SHREVEPORT, LA 9-11-2017

Swamp, swamp and more swamp.  Oh excuse me, I mean, bayou.  Yesterday, we drove through miles of it, for hours.  I just can’t imagine how the engineers lay roads like this, it seems impossible.  I saw two (live) alligators,

Swamp... I mean, bayou....miles of it

two (dead) snakes and a (dead) wild pig.  If I have a chance to ask God a few questions, I’m going to ask Him why He invented reptiles.  I am sure Adam and Eve wondered the same thing although they would probably ask the same thing about apples.  (Speaking of them, Mark Twain observed that Adam and Eve were lucky, they didn’t have to go through teething.)

It is a short distance, 220 miles, to Alexandria and we have finally met up with the mosquitoes.  We knew our days were numbered.  This was a strange little rv park, nobody works there.  You get a gate code and a site number sent to your email.  Upon arrival, you use the code to enter and park in your site.  There are no trees, just grass, concrete pads and gravel driveways.  I’m sure a human must mow the grass once in awhile.  Anyway, this was a first for us:  a do-it-yourself rv park.

We found Alexandria to be a sleepy, pretty little town with parks and huge live oak trees.  We spent some of our day restocking the pantry and frig and then, with little else to do, decided to decompress and have a bite to eat at Buffalo Wild Wings and watch the Packers-Seahawks game.  (Major rivalry in the DLM family.)  We know who won, now don’t we?  On to Shreveport we go.

These are my Cheesehead people!

You know those things called “love bugs?”  Not the Volkswagen Beetle.  These are black bugs.  Two of them fly around attached at the butt.  If they get separated they die.  (Jeez, who thought up that?!)  They also die if they hit your windshield, which several thousand did, today.  The front of Bee is so covered with the damned things that she actually looks fuzzy.  Before we leave this park, we will also have to brush off the radiator, which is bug-clogged.  Gross and disgusting.

Rob washing down a catfish
 po'boy with a "rougarou"

I don’t know the difference between Cajun and Creole.  Much as I have tried to read up, it’s confusing and then the explanation takes a turn to the differences in the cuisine instead of the people.  You’ll have to Google this on your own, if you care.  All the food is delicious and spicy, bottom line.  For lunch today, I had oysters and blackened alligator and Rob had a catfish po’ boy (submarine sandwich) and a side order of crawfish ooo-two-fay. 

Oysters, blackened alligator and a
"rougarou (pineapple rum drink)"

Barksdale AFB is not far from our park and they have a static display and museum.  It is an active base and they aren’t kidding around.  We had to show ID, turn over our driver’s licenses and open the Jeep doors, the gate, hood and glove compartments.  

W's dais

On display at the museum is the dais at which W addressed the nation from Barksdale on 9-11, a lot of art and WWII memorabilia, many uniforms and flight suits and an extensive history of Eugene Hoy Barksdale.  He was born in 1896 in rather impoverished circumstances and was home schooled by his Mom.  He made it to college and was studying Mechanical and Agricultural Science but dropped out in his senior year to enlist in the Air Force when the war broke out.  He became a respected test pilot but was killed at the age of 29 when the Douglas O-2 observation plane he was testing went into a flat spin.  He ejected but his parachute got tangled in the wing’s brace wires.  He was an accomplished hero and had a remarkable, if short, career.

Wall art from WWII

Warthog oil painting

Nose art

Nose art

Nose art

KC-97 Stratofreighter

On display are airplanes familiar to many of us but one that Rob hadn’t seen with jet engines added to it was a KC-97.  I wouldn’t know one from a bucket of paint.  The SR-71 was fresh, clean and looked sinister and delicious. 

The sexiest of all planes:  Blackbird (SR-71)

B24

B52 that survived a SAM attack in VietNam
in Operation Linebacker II and
made it home.  In all, 400 missions!

Is this a great picture or what?  B52 and behind it, 5 C-17s

Just keeping an eye on things... 

As we strolled about, B-52s were cruising and banking overhead and fighter jets were taking off.  Really cool!  A B-52D could carry 108 500 lb. bombs or 64 500 lb. bombs in the bays and 24 750 lb. bombs on the underwing pylons.  American muscle.  The length of an SR-71 from nose to tail is the same as Orville and Wilbur’s first flight sixty years earlier.  Don’t mess with us!

NEW ORLEANS, LA 9-6-2017 (PART II)

The curious may wish to know that the desiccant worked.  You know that tiny packet of desiccant that comes in your aspirin bottle?  We used a gallon of the stuff in Bee, half in the kitchen and half in the bathroom, to control the humidity during our absence.  Upon returning, we found that all of the desiccant was GONE!  All of it.  The inside of Bee was dry and there was no mold.  We learned something new!

The alleys in New Orleans pretty
much look like this

The tour bus didn’t take us down Bourbon Street (pronounced, “boor-BONE,” the name of the French dynasty that once owned New Orleans).  Bourbon Street is narrow and some sections can’t be driven upon.  Rob and I walked a few blocks of Bourbon Street, just to say we did it.  Our take?  Don’t waste your time.  It is chaotic, dirty, dilapidated, crowded and scary, not unlike portions of the Strip in Vegas.  The end.

Signs on Bourbon Street

Statue of Winston Churchill in New Orleans

World War II could easily be called the mother of all wars.  It is fitting that there be a national museum dedicated to the memory of those who served and sacrificed.  The National World War II Museum is located in New Orleans and everything in it is real.  This includes some of the WW II veterans to whom one can speak at the entrance. 

Two WWII vets with their pictures and documents

They have stories to tell and photo albums to show you and explain the pictures.  Part of the museum is dedicated to the contributions Louisiana made to the war effort.  A citizen of Louisiana, Andrew Higgins designed the landing craft that was used at Normandy and 20,000 of these were constructed in New Orleans.  Both Ike and Churchill agreed that the Higgins boat was the instrument that was the turning point for the victory of the Allies.  After the war, Churchill made a special trip to New Orleans to pay tribute to those who put forth the monumental Higgins boat effort and a statue of Churchill stands near the WWII museum.  Ike said, “Andrew Higgins is the man who won the war for us.  If Higgins had not designed and built those LCVPs we could never have landed over an open beach.  The whole strategy of the war would have been different.”

Higgins landing craft

In an earlier story, I referred to the thousands of fallen during the Civil War who were buried with graves marked, “Unknown.”  By the time WWII occurred, dog tags were created and there is a stamp machine on display at the museum.  The plaque explains, “One of the first items issued to new recruits upon entering military service was one of a rather morbid nature:  tags to identify their severely wounded or dead bodies.  Commonly called “dog tags” and worn around the neck on a chain or cord, they carried the servicemember’s name, serial number, blood type, religion, and address of their next of kin.  In the event of the bearer’s death, a Graves Registration technician left one tag with the body, and nailed the other to a temporary grave marker.” 

Dog tag stamp machine

Nose art provided a small amount if levity to our experience.  “Overexposed” was a B-24 that was used for reconnaissance.  My Gal Sal didn’t have nose art but the original airplane was recovered after crashing in Greenland and hangs overhead.  The crew knew that they had to run an engine if they were to send a signal to a search plane.  They couldn’t do this because the propellers were impinging on the ground.  It was necessary to cut the propeller tips off to rotate the engine.  The original propeller, its tip and the hacksaw they used are on display. 

They used carrier pigeons during WWII.
This is a pen in which they were kept.

B-17 bomb rack - The B-17 dropped 640,000
tons of bombs, dropping more bombs
than any other US aircraft during WWII

Plane display at the National WWII Museum

The museum cannot be studied and absorbed in a day but we did what we could.  The displays in this museum brought me an infinite sadness.  I was born after the end of WWII but I did not have to live through it to feel the heaviness of heart and soul caused by the horror, pain and losses of the war.  I am thankful for those that made the sacrifices to guarantee my freedoms.  God bless our military folks.

My Gal Sal

We now depart New Orleans.  We have not seen the attractions by half.  Another time.  We are now driving north and west, trying to stay ahead of the negative weather.

NEW ORLEANS, LA 9-5-2017 (PART I)

Captain Bobby's farewell talk

Captain Bobby's farewell toast

Bee and Jeepster high and dry in storage

Don’t ask me how we did it but we’ve managed to escape most of the rain and storms that loomed large.  I carried a rain jacket with me on some days and Rob bought another umbrella.  This brings The DeLaMare Family Umbrella Factor up to something like 20.  All of these precautionary measures notwithstanding, we used our rain gear only once on the whole river trip.  We held our breath as we watched the path Hurricane Harvey was taking and I’m sure our captain and the crew did, too, but the gods smiled and cut us a wide swath.

 

The port of New Orleans was established by the French in 1718, a year before Baton Rouge.  The chief exports were cotton and sugar, “white gold,” and made many families so rich it would make your eyes water.  The French king had a relative who was the king of Spain and gave New Orleans to him when he didn’t want it anymore.  This takes us out to 1800 when the French regained the area.  But Napoleon was fighting a couple of wars at the time and was running out of ammo.  President Jefferson knew this and he really didn’t want the French so close to the USA, anyhow.  He offered to buy New Orleans from Napoleon for $10M.  Napoleon said, “Mon Dieu!  I’ll sell you the whole crepe suzette for $15M!”  The value of the entire US Treasury at the time was $10M.  Thomas had to borrow the other $5M to close escrow.  And thus the federal debt was born.  Thomas Jefferson started it.  He had a few doubts about the legality of the deal, saying he had, “stretched the Constitution until it cracked.”  Nevertheless, with the stroke of a pen, the Louisiana Purchase was completed and the size of the USA was doubled, the cost boiling down to about three cents an acre.  This made it much easier for us to paddlewheel down the Mississippi River because we didn’t need those pesky passports.

Hotel St. Marie is located in the heart of the French Quarter where we are located for three days of exploration.  Café du Monde was our first stop:  a large outdoor patio that mostly serves different types of coffee beverages and beignets, which, all agree, are a must.  Beignets are an evil, sweet treat that are like a raised donut without the donut hole.  They are served on a small plate with a half pound of powdered sugar piled on top.  After you are done bouncing off the walls from the sugar high, you can buy a “Hop-On-Hop-Off” bus ticket to carry you around town to all of the interesting attractions.  Guides on the buses explain many of the city’s peculiarities.  Each has a different angle and story to tell.

Willie and Roberto

For a different twist on things, Rob and I decided on a buggy ride with Willie and Brown Sugar.  Brown Sugar is a mule which pulls the pretty little buggy.  Willie let me give her an apple.  She loved it!  Mules are used around the city because they can better tolerate the heat and humidity than horses.  But while Willie was pointing and explaining the features of the architecture and historic places, Brown Sugar took her usual route and turned right at a corner where Willie didn’t want to turn but it was too late. 

Have a piece of apple, Brown Sugar

Brown Sugar likes me!

Pretty old building from the 1800s

We found ourselves in the “rainbow district.”  There were a thousand guys standing around in the open-air bars, on balconies and in the streets.  A few had forgotten to wear clothing or had chosen their favorite pink lace ribbons as the ensemble du jour.  Now that marriage rights have been extended to include LGBT types, New Orleans has become a gay mecca.  The Advocate Magazine classifies New Orleans as one of 2017’s Queerest Cities in America.  A claim to fame, I suppose.  OK, Brown Sugar, outta here, Girl!

Brown Sugar leads the way!

Fats Domino's piano in the Mint Museum

Dr. John's piano

Louie Armstrong's first coronet in the Mint Museum

New Orleans got the nickname The Big Easy because musicians found it so easy to find work here.  It is also considered the birthplace of jazz.  On the second floor of the building that had in the past been the home of one of the US Mints, you can submerge yourself in the history of jazz.  Louis Armstrong was born in New Orleans and claimed his birthday was July 4, 1900 (the real date is August 4, 1901).  When he was about 11, he fired his father’s gun into the air on New Year’s Eve and was immediately arrested and spent more than a year in the Colored Waif’s Home.  Here, Louis learned to play the bugle and fell in love with music.  His first coronet is on display at the museum in the mint and he later declared it was indeed his because he had made grooves in the mouthpiece.  Louis acquired the nickname, “Satchmo,” when a reporter in England mispronounced his childhood nickname, “Satchelmouth.”  He is celebrated worldwide as a peace and music ambassador and is deeply missed.  What a wonderful world….because you were in it, Satchmo.

Satchmo

The irrepressible Satchmo, Louie Armstrong

BATON ROUGE, LA 9-2-2017

A brief stop and quick tour of little St. Francisville was followed by a longer visit to Baton Rouge.  History says that the town got its non-Indian name from French explorers in 1699.  Two Indian tribes inhabited the area at the time and their tribal hunting grounds were separated by a red cypress tree that was stripped of its bark.  Some say the tree was painted with blood.  In any case, the message was clear:  these are OUR hunting grounds, stay out!  The French called the tree, “le baton rouge,” or “the red stick.”  By 1719, the French had established a military post in the area and that seems like a way long time ago, right?   Not really.  Archaeologists have found human artifacts in the area that date back to 8000 BC. 

France, England, Spain, the Confederate States and USA have had control of Baton Rouge over the centuries because of its strategic location for steamboat trade as well as transportation.  Petroleum, natural gas and salt became the key products that turned Baton Rouge into an economic boom town. 

During the Civil War, the state capital was moved from Baton Rouge to Shreveport but it was moved back in 1880.  In the early 1900s, Huey Long was the Governor of Louisiana.  Huey was a brash, rude, colorful guy.  He was so convinced that one day he would become President of the USA that he had a Governor’s Mansion fashioned after the White House built so he could get used to living in it before he actually got there.  He also thought that the existing capital building was too small and

Old capitol building

New capitol building

unworthy of him so he commissioned architects to build the fantastic new state capitol building in 1932.  Huey never made it to the White House.  He got into an argument with a guy named Dr. Weiss in a room near the Governor’s Office and a few punches were exchanged.  Huey was struck by gunfire but no one is sure, to this day, who fired the weapon.  They found Dr. Weiss’s gun in his car some time later and found that it had never been fired.  Some say that Huey was struck by a bodyguard’s ricocheting bullet.  He didn’t die of that, though.  He died because he wouldn’t let local doctors work on him.  He wanted his own private physician to be brought in from Texas.  By the time the doctor arrived, Old Huey was face to face with the Grim Reaper.

Yes, we visited both capitol buildings, bringing our count up to 41.  In our opinion, the old capitol building is far more beautiful than the new one.  The breathtaking stained glass and spiral staircase are the central attraction in the old building.  

Our 41st capitol building!
Here's proof!

Spiral staircase and stained glass
in the old capitol building!

The new building is tall (450 feet), white and boring. It looks like Gotham City or something.  You can ride to the 27^th floor and walk out and see forever but that’s about the only interesting attraction.

The destroyer USS Kidd is dry docked in Baton Rouge and is now a walk-through museum.  It was named after Rear Admiral Isaac Kidd, commander of the Arizona who went down with his ship in Pearl Harbor.  This destroyer was part of an air defense screen on Okinawa in 1945.  A kamikaze enemy plane crashed into the Kidd killing 38 crew and wounding 55.  The destroyer did not sink, however.  It continued to serve for 20 more years.  Now, it is possible to walk her decks, climb her ladders and explore. 

Torpedo tubes!  Cool!

There are 5 torpedo tubes on the deck that still have torpedoes in them, more than likely deactivated but still, that was seriously cool!  Our boat was parked right next to the USS Kidd!

USS Kidd screws

American Queen parked next to the USS Kidd
as seen from the 27th floor of the
new capitol building

USS Kidd and the American Queen

We ended our tour of Baton Rouge and our boat departed for Nottoway, LA.  On 9-3, the boat did not dock, we “landed.”  That is we tied up to a couple of trees and put the gangway on the sand at Nottoway.  A plantation house that is now a hotel was open for tour but I passed on this and began making preparations for our disembarkation.  We are now (9-4) in New Orleans and they threw us out of our nest and off the boat.  After a year and a half of planning and extensive orchestration, we have sailed 2,393 miles of the Mississippi River.  And a wonderful experience it was!  Thank you for joining us!  There are more stories to come, though!  Stay tuned!

Sunset and toonies on the American Queen.
Life is good.

“No money is the root of all evil.”  - Mark Twain

NATCHEZ, MS 8-31-2017

“Y’all” is Southern-speak for “you.”  The plural of “y’all” is “all o’ y’all.”

For those of you who have asked, I called the rv park in New Orleans.  Bee is high and dry and safe.

Natchez soil is loose and sandy and unreliable if a stable foundation is desired.  As a result of this, a plant called kudzu was brought from Asia because of its extensive root system.  Yes, it stabilized the soil but kudzu took over and the overgrowth is out of control.  They can’t get rid of it!  It is invasive, noxious and grows rapidly and fatally shades other vegetation.  In addition to this greenery, another type of plant grows all over the trees, up the trunks and all over the branches.  It is called resurrection fern.  It is called an epiphyte, which means it isn’t harmful to the tree.  It just makes the tree look fuzzy.  Everything is green and wet and it is humid and there are bugs that I don’t recognize. 

Got the picture?

And spiders.  And snakes.  And alligators.  And chiggers.  And fire ants.  And the squeaking cicadas never, ever give it a rest, but the sound isn’t bothersome.  It’s kind of pretty, really.  But my dry Nevada heat is starting to look pretty good to me!  (And I need a haircut, which is completely irrelevant.)

A picture of the South

The Natchez Indian tribe traded with the French and lived peacefully beside them for awhile in this area.  But the French started screwing with the Indians and it pissed them off.  When they’d had enough, the Indians attacked and killed a number of the French people.  The French retaliated and attacked the Natchez people and pretty much obliterated them.  The British aligned themselves with the Natchez because they wanted control of the region.  They were into cotton and wanted all the cotton they could get.  But the Natchez Indians lost the battles anyway and they no longer exist.  Because of the cotton and the ease of shipping, Natchez became one of the wealthiest towns in the country and there are dozens of stunningly beautiful, historic homes in this area that were occupied by plantation-owners and shipping magnates.  The population was just 5% Jewish but they controlled 1/3 of the business in the town.

King's Tavern

Charboneau Distillery

Midday, we stopped at King’s Tavern, one of the oldest buildings in Natchez and maybe in Mississippi, built during the Spanish occupation in the 1780s.  The flatboats that shipped merchandise and cotton on the river could not be sailed upstream and so they were often dismantled and the wood was sold.  It is believed that King’s Tavern was constructed using the timbers from the flatboats.  It is still a bar and restaurant and our delicious lunch featured pork belly pot pie, crawfish pot pie, three bean soup and their famous flatbread topped with mushrooms, prosciutto and shrimp.  Next door to the King’s Tavern is their own rum distillery, Charboneau Distillery, where oak barrels hold the rum hostage while it ages.  One is welcome to sample their rum and it can set a warm fire in the tummy and put a flush on the cheeks.  If you wish, you may drop $35-45 for a quart of their hand-crafted rum.

Inside King's Tavern

Near where the boat was tied, there is a row of brick buildings.  The city of Natchez itself, a hub of heavy trading, was located up on the bluffs but this row of buildings down below was called the “Under-the-Hill” district.  As mentioned, flatboats could only travel downstream and the boatmen were then paid for their labor.  At the saloons and whorehouses in the “Under-The-Hill” district, they dropped all their earnings, fought, drank, stole each others’ money, murdered people and departed penniless, stumbling home to faraway places along a trail that is now referred to as the Natchez Trace.  The process was then repeated when another shipment arrived at the Natchez port.  Today, this district is home to a few nice restaurants and bars and a small hotel.  The Under The Hill Saloon had cold brews with our names on them, who knew? 

Under the Hill District

“We have a criminal jury system which is superior to any in the world; and its efficiency is only marred by the difficulty of finding twelve men every day who don’t know anything and can’t read.” – Mark Twain

"Hi!" from Lindy and Rob at King's Tavern

VICKSBURG, MS 8-30-2017

96% humidity.  Rob opened the doors to the veranda this morning and everything was immediately wet.  Rob’s glasses clouded over.  I was going to take a picture of him with his opaque glasses but my camera lens was also opaque, wet and steamed up.  And if you venture outdoors, you run between squalls wearing steamed up glasses!  Or you can navigate by phone if you can see through the fog on the screen.  People live here on purpose.

The mighty Mississippi River has a mind all its own.  It meanders where it feels like it, creates new channels on a whim, eats the shoreline or builds up sandbars.  Despite this, humans have in large part come to control this beast with locks, levees and walls.  Several of the places we have visited have constructed thick walls to fend off rising waters and they have been effective in saving the cities.  Flood levels are marked on the walls, one read ~65 feet.  Artists have been engaged to paint murals on the panels.  The one that stood out today was a depiction of (President) Teddy Roosevelt on horseback escorted by his official entourage.  He had come to Vicksburg to go bear hunting.  In an ass-kissing gesture, a bear was tied to a tree and Teddy was urged to shoot it.  Shoot a bear tied to a tree?  Teddy refused.  The story took on a life of its own and before long, “Teddy Bears” came to be.

Statue of General Ulysses S. Grant on
the battlefield grounds at Vicksburg

Vicksburg was deeply involved in the Civil War.  Abraham Lincoln instructed his generals to take Vicksburg at all costs.  Vicksburg, he said, is the key and until that key is in our pocket, we cannot win this war.  The city was the pulse of the economy of the South, central to all shipping and their last stronghold.  

Lincoln and Grant reasoned that, if they could conquer Vicksburg and split the South in half, victory for the North would be guaranteed.  The South understood this, too, and held onto Vicksburg like a pit bull with a sock.  The battles were bloody and long and pitted brother against brother:  at one point on the tour, we viewed the Michigan monument.  Here on the tour it was explained that half the Michigan soldiers were Union, half were Confederate and many of them knew each other and some were brothers.  They would get together in the evenings and drink and play cards and party together.  The next morning, they would take up arms and shoot at each other.  At last, exhausted and suffering from battle weariness, dysentery, yellow fever, typhoid fever, malaria, pneumonia and starvation, the Confederacy surrendered at Vicksburg.  Gen. Pemberton surrendered to Gen. Grant on July 4^th, 1863.  Vicksburg did not celebrate the 4^th of July again until 1945.  There is a Union burial ground at Vicksburg where 17,000 Union soldiers are buried.  Thirteen thousand are unidentified.  (Dog tags were devised much later, in 1911.)

Union Cemetery at Vicksburg Memorial Park

In 1861, the government commissioned James Eads and Company to build 7 ironclads (ships) for the war effort.  Their mission was to steam up the river and destroy Confederate batteries.  On Dec. 12, 1862, one of these, the Cairo, was sunk by enemy torpedoes (mines) on the Yazoo River near the battlefields at Vicksburg.  The ship sank in 12 minutes but none of the 251 crew perished. 

Hull of the SS Cairo

In 1964, 102 years later, the sunken ship was found at the bottom of the Mississippi River, it was brought up and reassembled.  What is left of the SS Cairo may be walked through and viewed under canopy at the Vicksburg National Military Park.  Rob and I walked through the Cairo and it was fascinating for us to note that the engineering in those days is similar to what we see on our paddle wheeler.  Unlike the American Queen, the paddle wheel on the Cairo was enclosed and protected, but the boilers and steam tubes that conducted power to the piston drives were surprisingly recognizable to us after we had studied the power houses on our ship.

Starboard piston, paddle wheel and boilers - SS Cairo

Animals often play a part in war.  “Old Abe,” an eagle, was the mascot of the Union troops from Wisconsin.  He would spread his wings and scream during the gunfights at many battlefields.  He survived the Civil War and was a pampered pet at the capitol building in Wisconsin until a fire broke out.  Old Abe screeched and gave warning of the fire but soon died of smoke inhalation.  It is said that the logo of the 101^st Airborne was fashioned after Old Abe as is their nickname, “Screamin’ Eagles.”

Old Abe atop the
WI monument at Vicksburg
Memorial Park 

“Familiarity breeds contempt… and children.”  - Mark Twain