court order to move the show to another location.
The lights were at the New Orleans headquarters of Popeyes for a few years and then moved to Baton Rouge for a short time which was where we saw them.
After this the lights went to Lafreniere Park in Metairie which still has a Holiday Lights show today. However most of the lights these days are LED so might not include Copeland’s original lights.
We decided to do some canoeing in Alligator Bayou launching them at an access point located in Ascension Parish, Louisiana and set out exploring to see what kinds of things we could find.
In Cypress Flats we found barren trees making for an eerie feeling.
We paddled through and by moss and duck weed.
Then we spotted an eagle carrying a fish or small animal in its talons which is at the center of this picture.
We also saw other birds.
We managed to return without any adverse alligator encounters. However in 2009 some flood control gates were opened permanently dropping the water level so now there is not enough water for boating in this area most of the time.
This ends the holidays in Louisiana and as always each of us returns to the part of the country from which we came.
More Information:
Pontalba Buildings Wikipedia article
Madame John’s Legacy Wikipedia article
Lafitte’s Blacksmith Shop Wikipedia article
Nottoway Plantation Wikipedia article
