Travelling Trio

USA – New Orleans (Louisiana) – Natchez (Mississippi) – Week 4

• By Denise
• March 3, 2016
• No Comments

We are on our way to New Orleans and apparently heading into a severe storm which has forced schools to close and the cancellation of all after school activities etc. Oh, heck what are we doing? Hopefully we will be tucked up in our Hotel safe and sound. Will let you know how we get on….

Blimey – what a storm. We were in our room in the hotel and you could hear the wind, see the lightening and hear the thunder like it was next door. Man it was loud. We were to find out later that a tornado did come through New Orleans and in another area just a few hundred km’s away people died in a RV Park. Thankfully everything is restored to order now and we are able to venture out to see what New Orleans is about.

We took our time wandering the streets, taking in the buskers, enjoying the music at Jackson Square and generally trying to acclimatise to this culture. It was different because a lot of the houses are in disrepair and their occupants can be seen standing in their doorways smoking or just watching…I was surprised at the number of people I saw doing this.

Outside The Crazy Lobster

That night we went to a highly recommended restaurant called “The Crazy Lobster” which was ‘filling’ and quite the experience. Carter had his best ever chicken burger (it had a Caribbean sauce/salsa over it and he just loved the flavour) and Dave and I tried out the different seafood. We ate calamari, shrimp, catfish and ate hush puppies (not of the shoe kind!!) and Cajun fries. I also had the jambalaya which was a coloured and flavoured rice with chicken and sausage – yummy but extremely filling. I remembered the song the Carpenters had sung those many years ago and had always wondered just what jambalaya was – so now I know and I am quite happy. The hush puppies are a ‘stuffing’ which is deep fried – ok but in my opinion nothing to rave over. We also tried the local beer and I’m not sure what has happened but it certainly didn’t tickle my fancy. Somehow I think I am over beer in the meantime. Cider seems to be my drink of choice at the moment.

The oldest original home in the French Quarter

Next day we took a walking tour of the French Quarter and found out so much more about the history of New Orleans. They were French, Spanish then French again until King Louis sold Louisiana out to the United States where it has remained. We learned how the town of New. Orleans was designed and how two major fires destroyed a lot of the French Quarter before having to be rebuilt. Because of that the buildings have been ‘fire-proofed’ as much as they could do in those times and now the whole of the French Quarter is protected which means no rebuilding or changing the style of your home without complying with the New Orleans Heritage requirements.

After the really informative walking tour we got a bite to eat in one of the local cafes then bought a Jazzy pass for unlimited travel on the trams for the day. Here we took a tram out to one of the cemeteries and took our time walking around reading the family tombs which had been there since the early 1800’s. It’s amazing just how well built these tombs were and the statements that some were making. Here’s an example.

Just a couple of the big tombs at the Cemetery

After this we wandered the streets again – yes, this included the famous Bourbon Street and I can tell you some of the sights at 5pm at night were extraordinary!! We stopped at the Preservation Hall and enjoyed a six piece band playing some familiar tunes and some not so familiar. This pub is for up and coming jazz musicians and is booked out every day as there is only room for about 100 people at any given time. Moving along the street there are buskers galore all trying to make some money and many many homeless with their placards. One older man with a card saying “Give me a dollar, or I will vote for Trump”- quite ingenious I thought!! Others had placards they they were Army veterans and fallen on bad times and others just extremely poor. One lady was making bead bracelets and her card said “out of work artist – anything will help”. Oh and one other one “I’m too lazy to work and I’m too proud to steal”. I had heard a lot about this city and its poverty but I certainly wasn’t ready to see just as much as I did.

Interesting busker!!

Next day was a tour of the Whitney Plantation – a sugar cane plantation on the banks of the Mississippi and the only plantation restored to tell the stories of the 264 years of slavery in the US. One such story is from an older man telling us: “…trying to forget all those horrible days of slavery…way back yonder I was born in Clinton, Louisiana and belonged to Marse B Robbins. They used to whip slaves if they didn’t pick enough cotton. They put four pegs in the ground and tied one leg to one peg, the other to the other and the arms were tied together. They were stripped of all clothing, and whipped with a raw hide..then they’d put to picking cotton with all that suffering…” The plantation has the original homestead, original detached kitchen (detached to avoid fires breaking out), slave quarters and slave jail and many other buildings too. The museum has a library of great books for sale and goods from Kenya and Ghana and are confirmed as fair trade.  This plantation is the only plantation dedicated to telling the stories of the enslaved people in the USA.

On the road to Nachez for a couple of nights and we crossed into the state of Mississippi. Carter was doing some research on the river and found out that it’s outflow was between 200,000 and 700,000 cubic foot a second! Wow, that sounds huge! He also found that before the 1900’s they need to transport about 400million metric tonnes of sediment down the river to the Gulf of Mexico each year but that due to engineering skills and modifications the amount has been reduced to just 145million metric tonnes each year for the past couple of decades. We have seen a lot of activity on the river with barges and steamboats obviously still working hard but that is about all because the river is not appealing as a swimming river as it is dirty and brown and fast flowing. Of course the colour is because of the sediment.

Golly that water is dirty!

The town of Nachez is full of American history and we were lucky enough to meet Donna Woodfork who grew up in Natchez and was just back visiting to see her mum and dad. Donna had run for Mayor in a city called Denton and was involved with many other business ventures but thankfully for us she was full of knowledge about the antebellum houses, the wars, religion, Indians and other facts. One major historical note was that during the civil war the ladies of Natchez looked after the soldiers (food, shelter and other fancies if you get what I mean) and was the only town in the South to avoid having the soldiers burn down the city. This meant that the 75 antebellum houses were left in tact and are standing to this day looking incredibly grand and stately.

Natchez was known for its slave trade and during the 1830’s to the civil war, Natchez had the second largest slave trade in the South West based at Forks of the Road.

A part of the story of the Natchez slave trade.

There is a good information board at this site and a physical example with some shackles in the ground to give you an idea of what went on. Man our history can be gruesome and I just wish that all countries in the world could learn from it.

Our stay in Natchez tied in with the town’s year long celebrations of her 300th birthday so this meant we got to experience a good old ‘cook off’ with gumbo and jambalaya on offer. The winner would be the person who sold the most servings at $US1 each. Each serving was a good size so we were very full by the end and after drinking many glasses of homemade lemonade had just the most amazing and sunny afternoons with Carter and many other young children being entertained by a magician and the adults relaxing with a DJ playing good music.

Dave ordering the Jambalya and Gumbo

Captivated by the magician!

It was here we met some Canadians touring the US in their 40foot RV for 8 months and their American friends who were able to give us good info on the baseball season and other sporting events happening around the eastern states. For your info we decided the gumbo was the best!!

Natchez is named after the Natchez Indians who were living in the region and history has their ancestors dating back to the 700’s. They were resident until war between the tribes and the French decimated the Indians in the 1700’s. Now all that remains is a museum on the site of where the Grand Village of the Natchez lived.

Rolling River Bistro – $US1 cocktails!

Oh another experience due to the celebrations was a night out at the Rolling River Bistro where we got to have any cocktail or drink we wanted for just $US1 each!!! Yep, just a $1 each and also homemade burger and fries for $US5 each. We loved this night out so much that we went back the next day (no happy hour though) and found out that our son Carter has expensive taste!!! Yes, he loves fresh oysters and can’t wait now until we get back to NZ to have some good old Bluff oysters!! This bistro also offer hot char-grilled oysters and Dave said these were the BEST oysters he has ever eaten. They had a secret recipe of butter, horseradish, Parmesan cheese and other secret ingredients that turned these oysters into a magic experience!!

Carter loves oysters – oh boy – expensive taste!!!!

We are now following the Mississippi north and travelling on Highway 61 the “Blues Highway” (which stretches from New Orleans up through Memphis and St Louis) to Memphis for my fix of Elvis!!! I will be visiting the home of Elvis and then we will move onto Nashville fairly promptly after.