Texas - The Lone Star State
Archers Holidays, June 2014
Today was 7.30am bags, 8.30am bus, so we got our bags ready before heading down for breakfast. There was quite a range - eggs, bacon, sausage, French toast, grits, cheesy grits, oatmeal, cereals, fruit, yoghurts, orange juice and coffee.
After breakfast, we gathered our stuff together and headed out to the bus. The sky was a bit grey and got darker as we drove along the Atchafalaya River Highway - the road we'd gone underneath the previous day. Then we crossed the Mississippi River alongside Baton Rouge. In the distance, we recognised the State House which we'd been in on another tour.
Our first stop of the day was at the Houmas House Plantation and Gardens, an antebellum (pre-Civil War) house which has had just five owners in its lifetime. The land was bought from the Indians for about $150 but it's worth a tad more now. It continues to be lived in - on occasion - but that didn't prevent us from going anywhere or from taking pictures. How enlightened!
We waited in the gift shop while Patrick got us organised and then we headed to the house through some beautiful gardens.
Unfortunately, it was raining pretty badly, but this time the humans and I were prepared!
Our guide's name was Susan and she was very nice.
The Houmas Indians were given a land grant to occupy this land and they sold it in the mid 1700s. The original French Provincial house that was originally built here still exists and is situated behind the Mansion. It was used to house the staff for the great house in later times. By the time of the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, the plantation was established and producing sugar. In 1810, Revolutionary War hero General Wade Hampton purchased the property and began work on the Mansion, but it didn't really start taking shape until 1825, when Hampton's daughter, Caroline, and her husband, Colonel John Preston, took over.
The Mansion was completed in 1828 while the plantation was obtaining land and increasing sugar production. In 1857 the plantation was sold to Irishman John Burnside for $1 million! He increased production until the Houmas House became the largest sugar producer in the country. During the Civil War, he declared immunity as a subject of the British Crown, saving the Mansion from the advancing Union forces.
Burnside's successor, Colonel William Porcher Miles, took production up to two hundred million pounds of sugar each year in the late 1800s. The Great Flood occurred in 1927 when the Mississippi burst its banks. While Houmas House survived, the surrounding areas were inundated and, followed soon after by the Great Depression, the Houmas House Plantation declined, falling into disrepair. Dr George B Crozat bought the Mansion in 1940 and set to renovate the property, in a more 'Federal' style than its original Greek Revival style. His heirs opened the property to tourists and moviemakers.
In 2003, current owner and resident Kevin Kelly purchased the home and set to recreate the experience of the Houmas House of the 1840s. Despite his living in the House, we were given access throughout and could take photographs as we liked, which was great. We entered through a large wooden doorway into a grand hallway - check out this wallpaper with reeds and herons and this lovely dog. Seriously, he's on the wall!
This room was full of artifacts. They were too ornate for my taste but certainly demonstrated the opulence of the day.
There was a Steinway piano in here, so I had to have a go - it's okay, Susan asked if anyone could play. I'm not great though so I let Paul take a turn too. Again, it's lovely to be invited to touch, not to Do Not Touch.
The eagle statue on the table was very realistic of a bird in flight catching its prey. There was a small statue of Lincoln here too and again, we were allowed to give his foot a quick squeeze!
We passed through into a games room, with a large pool table and a horse racing game like I've seen on TV. Susan even set it off for us to see it in action.
There's a lovely wooden spiral staircase here (as well as an elevator) and I couldn't resist having a bit of a slide. It's been that kind of holiday! We headed up the stairs.
Check this out for a fruit bowl! It's way bigger than me.
Susan took out a gun when we reached the next floor. She even let me have a hold! It looks like a walking stick.
We entered one of several bedrooms. This one had a four-poster bed and a space-saving table and chair combination that folds together to form a table, but can be pulled apart to create a writing desk.
With the furniture and clothing of the period on display it was easy to get a feel for life in the Houmas House.
We headed outside onto a covered balcony - it was still raining pretty heavily but we were covered so able to keep dry.
Across the garden we could see one of two Garçonnieres in the grounds. These were really bachelor pads, if you will, where the sons of the house would live. I found a big metal summer hat turned upside down (or something!) before we headed back inside and I bumped into the boss - Theodore Roosevelt.
I found another big four poster bed so had to have a bounce! Susan decided I should help her demostrate in the next room. In here the bed had stairs up to it, but they were clever stairs, cos they doubled as the...er...toilet facilities. Better than going outside I guess.
The Houmas House also offers catering facilities and we took a peek in one of the dining rooms they had set up. It looked very nice, but sadly we didn't have time to eat. I thought you might like to take a look at the floorboards overhead - pretty nice eh? Soon, we were out of the main house and off to the kitchen.
Here Di took another one of her hysterically funny photos of me on some kind of chopping block. She is such an asset to my team. The fire had some pretty big bellows set up. They had a huge coffee grinder (those are flatties of my coffee-drinking buddies Pete and Goldie in the picture). It was here that our tour ended. It was a great tour. Susan was fun and informative and the access to the house was great.
It was still pouring with rain as we passed back through the gardens. They have thirty-eight acres and these by the house were lovely. Below right you can just see one of the twin Garçonnieres.
We had a quick look inside Neptune's Ballroom. In here they had a model of a Civil War submarine within the 2500 square foot ballroom. We were just able to wander in, take pictures and leave, without supervision, which was great.
We passed the Tea House (below left), located on the highest point of the property and then this area with a few giraffes. However, we didn't hang about as I was getting wet! Even in my poncho. We had a quick look around the gift shop where I bought a little jar of local honey. Then we returned to the bus for our onward journey to New Orleans.
We had a one hour lunch break at a Pilot truck stop. There was a Burger King, McDonalds and Subway. The rain seemed to be easing off a little, but it was a boring stop.
Then we had the final leg of our journey to our hotel, the Sheraton New Orleans. Traffic had been light so we had nearly an hour to wait until our city Tour Guide, Zina, arrived. There wasn't much to do while we waited - we sat about, waiting.
I wandered about the lobby for a bit, hanging out with the likes of Louis Armstrong, another Steinway piano (we couldn't touch this one - it had a Blue Dog painting by George Rodrigue) and a multi-coloured cow.
It was our last day with bus driver Rodney so we made a point to thank him for his great driving during the tour. I hope he's tracked me down and been able to read this - say hi below if you do Rodney! He was great, always friendly and happy and safe - great work.
By this time, Zina, our New Orleans guide, had arrived and it was time for the last tour of our trip - around New Orleans. We set off past Harrah's Casino, and by some street cars. In the distance (below right) I spotted Jackson Square.
Below left is Cafe du Monde, famous for it's beignets and coffee. This was a must do on our visit (we came here last time) and, as they are open 24-hours we figured we'd have time. We drove by some ornate houses. Fortunately, the French Quarter of New Orleans wasn't too affected by the flooding during Hurricane Katrina.
A popular tourist spot in New Orleans is the dead centre - the cemetery. As New Orleans is below sea level anyone buried below ground would soon pop out so the Spanish taught folks to bury their dead above ground. Folks would build a family tomb, using the same architect as they did for their house. Coffins placed into the ground would move to the surface so the Spanish taught them to bury the dead above ground in concrete vaults with shelves to stack 'em up. Below centre you will see our guide, Zina, telling us all about it. She also mentioned that this little Ted-bench has only recently been concreted in - they must have trouble with metal thieves there too. Sigh.
We passed through New Orleans City Park. This was a pretty lush green area, with the Botanical Gardens, which features more than two thousand plants from around the world, and Storyland, with twenty-five larger-than-life storybook sculptures featuring classic fairytale characters.
We then had a short stop off at a park where the plan was to take a group photo. However, organising a group of bus travellers is a bit like herding cats so it takes a while to get organised - not to mention assigning the photographer and 40-odd cameras!
While we waited we took a look around. There was an amazing tree covered in Spanish moss, a family of ducks, and - for my buddy Jeremy - I even took a photo of a pigeon. He likes to chase them!
Things began to take shape and I was able to get a few pictures with Rodney and Patrick.
Then I was interrupted by an important call. Here was the opportunity for my fellow passengers to get the all-important pictures of our driver, our tour director and, of course, ME!
And here are my fellow passengers - of course I had to be on this shot too. They don't look too scary...do they? Assistants Di, Paul and Reluctant Assistant Dave are all on there, but I won't point them out. Now they will scare you!
I then took a closer look at that tree and some of the other pretty flowers around.
We returned to the bus and set out to take a look at some of the levées, the breach of which caused so much devastation and flooding from Hurricane Katrina. If you look closely at the house, below right, you can see a water mark which shows the water got to nearly the top of the windows. Must have been a scary night.
As we drove back towards the city I was quite amazed to see a guy on one of those water jet packs - I even managed to get a photo. How cool is that?
We passed the World War II Museum which we would visit the next day. We also passed St Patrick's Church and the Federal Court House.
We returned to the hotel, the Sheraton New Orleans Hotel and this time could go to our rooms. I had given them a very harsh one Ted, but I've been talked around as it wasn't so bad in itself, just several inept Reception staff. So I've upped the score a little I'll explain more later.
We had arranged to meet some friends down in the lobby - some we've known for a while from Tennessee and also a guy I met on Twitter @MarshallSheldon, from Louisiana now, who we hadn't met before, but he was able to recognise me! Fame at last - or could be I was the only twelve-inch teddy nursing a drink in the lobby window?
As the local, we let Marshall recommend a place for dinner and so we headed to the Royal House Oyster Bar. Now, the name's a bit of a clue so my shellfish-allergic and vegetarian assistants were a bit wary, but hey, the others would be fine. They could figure something out. They were very good with Paul making sure his food was not contaminated and Di stuck with the limited veggie options on the menu (hence the dropped Ted) - tomato mozzarella salad and french onion soup (she checked there was no meat in it as a lot of folks seem to use meat stock!)
As these were friends of mine, I got to sample a few of the entrées, though now I can't remember what this lot was! There's certainly a burger in there! They did have fried alligator on the menu but I think we all gave that a miss.
There was a live band in the place too. While we were eating we heard a bit of a commotion outside and ran out to the balcony - seems there was a parade in my honour - I assume!
I had arranged with Marshall that we (my assistants and I) and he would go to Preservation Hall to see a show performed by the Preservation Hall Jazz Band. It turns out there are no bathrooms there, so it gave the humans a chance to check out Pat O'Brien's, the next door pub, which was very lively.
While you can prepay, you can also walk up and pay on the door which we did. We'd grabbed a drink from the small supermarket across the road and got in line for the show - there were just a couple of people in front of us. The Hall was established in 1961 to honour Traditional New Orleans Jazz, with concerts over 350 nights per year. The building was previously an art gallery where the proprietor, Larry Borenstein, began hosting musicians to perform "rehearsal sessions" in the gallery. At this time, the popularity of traditional jazz had waned.
The jazz sessions became so frequent that eventually Borenstein moved his gallery to the building next door and passed over the running of the concerts, to create Preservation Hall. Unfortunately, you can't take photographs during the show and so I could only get these of the small hall before and after the show. Seating is mostly on benches with standing room at the back. To be honest, the musicians weren't that great - so Paul said (and he should know as he plays New Orleans jazz in his spare time) but it was nice to go there. The show only lasts about fifty minutes, with no air-conditioning in the hall so I imagine it can get very hot in there.
We had a bit of a wander around the French Quarter after the show, there was quite the party atmosphere from the various bars and just in the streets. There were police around too so it all seemed reasonably safe, though some streets that we avoided appeared less welcoming. A lot of the partying was going on over our heads, on balconies such as that below right, these folks were throwing necklaces down to the folks below.
Yes, I caught this fetching green one, though I did have to wrap it around a few times to keep it on. We decided to go to a local bar and get one last beer with Marshall before returning to the hotel - a Parish Brewing Co. Canebreak wheat ale. It was as big as me!
When we got back to the hotel, we tried to login to their complimentary wifi but the only options offered were $13 or $6. We were too tired to worry about it so didn't bother and went to bed having just checked stuff on the phone. We weren't happy though! The saga will continue tomorrow, hence more dropped Teds, Sheraton!