The South VII: Baton Rouge and NOLA

We left the swamps and the beach on April 22, 2022.  We dashed two hours west to attend a session at the Baton Rouge Temple and then spend a few hours seeing the tourist sites in Baton Rouge and New Orleans, before flying home.
 

I enjoy hunting down LDS temples all over the country.  I catch a bit of the pioneer spirit as I meet temple workers and patrons who have colonized areas so far from the center of the Church, but who share the same values I do.

My guidebook said that the tiger enclosure at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge was the top sight.  Mike VI is the mascot of LSU.

We could see just a bit of Mike VI, rolled into a lazy, striped ball in the shade of one of his fancy buildings.  The enclosure was the height of zoo-fancy, but I worried about the other sights in Baton Rouge, if this was the best one.

Dave and I are more interested in U.S. Navy ships than in tiger enclosures.  We also visited the USS Kidd, a destroyer, and the military museum that accompanied it.

I am always amazed at how enlisted men can survive in the cramped quarters on military ships.

As we entered the museum, we met this group of LDS missionaries, putting in their service hours by helping to renovate the ship.

The museum had displays about various past wars.  I was fascinated by this reconstruction of a WWI trench, such as the ones in France and Belgium.

I was also fascinated by the wall of tributes to Louisiana veterans.  They had fascinating stories, including those of both generals and enlisted men.  One woman, who had been the first female general in the army, described her military service as having to be continually better than men with the same jobs, in order to compete with them at all.         

There was also a wonderful collection of ship models.

We also visited the LSU Rural Folklife Museum. The most memorable displays were the collection of old homes and buildings.  

"Shotgun" style cabins had one hall running from front door to back door, so you could shoot a shotgun through the front door and right out the back!

The tiny church had painted windows, instead of stained glass ones.

This was an Acadian-style home, with a high loft and stair running up to it.

There were statues honoring some of the black folk from Louisiana's past, a well as the whites.

We checked into a Hilton Hotel near the French Quarter which was, amazingly, within our price range.  We then went walking in the French Quarter.  We discovered the French Quarter Festival was going on, after two years of cancelations because of Covid.  It was a wild and happy crowd, with large music acts at the parks, and individual artists on the street corners.

There were costumes galore, including lobster suits.

We didn't visit the largest venues, but there were lots of people everywhere.

After leaving the chaos of the festival, Dave and I dinner in a restaurant in the “Warehouse District” just across Canal Street from the French Quarter.

My entree was shrimp etoufee.

I also tried pralines from one of NOLA's upscale candy stores.  Someday, I will make those at home!

The very best food I have ever eaten in New Orleans has been at the New Orleans School of Cooking.  Its teachers are local caterers, and the food they share with their students is extraordinary.  On this visit, the teacher discussed the history of different ethnic groups in Louisiana, as well as their food.

Yum--jambalaya.  I carried home with me a cookbook and a bag of spices, including "Jonny's Stuff."

The South VI: Shaggy's and the Swamp

“What shall we do on our last day on the Gulf Coast?” I asked David.  “I like outdoor things,” he said, as I suggested a science center and some art museums.  I couldn’t figure what he meant, since he had turned down kayaking and sitting on the beach.  “How about another swamp tour?” David asked, and I quickly agreed.

The swamp tour we chose was with the same tour operator we hired when we were in New Orleans a year ago, and to the same Honey Swamp.  Each swamp tour is delightfully different, though, since the guides and animals constantly change.  

We passed under a picturesque drawbridge.

As we motored down the swamp, we passed houses on stilts, to avoid flood damage from hurricanes like Katrina.

Many of the homes had a shrimp boat anchored nearby.

This house was a casualty of Katrina.

Our guide today was particularly knowledgeable.  He led us to a spot where two raccoons crawled up a bush to reach the food which he held out.  

On the way, we passed cypress trees with markers showing how high the swamp had once risen.

We then traveled deeper into the swamp, where we found a mother hog, waiting for a handout, with crocodiles cruising nearby. 

 

The guide was careful to feed the hog but not the crocodiles at that spot, since he didn’t want the crocodiles to associate getting fed with that place.  “The hog can fight them off with her hooves,” he said, “but if they get used to eating right here, the crocodiles may catch her when she’s not looking.”  The guide knew, from visiting the swamp regularly, that the hog had a new littler of piglets, hidden on high ground where the crocodiles were unlikely to catch them.

We passed a group of houses that could be reached only from the water.

People parked their cars on one side of the swamp and then took a boat home.

We had one last fish dinner at Shaggy’s Biloxi Beach.  This was David’s favorite restaurant of the trip.  It had a bright, beach vibe, with big platters of shrimp, in various forms.  I eat shrimp and grits wherever I find it.