Johnston

We are still staying at my cousin, Robert's house in Lake Jackson, Texas. Today he and his wife Kathy drove us out to Galveston. We were interested in learning more about the terrible hurricane from Sept. 8, 1900 - which is still regarded as the worst natural disaster to strike the US in terms of lives lost. Mom's uncle's family (Rawlings Weinmann) was living in Galveston at the time - they evacuated and never went back.

We did learn a little more about the storm, but also a lot of other interesting things.

Robert remembered an old house that used to have a lot of pictures from the storm in the basement hall. He was able to find it and it was still open for tours. It no longer had a display of the hurricane damage, but we decided to take the tour anyway. No photography is allowed inside, so I was just able to take a few shots outside. This is the Ashton Villa (Note: the web link has a photo of one of the interior rooms):

It was built in 1859 by James Brown, who made a fortune opening hardware stores in the south. It was the first brick house on Broadway St. in Galveston, which later became known as "Castle Row". Our tour guide was Steve, who welcomed us at the main entrance on "At Home" day (when the family stays home to receive visitors - but you must drop off a calling card the day before to let them know when you'll be visiting - all very formalized process for an upper class Victorian family in Glaveston in the late 1800's).

Steve is quite interesting in his own right. He really made the tour come alive by introducing us to the family as well as the house. Mr. Brown had two daughters and three sons. One of the daughters, Miss Betty, was quite a character and is said to still haunt the house. Steve talks to her on occasion while running his tour, he wouldn't want to drop in on a lady unannounced.

We really enjoyed the tour, as much for Steve as for the house. In fact, I decided to buy the book about Miss Betty's life just because it sounded so interesting. However, without any more pictures - I'll move on to the next stop.

We went to Galveston County Historical Museum because the Ashton Villa folks told Robert that the pictures from the 1900 hurricane could be seen there. The museum did not allow any photography - but they had a totally new slant - to prevent plagerism! They were afraid someone might photograph their signs and copy the text, especially school student's doing reports. Seems like an odd sort of position for a non-profit, but it's their museum - so I can only show you what the outside looks like.

They did have a display on the hurricane, but not a large one. On September 8, 1900 a category 4 hurricane hit Galveston dead on. The storm surge and winds destroyed most of the homes and many businesses. What had been an up and coming, elegant and successful city was almost totally wiped out and in many ways, never fully recovered. It is still the largest natural disaster in US history in terms of lives lost. This occured before they started naming storms, so is often referred to as The Galveston Hurricane of 1900.

Another display in the museum covered the Texas City Disaster. I had never heard of this, but it was quite interesting. This was in 1947 and was the worst industrial accident in American history. A fire on board a cargo ship, the Grandchamp, ignited a cargo of ammonium nitrate, which caused a terrible explosion that destroyed the seaport, many businesses and over 500 homes. Windows were broken as far as 40 miles away in Houston. If you want to know more however, you'll have to follow the link above since I couldn't take pictures in the museum (is my attitude showing?).

By the time we finished this, it was about 12 minutes (or less) before 4. Robert had called an oil platform museum since I had expressed an interest in visiting it, and found out they didn't let anyone in after 4 PM. We sped across town and made it just before 4! Mom and Kathy decided to wait in the car, but Robert and I decided to check it out. I figure if nothing else, I could at least say I'd been on an oil platform.

This is called the "Ocean Star". It is a retired offshore oil drilling platform that has been turned into a museum.

Robert & I decided to tour the exterior exhibits first. They have a lot of exhibits, all of which have signs explaining what the equipment was.

Inside, there were a few exhibits about how the crew live on an offshore oil platform.

The museum has an obvious pro oil slant, but that's understandable given where it comes from. I'm not sure it was as interesting as touring an old battleship or aircraft carrier, but I did learn a few things about the oil industry, especially offshore platforms. I was rather amazed at how many different ways they can go after oil - it almost looks like there's no place on earth that can avoid their reach. Robert commented at how it shows the lengths we go to in order to feed our oil habit - so true, especially as I cruise around the country in a motorhome (albiet a small, relatively high mileage one as RV's go).

There was a very large exhibit with models of different types of platforms, showing both the above water and seabottom portions. This photo only shows about half of the exhibit, it went on both sides of the round tube in the center.

Here are more details of a couple of the platform models. A bit of blue plastic sometimes represents the sea surface.

There were also other types of exhibits. Here is one link from a chain anchoring down a platform, it was so big I asked my cousin to stand by it as a point of reference. Also, here is a diving suit that could be used as deep as 2,300 feet. And of course they had a display of several different types of drill bits.

As we left the Ocean Star, we walked by some shrimp boats. This time, we saw quite a few pelicans, both brown and white, waiting for scrap fish. On the other side were two very large cruise ships. Galveston has become a cruise terminal for the Carribean it would seem.

There are a few mansions in Galveston and also some neighborhoods with lovely Victorian homes. However, there are also a lot of run down buildings and homes. I guess the city really is still trying to recover it's place in the world. One area that has largely recovered is the main historic business district is called "The Strand". When we visited, teh streets were completely blocked off for Mardi Gras, but I was able to take a couple of pictures from around the edges. The US Customs House wasn't really in "The Strand", but was close enough to it that I thought I'd include it in this batch.

Robert then took us to dinner at a restaurant he remembered as being really good. However it had been some time since he'd been to Galveston and maybe it had changed hands a few times? Now, it was either really good, or not good at all - depending on what you ordered. Also, our waiter was just too busy (or ?), but another waiter generously agreed to take our picture for us and even allowed me to take his picture (Mom liked his Mardi Gras beads). Of course, I asked him his name - but I didn't write it down, so of course I forgot it! (Fire the Scribe!) I did give him a card, so can only hope he'll log in and drop us a comment so we know who to give credit to for the saucy beads (and taking our pic).

The restaurant was right across the street from the Atlantic Ocean. These beaches in Galveston are rather interesting. After the terrible devistation from the 1900 hurricane, the city erected a seawall along the key sections of downtown. I had heard of the seawall, but expected it to be just a "Wall". It is a wall, but is also filled in behind it and a four lane highway plus businesses run along it for several miles. In addition to building the wall, the city raised the elevation of much of the city. Along the wall, it is elevated to the top of the wall, then to lesser degress farther inland.

Mom collected some sand of course, then we started heading home. Along the way I was able to capture one sunset picture (Robert is probably glad to get rid of us - at least he can drive along now without stopping every five minutes to take a picture!)

Once we got back to their house, I made everybody play another game of Rummy Cubes (the pictures I took last night didn't come out very good). Actually I don't think I had to work very hard to convince them, but when Mom isn't winning, her face really shows it... That's OK, I didn't win this game either.

We were a little sad to go to bed tonight, knowing we'd be leaving these nice people tomorrow. But we all had things to do and places to go, so we called it a night.

Logistics:

Miles Driven - none (Robert drove again)
Camped at - Robert & Kathy's house in Lake Jackson

We did see both domestic and wild animals (birds especially), but I was too lazy to write them down. I've been trying to capture this sort of information in the spirit of the Corps of Discovery - a scientific expedition should record it's sightings. Of course, ours is not a scientific expedition, but since we're using theirs as an inspirition I should do a better job of this... I've certainly developed a much deeper respect for those who keep more accurate journals!

Robert and Kathy took Mom to the Brazoria Seventh Day Adventist Church today. Kathy played a flute solo and also played the piano for the service. I stayed behind to get some much needed rest and also catch up a little on the blog and a couple of chores.

When they got back, they took us to Sea Center Texas.

We went through the Aquarium first. They had several tanks, including a very large one with a Grouper and two large nurse sharks. My pictures didn't come out very well, but the nurse sharks just lay on the bottom of the tank. Many people think there's something wrong with them so they put a sign up explaining that this is normal behavior for this type of shark.

Outside was the real treat however. There are several large fish ponds and a couple of marshes. Some are fresh water and some salt water. In the salt water marsh, we saw a couple of Moorhen's, which are related to coots.

We also saw Ibis's, a Great Egret and several ducks. At the far end we finally saw Roseate Spoonbills that I could actually photograph!

These are listed as a common bird in East Texas, but seem to be less common as more wetlands are lost to development. We certainly haven't seen very many, so this was quite a treat (and they are beautiful birds).

Then Robert decided to take us out to a place called Surf Side Beach where there is a jetty from which you can often see dolphins. It took awhile to get there and we saw miles and miles of Dow Chemical facilities along the drive. (Note: these are not oil refineries.)

We got to the jetty eventually and it was a pretty cool place. It runs along the Brazos Rover. This is an old, abandoned oil drilling rig that is just stuck there. The company who owned it went bankrupt, so the state may have to step in and spent the money to cut it up. In the far background are more facilities from Dow Chemical. (That is just water vapor or steam clouds - if anything else escaped they'd be shut down pretty quickly.)

Robert, Kathy and I walked out to the end of the jetty with their dog. We saw quite a few dolphins swimming off the end of the jetty. Given how hard it has been to photograph moving targets such as dolphins, I set the camera to Movie and tried just pointing it in the area. These shots were frames captured from the video, not great quality but at least you can see them a bit.

I also took the opportunity to take a picture of Robert & Kathy and their dog,bubby.

It turns out the Brazos river is used for more than just feeding dolphins and storing old oil rigs. While we were out on the Jetty, a couple of large container ships came by. One was from Chiquita Banana - Robert says a couple of these come in every week from both Dole and Chiquita - the area is a big banana importing site.

We also saw this shrimp boat heading out to the gulf for his next catch.

We headed back to the park area where Mom had been waiting and found that she had struck up a quick acquaintance with a 92 years young lady visiting her daughter from Sweden. Inga had also been a bit chilly, so Mom shared her blanket with her and the two really hit it off.

As we started to leave the beach area, I couldn't help but notice that almost all of the houses and many businesses along the coast area here are built on stilts. We don't think they'd survive a direct hit from a major hurricane, but maybe could survive a glancing blow or tropical storm better than a regular house. Still, it seems a lot of people are building all along the gulf coast knowing that someday, some of their homes aren't going to survive.

It was getting pretty late by this point, but Robert took a route back to their house that took us along a canal. We saw many more Ibis and some ducks, but also Nutria's. These are very large rodents from South America that were unfortunately brought to the US to try to raise for their fur. The fur farms didn't succeed and now the animals are in the wild and causing problems. There were quite a lot along the canal.

By this point it really was getting dark, so I figured we were done sightseeing for the night - but we found one more place to stop (Robert's been reading too many of my blog entries!) They took us to the historic Gulf Prarie Cemetery. This is where Stephen F. Austin was originally buried, the founder of the first American settlement in Texas. However, the buriel site is just a marker now, as Mr. Austin's remains were moved to the state capital in 1982. I wonder if he ever gets homesick?

I guess we were homesick (or tired), since we finally headed back to my cousins house in Lake Jackson. Mom & I taught Robert and Kathy our favorite game, Rummy Cubes (Robert seemed to catch on a little too fast for Mom's taste). Mom went to bed at a reasonable hour, but the rest of us stayed up talking so late I didn't leave time to finish the blog. Ugh - why aren't there more hours in the day? Oh, nevermind - I'd probably overfill them no matter how many hours they gave me.

Logistics:

Miles Driven - 0, Cumulative 14,241
Camped at - Still at My Cousins house in Lake Jackson, TX

Provisions Secured:

Temporary med's for Mom (just three pills to tide her over until she can get the full prescription filled)

Animals Sited:

Domestic - Cousins Dog & Cat, Cattle and Longhorned Cattle, Horses,
Wild - Squirrel (Heard an Owl several times last night), Nutria, Roseate Spoonbills, Ibis, Moorhen, Great Egret

Other Observations:

Dow Chemical - extensive facilities in the area

Our primary objective for today was to get to my cousin's house so we could spend the weekend visiting. It rained last night and throughout the day, mostly a heavy rain.

This morning we had a chance to see a little more of the Sam Houston Jones State Park we had stayed in last night. This part of Louisiana still has a lot of bayou's and cypress swamps. This is listed as a pond on our park map, but looks more like a swamp or bayou to me.

After taking a picture or two and loading up, I did a quick walk around the RV before heading out as I often do. To my surprise and dismay, we had a flat tire. This was especially surprising because I had stopped for over an hour in New Iberia yesterday and had the tires checked (forgot to put that in the blog though I think). It was the left rear outside tire, and since there are two tires on each side, I decided to limp along to the nearest tire store rather then try to mess around with jacks and the spare. Two hours later (maybe it just seemed that long, I think it was more like an hour), the flat was fixed - but the tire store couldn't find any reason for it to go flat. There weren't any nails, holes or visible damage, it was just flat - so they refused to charge me for fixing it!

This was at Service Tire & Auto Center in Moss Bluff, LA (near Lake Charles). It's too bad I don't know anyone in that area, they definitely deserve the business. Makes me feel kind of guilty at how jaded I get sometimes when I feel I've been given a bum deal, that maybe all small businesses are shady and out to get you. However, on this trip we continue to run into honest, fun, decent people and businesses. I may have to reassess my 'poor me' attitude.

The tire store wasn't so sure, but I suspect the cause was the terrible roads we'd been driving on in Louisiana. At least one trucker's survey rates them the worst in the country. VT had bad roads, as well as a couple of other places we've been - but Louisianna's were clearly the worst. I tried hard to slow down and miss the worst of the potholes, cracks and bumps, but it wasn't always possible and I had hit some really, really hard. The RV is also heavier than a regular car, so when I hit a bump, it really hits hard. Yesterday I had knocked some things around in back that don't normally get knocked around, so my guess is I must have hit a bump so hard that it knocked the bead loose. Maybe, maybe not - but it's my guess.

Anyway, I kept a careful check on the tire for the rest of the trip, so far it seems to be holding up. When you read about some of the problems and breakdowns the early pioneers had to face, this seems relatively mild. If you break a wooden wagon wheel while crossing the Rocky Mountains, now that would be tough (and it happened, a lot).

So we lost some time to the bad tire, plus the hour I spent before leaving the campground trying to find someplace willing to work on my propane tank - so effectively used up all our sightseeing time for today. Given the bad weather, maybe that's just as well, I pretty much got soaked every time I got out.

We did take a couple of pictures as we drove along - this one is an oil refinery in the Lake Charles area, it's hard to believe how massive these things are - it was on both sides of the freeway with large pipelines crossing over & under the road.

The rain continued and was quite heavy. Driving visibility was terrible, combined with frequent roadwork so we often had concrete barriers right along the lane edge on the right, then big semi's passing us on the left - quite a challenging drive. Mom got stressed out by it all and she didn't even have to drive! I asked her to put a smooth jazz sampler in the CD player, which helped calm things down a bit (for me at least).

I stopped at the Visitor's Center just after we crossed into Texas ("The Lonestar State") - thought this giant star was cute.

The staff there was very helpful and when I explain we were on an eight month trip to circumnavigate the country, they suggested we were welcome to spend our eight months in Texas. I picked up a fairly large sack full of brochures and maps - probably more than we'll have time to do even in eight months, but I think we'll enjoy our stay here regardless of the weather.

The rain got a little lighter as we got to Houston, then thru the toll loop (ugh - very pricey) and then state highway down to Lake Jackson. It stopped raining sometime along the way and is beginning to dry out a bit. It is much colder here than I expected for this time of year (all along the gulf coast really). I guess I looked at the atlas and figured because the gulf states are so far south, it would be more like the LA/San Diego area. But maybe because the weather patterns curve south eastward across land, vs the ocean, it just is colder in the southeast then the southwest. Too many new things to learn...

Mom & I enjoyed spending some time with my cousin & his wife last night, I lost track of time and didn't leave enough to update the blog - so am doing some catch up this morning. Great Internet signal here (I guess Sprint was right this time, their network problems were limited to Louisiana and eastward). So, time permitting - I'll go ahead and try to get some video's uploaded from St. Augustine.

BTW (geek speak for "By The Way") - If you want to check out any video's I've uploaded for the trip, without having to wade through old blog entries, you can go to YouTube and type my user id in the search box: jl98584

Logistics:

Miles Driven - 212, Cumulative 14,241
Camped at - My Cousins house in Lake Jackson, TX

Provisions Secured:
Gas - 11.239g for $31.46 at 124057 (Baytown, Tx)
Afternoon Snack, Crackerbarrel at Baytown, Tx (mostly to get off freeway for a bit)

Animals Sited:

Domestic - Cattle, Horses
Wild - Deer, Various Hawks, Black Vultures, Egrets

Other Observations:

Oil Refineries in both Louisiana and East Texas - lots of them
Rice fields in both Louisiana and East Texas

Heavy rain all night and most of the day, cold also - but we didn't let it slow us down this time!

Avery Island was only short distance from where we camped, so we made it there fairly early. This is the only factory in the world where Tabasco Sauce is made.

They offer a free factory tour, which includes a couple of small sample bottles of Tabasco Sauce. As tours go, it wasn't all that impressive - but we learned some interesting things about both Avery Island and Tabasco Sauce. The Island is the largest of five salt dome island's along the Louisiana coast. In fact, there is still an active salt mine on the island. The salt is very pure, but is more in the form of a large crystal or rock when first mined.

Edmund McIlhenny was living on Avery Island with his wife and started growing pepper plants from seeds given to him by a friend, believed to originate from somewhere in Mexaco. At that time, the island was used for a sugar plantation and salt mine. But Mr. McIlhenny loved spicy foods, so grew the peppers in his garden also. He started experimenting with making sauce from the peppers and developed the recipe for what we now call Tabasco Sauce. At first, he gave some to friends, using empty cologne bottles. However, so many people wanted some of "that wonderful sauce Mr. McIlhenny makes" that he started to make the sauce commercially beginning in 1868.

The McIlhenny family continues to make all the Tabasco Sauce sold throughout the world here on Avery Island, although they have moved most of the farms to Central and South America where they have a a better climate for frowing the peppers. The original sauce still uses only the type of peppers Mr. McIlhenny started with (now called Tabasco peppers of course), although they have branched out and make other hot sauces from different peppers also. They also still keep about 30 acres cultivated in pepper plants, since most of the seed plants come from Avery Island.

Once the peppers are harvested, they are sent to the factory on Avery Island to be processed. First, they are mixed with a little salt from the islands salt mine (convenient, isn't it?). Then the are ground into a mash and loaded into white oak barrels to age for three years. The barrels come from Jack Daniels Whiskey. Jack Daniels only uses each oak barrel once, so once they're done with the barrel, Tabasco buys them and uses them for another 21 years. Once Tabasco is done with them, at least some of them get chopped up and sold for use in barbeque grills. Anyway, after the mash has aged for three years, it is mixed with some vinager and eventually turned into the famous hot sauce (it takes another 28 days in total after being removed from the barrels, so I presume there's another aging step involved).

Mr. McIlhenny chose the name Tabasco, which was an Indian word meaning 'Land of the hot and humid'. That certainly seems appropriate to me!

By-products from the process are sold for use in other products such as Bengay, Denteen and Jelly Bellies (from the seeds I think, which are removed during processing).

The tour consisted of some information from the tour guide, watching a video, and a short walk along part of the factory where the bottles are filled, capped and labeled. Samples of the barrels and mash are on display in a 'museum'. This is generally what the bottling part of the tour looked like.

Once we left the factory, we visited what they called a 'Country Store'. At least it was built to look like one. Avery Island was essentially a 'Company Town' in its earlier years, so the concept of a country store was probably valid in the past.

Today this is really just the gift shop for the Tabasco brand, including clothing, coffee mugs, and of course lots and lots of Tabasco Sauce. Unfortunately however, the prices were much higher then I was comfortable with so I abandoned my usual practice and didn't buy much. It did have a really nifty light fixture made out of empty Tabasco bottles however.

We also were planning to visit another part of the island which includes a garden and bird sanctuary. However, I didn't like the price they charged for that either - and there wasn't much to see this time of year (Louisiana actually does have a winter, and we're in it). It was still cold and stormy out so we decided to skip the 'jungle' part of the tour.

The rest of the island looks like an interesting place but isn't open to the public - so that was pretty much the end of our Tabasco journey.

I had hoped to spend a little more time today learning more about what cajun is all about - since this part of Louisiana is called the heart of cajun country - so didn't mind leaving Avery Island with a little more time on our hands. We had learned about an old rice mill from the Visitor's Center yesterday, so decided to give that a try.

This is also a regular tourist destination, but is the real deal. Mom and I both really enjoyed it (and also spent plenty of money in their 'General Store' gift shop.) The Conrad Rice Mill was started in 1912 by Phillip Conrad, one of the local rice growers who was tired of the time and effort it took to ship his rice to New Orleans for processing. Of course, once he'd set the mill up, other growers in the area took their rice to his mill also. By 1975 the mill was getting pretty old when it was purchased by Mike Davis and his wife, who still own and operate the mill. Sometime just before or just after the Davis's bought the the mill, the name was changed to Konriko - from Conrad Rice Company, but changing the "C"s to "K"s.The Davis's added the store (in 1978 I think). They also were able to have the mill placed on the National Register of Historic Places. It's pretty easy to identify the mill in these shots - it's the really old buildings!

This tour also started with a presentation, but about "Cajun" culture. Our guide for the presentation and tour ws Dynell LaBiche, who can trace her roots back to Nova Scotia. We learned that the "Cajun" people, or Acadian's, were living in Nova Scotia when the British decided they didn't want the French Catholic's in their Colony, so deported them in 1755. They confiscated their homes, land and possessions to pay for the cost of deporting them against their will. The boats they used were too small and did not have adequate provisions, which caused extream hardships and health problems for the deportee's. Some Acadians were shipped to the British colonies in America, but the American's weren't too happy about taking in sick, French Catholics either. Finally, many found welcome in French Louisiana, where they were given land and able to start rebuilding their lives again.

Longfellow's poem "Evangeline" is roughly based on a true story of a couple who were separated during this dispersal, however it doesn't capture the magnitude and extent of the hardships these people endured. Partly because of the rural and isolated geography of this area and partly due to the nature of cajun society, the languages and customs have survived and evolved to a larger extent then some other ethnic groups in the American melting pot.

Hm, a whole new chapter on American history I'd never heard about. Was I really asleep in all those classes?

Anyway, Dynell also showed us how rice growing got started in the area. Louisiana and Texas share the honor of being the third and fourth largest rice growing states - behind Arkansas and California. Seeding is done by aircraft. Rice tolerates flooding, but doesn't require it except for germination. But the fields are flooded three times during the growing season here. The first time is to help the rice sprout. The other floodings are to control weeds and pests which aren't able to tolerate flooding. The fields are then dried out in late August or early September for harvesting.

It takes 162 pounds of rice to fill a barrel. Most fields yeild about 36 barrels per acre. Once harvested, rice is stored in silo's with special equipment to dry the rice until it has about 11% moisture. Then it can be shipped to the mill. When a truck brings a load of rice to the mill, it is weighed on a scale (in the upper left part of the photo below). Then it drives over a hopper and dumps the load of rice into the hopper (in the lower right part of the photo below).

There are several steps to get the rice ready for market. Since I've got a video where Dynell describes all of these, I'll hold off until I can upload the video. In the meantime, here are some of the machines still in use at Konriko.

The finished products can be ordered online or bought directly in the store. The primary products are brown rice (with brown lettering on the bag), Long grain rice (with red lettering), and medium grain rice (with blue lettering).

We also sampled some of their specialty products. Today they had cooked up some Rice with Garlic and Herbs, which was quite good.

By this time it was early afternoon and we were quite hungry. I had asked around a bit about where we could get some good cajun food and was told to try the Bon Creole Lunch Counter. Mom helped navigate from the tourist guide map and we found it without a hitch. We both ordered roast beef poboy's (I wimped out on the crawfish, sorry). They were pretty good, but the 1/2 size poboy's we got were about twice as big as either of us needed. Maybe we should have gotten one 1/2 size and split it? Nice little lunch counter however.

We have both decided to skip supper tonight, maybe a few carrots but we're too full for anything else.

A few final observations on our little foray into cajun country. This is a far cry from the glitzy tourist attractions - it couldn't be more different than the Fort Lauderdale type sections of Florida then if they were both in different countries. Louisiana is promoting tourism in this area, but it doesn't appear to have changed it much. This is pretty typical of the types of buildings we saw in both Lafayette and New Iberia. Of course, we just scratched the surface, so other parts of these towns may look completely different - but what we did see looked like there's not that much money down here.

Another big issue down here is oil. It is such a mixed issue - it brings in jobs and money, but also causes serious environmental issues (depending on who you talk to). As we were driving back to I-10, we passed many businesses that support the oil industry. This one was catching - it's an office building, but if you look close - it is built to resemble an offshore oil rig!

As usual, there are more things to learn about and enjoy down here then we have time for. We need to move on to Texas next and leave these nice folks behind. Given that we didn't have much time to spend in Louisiana, I'm glad we skipped New Orleans and made time to learn about the cajun history, rice and Tabasco.

Logistics:

Miles Driven - 135, cumulative 14,029
Camped at Sam Houston Jones State Park in Lake Charles, Louisiana (about 32 miles from Texas border)

Provisions Procured:
- Gas ($38.06 for 12.69 g at 123887)
- Lunch at Bon Creole Lunch Counter in New Iberia, LA

Animals Sighted:

(a) Domestic - Lots of cattle, some sheep, horses, and a cat
(b) Wild - Crows, Killdeer, Osprey

Today we drove to Baton Rouge. There were several interesting places to see (lots of plantation homes). We did not go to much as we are expected at my nephew's place in Lake Jackson, Texas on Friday.

However, while Jeanette was on the computer looking for a shop that could repair our propane connection, I went to the Enchanted Mansion Doll Museum. The ladies there were very sweet and had delightful Louisiana accents. A big (4') tall teddy bear introduced me to the museum and a talking clock also welcomed me. I passed through a my size doll house front and door into a room full of glassed in cases of dolls, big and small. Then there was a small room of story book dolls; Sleeping Beauty, Snow White, etc. Then I went into a room of President and First Lady dolls. There was a room full dedicated to African American dolls because February is Black History Month. The last room had a large collection of lovely, old dolls.

The gift shop was full of more beautiful dolls. Very expensive. I got three post cards for the school and we drove on to Lafayette and stopped for supper. Then we drove to a campground on the road to Avery Island, where we will go tomorrow.