Galveston, Texas

Our first stop in Texas was Galveston, and there's lots to see.  This was the Bishop's Palace.  There are no photographs allowed on the inside, but it is absolutely beautiful.  Yes, that's Don at the top of the steps with his winter jacket.  We've been gone a whole month and have only seen 2 partial days in the 70's.

This castle was originally built by a rich family and was bought during the depresion for next to nothing by the Catholic diocese for the Bishop.

Our next stop was the Elissa.  That was very interesting.  I'm not a huge boat fan, but Don is.

I loved these posters, there were 3 of them, all on the origin of words and statements.  Double click on it so you can read it.

And here is Don in his Glory.

I spotted these houses as we were driving, thought it was a good shot.

Our last stop was at the Loan Star Flight Museum.  This sign got me wondering why Texas is the Lone Star state.  I can understand many of the state nicknames, but why "lone star".  For those of you who know me, you know that I couldn't just "wonder", I had to find out.  Check out this Lone Star link.

Like the Pensacola Museum, the old planes were very interesting.

Next stop, Corpus Christi, Texas.

A word from Bruno

This has been pretty cool so far.  When we're on the road I sleep on my bed between Mama and Daddy.

The trip to Texas was pretty long so I found a more comfortable place.

Oooops, Mama caught me.

I've got my daddy well trained, he found a blanket for the couch so I could sleep on it.  I'm so spoiled.

Finally, we're in Texas. I hope we find a beach to run on.

We found one in Galveston.  I love running on the beach.

Lafayette, Louisianna

Time for a little history lesson.  The French settled in Acadia, what is now Nova Scotia, in 1604.  France and England were often at war with each other, their respective flags frequently alternating above Port Royal in Acadia.  Finally, in 1713, France ceded Acadia to England who tried from time to time to get the Acadians to renounce all allegiances to France, which would also mean loosing their freedom of religion.  Because they refused, finally in 1755 England evicted the Acadians and placed them on transports and scattered them among English colonies along the Atlantic seaboard.  Some settled along both sides of the St.John River, which seperates Canada and Maine in the most northern part of Maine.  Other French had settled there having come from Quebec.  This is my ancestry. 

 A large number of Acadians, after 10 years of hardship, reached a French colony in New Orleans by way of the Mississippi.  Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote "Evangeline", a tale depicting their journey.  The name Acadian eventually turned to Cajun.  Lafayette is the center of Acadian history, therefore I needed to visit it.  I found that people speak English just like people in the St.John Valley.  Its not an accent as much as an inflection.  The names are also the same, like Cyr, Daigle, Thibodeau, Gilbeau, Landry, Vincent. etc.  The only difference is that names in Maine that end in "eau" or "eault" end in "eaux" in Louisianna.

We saw an old colony of houses, containing furniture, tools, etc., but guess what I did......forgot my camera!

Next stop....Texas

Louisianna Plantations

I love old houses and being a genealogist, I love history so a visit to some old plantations was a must on my list of things to do in Louisianna.  The first one we saw was Evergreen Plantation. 

Don't forget, you can double ckick on any picture to see a better view and any of the underlined words are links with more information on the topic.

We visited Laura Plantation.  This one was more of an office, the families stayed there just in the summer during sugar cane season so the inside was not "grand" like I expected.

These pots were huge.  They were shipped here from France.  Notice how only the very top is glazed.  They would submerse them in the Mississippi River until they were water logged.  They would empty them and bury them up to the glazed lip and used them as refrigerators.  The inside would stay nice and cool.

These were some of the slave cabins on this plantation.

St.Joseph's Plantation.

Oak Alley Plantation was named for it's 28 evenly spaced live oak trees.

As we were driving along the River Road, we found these scattered slave shacks.

All of these were on the south west side of the Mississippi River. We journied to the other side of the river and found the San Francisco Plantation

Both sides of the river had a levee.  We stopped periodically and climbed to the top to see the river.  There were always several boats going up and down the river.

Steam Boat Cruise

We've been without cell or internet service for 3 days again, so let me catch up.
On Saturday, we ventured out to New Orleans again.  The highway goes right around the Super Dome.

On our way to the steam boat, we decided to take a look at the 9th ward.  We connected with our friends, Paul & Joyce, last week for our Louisianna portion of the trip.  This is their 3rd year down here and they said it has improved alot each year.  But portions of it still looked pretty bad.

Most houses here are very narrow and long.  Almost like a trailor with the door on the end.  They're called "shot gun homes".

So we went to buy our steam boat tickets.

We boarded the boat.

And took off.  With a very loud whistle warning everyone.

The view was good at first, this is St.Louis Cathedral.

But as we got further out, the fog got so thick, we could hardly see anything.

I could, however, see the interesting parts, like the paddle wheel and the deck.

When we got off the boat, we found the streets to be filling up fast with the game the next day.  And in New Orleans you can drink on the streets so it was really getting crazy.  We did have to go to the Cafe Du Monde for some Beignet (pronounced ben-yay).  They are like dough boys, but smaller & better.

New Orleans

Driving along the Mississippi Gulf Coast, the view of the never ending beach on the left was absolutely beautiful.  The view on the right, however, was a reminder of the devastation caused by hurricane Katrina.  We could see pool stairs coming out from filled in pools, empty foundations and cement slabs where houses used to be, driveways, paved walkways and front steps leading nowhere and swings hanging from trees not far from those steps.  It made quite an impact on us.

Here we are, New Orleans, these trolly cars run right through town.

Oh boy, here we are on Bourbon Street.

I was surprised at how narrow is was.

Most of the buildings have balconies.

They are also very colorful.

As we walked back to the parking lot, 2 blocks from Burbon St., in front of City Hall was a good old New Orleans funeral celebration.   A policeman had been killed by a hit and run and the funeral had just finished.  It was like you see on TV.  People dressed in black playing jazz music and dancing in the street.  A whole section of the street was blocked off.  It was awesome.  I'm so glad we came upon it.

Biloxi, Mississippi

Here we are in Biloxi, Missippi.  This was taken at the Village Square.  Many of the Live Oak trees were destroyed during hurricane Katrina.  Several chain saw artists offered to create scupltures rather than totally destroying them.  This is the only one that is painted.   (FYI, you can click on any of these pictures to get a bigger view)

This is part of a memory wall, the highest portion on the right shows how high the waves were at this point.  I was totally facinated at this mosaic depicting the angry Katrina ocean.

Highway 90 is filled with these, they are spectacular.

Here is an angel in Bay St.Louis, actually there are 2 angels.  The story is that there were 2 people hanging on to this tree for 3 hours during Katrina.  Check out the link.

Here is a Live Oak tree to show how big they are.

This was a neat.

See how little Don & Bruno look.

Since gambling is illegal in most states, many coastal states have casinos on barges in the water.  Several of those were picked up by the wind and water during the storm and dropped accross Route 90.  The Hard Rock Casino was just a few days away from opening when Katrina hit and it was demolished, except for this sign.  It has since been rebuilt.