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Published: January 16th 2013
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New Orleans Dinner
Our first night in New Orleans! Dinner at Charley's. Great local sea food. I awoke to day three of our maiden voyage to the familiar sound of rain gently falling onto Stormy's roof. I listened closely for the dreaded "ping", but quickly determined the maisture was indeed only rain!
Our intention was to head south for our first trip, to escape the cold and hopefully get some sun - I even brought snorkeling gear! I guess I am forever an optimist! As Cynde has so aptly discussed, we have yet to find warmth or sunshine. But a cold rainy day of retirement on the road still seems much better than heading to the office!
Our first day on the road began at 2:30 a.m. on Monday. I couldn't sleep and it was really cold, so I woke Cynde and coerced her to moving her slumber activity to the coach. We were on the road by 3 a.m. My music was cranking and as the old song so aptly noted, we were "East-bound and down"!
We encountered the first round of sleet south of McAlester but it cleared by the time we made Paris (Texas). We pulled into Shreveport without fanfare and headed to the Riverwalk area where there are a multitude
Laura Plantation House
This is the restored home of the Laura Plantation. It was build in the early 1800's. It is Creole, as were the masters of the Plantation. of casinos, restaurants, and, of course, shopping and a movie theatre. I won big! After I managed to take $85 from Sam's Town, I convinced Cynde that we should walk away, richer from our outing. Shreveport is a very nice city. The downtown area appears quite prosperous and it was really easy to get around.
Yesterday morning a rather large winter storm set its aim on East Texas, Northwest Louisiana and Southwest Arkansas. After I saw the weather warnings and the forecast, I woke Cynde in preparation for a hasty departure. I was hoping that we could get ahead of the ice that was slowing moving toward Shreveport. I was advised that my original route had been closed down due to icy road conditons, so we headed toward an alternate route. We did finally get ahead of the storm and since we changed our route, we also changed our destination. It had been over 30 years since we had been to New Orleans, so we were excited to have the opportunity to visit again on this trip.
On our way into New Orleans, we made a quick side-trip to the Laura Plantation which was located about halfway between
Garden
This is one of many gardens on the plantation. Baton Rouge and New Orleans. This plantation was in operation from the early 1800's until the 1970's. It is unique in that it was owned and managed by women. Seems the men of the family were either poor businessmen, dis-interested, or over-powered. At any rate, it was a successful operation, producing sugar cane through the use of slave labor. This was a great plantation to visit. It was not nearly as opulant as some of the plantations up north of Baton Rouge, but it certainly appeared authentic. The majority of buildings and structures on the site had not been restored and some were in pretty bad shape. However, it really seemed to depict an accurate representation of the time period.
We had a great dinner at a "local" place called Charley's. It was near our camping site and just a stone throw away from the river. I had gumbo and Cynde had shrimp etoufee. I probably missed the spelling on that one by a mile!!! At any rate it was great!
This moring we are off to the French Quarter for breakfast. We will have the little French donuts and some really strong coffee!!
Have a great
Garden Area
This plantation also had a winery. The master owned a vineyard in France and imported the wine. The old bottles were used for borders around the garden. day!!!
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