Thursday morning we were both up and back to the beach to watch the sunrise. Neither one of us was in a hurry to get going, so we had breakfast and hung out. Went for a nice long walk down the beach, and on our way back met a couple from Ontario. Like everyone always does, they asked where we were from, and when they heard Ohio they asked if we had the white van. Turns out they stayed in the same free parking lot in Natchez with us two nights before. I bet we accidentally travel with strangers like that a lot more than we realize.
Headed out by 10, nice and warm 59 degrees already. Drove for a few hours, stopped for some sandwiches and made it to our only stop for the day just around 1pm.
Oak Alley Plantation is an old sugar cane plantation built in the 1830s. The family that ran the place, the Ramon's, relied on some 200+ slaves over the next 30 years to keep up the house and the farm. Once old man Ramon passed away, his wife tried running the plantation on her own, but sucked at it and the family had to sell the farm. Hard to be sympathetic to this family - they had tons of money going into it, basically free labor, and still failed. The inside of the house wasn't much - a big dining room and parlor downstairs, and 4 bedrooms upstairs. The highlight is the two rows of live oak trees which line the front entrance to the home. They were transplanted when the house was built, and are now some 200 years old. They also had rebuilt 8 of the slaves cabins out back (originally there were 20). We listened to a historian give a good talk about what life would have been like for the people who lived back here, behind The Big House, the gist being that it was shitty no matter if you worked in The Big House or in the fields.
After we left we followed The River south towards New Orleans. The levee was still in the way of my view. Lots of industrial areas, big chemical plants, run down homes, and then every so often there would be a dozen huge fancy houses, gated all the way around. And then more shacks.
Made it to our home for the night, Bayou Segnette State Park, just 30 minutes outside of New Orleans. Much busier here than other places we have stayed, but temps in the 50s, so everyone is all tucked up in their campers already.
158 miles
162.63 spent
21.93 Lunch/groceries
57.58 Oak Alley + Mint Julep
50.87 Fuel
32.25 Bayou Segnette State Park Camp Fee
Headed out by 10, nice and warm 59 degrees already. Drove for a few hours, stopped for some sandwiches and made it to our only stop for the day just around 1pm.
Oak Alley Plantation is an old sugar cane plantation built in the 1830s. The family that ran the place, the Ramon's, relied on some 200+ slaves over the next 30 years to keep up the house and the farm. Once old man Ramon passed away, his wife tried running the plantation on her own, but sucked at it and the family had to sell the farm. Hard to be sympathetic to this family - they had tons of money going into it, basically free labor, and still failed. The inside of the house wasn't much - a big dining room and parlor downstairs, and 4 bedrooms upstairs. The highlight is the two rows of live oak trees which line the front entrance to the home. They were transplanted when the house was built, and are now some 200 years old. They also had rebuilt 8 of the slaves cabins out back (originally there were 20). We listened to a historian give a good talk about what life would have been like for the people who lived back here, behind The Big House, the gist being that it was shitty no matter if you worked in The Big House or in the fields.
After we left we followed The River south towards New Orleans. The levee was still in the way of my view. Lots of industrial areas, big chemical plants, run down homes, and then every so often there would be a dozen huge fancy houses, gated all the way around. And then more shacks.
Made it to our home for the night, Bayou Segnette State Park, just 30 minutes outside of New Orleans. Much busier here than other places we have stayed, but temps in the 50s, so everyone is all tucked up in their campers already.
158 miles
162.63 spent
21.93 Lunch/groceries
57.58 Oak Alley + Mint Julep
50.87 Fuel
32.25 Bayou Segnette State Park Camp Fee
Comments
Post a Comment