Tuesday, January 31, 2017: Acadiana, Louisiana

I stopped first at the National Park Service museum about the French Canadians who were exiled from Nova Scotia, with many ending up in Louisiana.  Jack and I had visited the reciprocal sites about the Acadians in Nova Scotia when we were there a few years ago, learning the true history behind Longfellow's Evangeline, a Tale of Acadie.

Although some Acadians escaped to the forest and managed to avoid capture by the British and stayed in Nova Scotia, most of the Acadians were deported.  The early deportees were shipped to the American colonies, families split up and dumped ashore at various east coast ports where they spent years living in old warehouses, provided for by local goverments who were fearful to let these French Catholics loose among their populations.  Over the next few years, most were shipped back to Europe and fully one half died on the ships from small pox and typhus.  Eventually, Spain supported giving their fellow Catholics a home in Louisiana where they were given land.  Some settled on rivers living life as farmers, some on the plains as ranchers, and some in the swamps making a living catching alligators for leather and muskrats for fur.  Acadians became known as Cajuns in English and they spoke an old French dialect that was described as the equivalent of someone talking to us in Shakespearean English.  They are known for their food, their music and festivals.

After the museum, I toured a Cajun village called Vermillionville.  Interesting home construction using wood timber framing and then a combination of mud and grasses/spanish moss as packing/plaster.  Chimneys left the wood lathe in place so they could climb up the chimney for repairs.  The upstairs was reached via stairway on the porch and is where the male children slept, while the female children all slept in one room next to the parents.

An early Acadian home.  Note the chimney, the outside staircase, and on the left shows the mud base under the paintings

The Acadians that settled in swamps lived by boat, these were from Native American designs

The Cajuns invented the two on the right. the middle was a stand-up rowboat and the right one was for lots of capacity.

Outside stiarcase to the upstairs bedroom for the male children

Inside of the church

The church

After early house construction, they learned to put the homes up on platforms (initially of cyprus).

Typical Acadian chair, with leather seats, often with the hair left on

Ferry used to cross small bayous

A wall decoration in the home of a well-to-do Cajun.  The outside was made of beads - unusual and beuatiful

Afterwards, I took US Route 90 southeast to New Orleans where I got a campsite a few miles north of downtown.  Weather continues to be gorgeous, 75 and sunny.

Monday, January 30, 2017: Texas to Louisiana, Big Thicket

Woke to a beautiful sunny morning with temps in the high 50's.  Great day to get outside.  Packed up the RV and headed north 30 miles to the first National Preserve - Big Thicket, Texas.  Stopped at the visitor center to see a film and learned that this area is unusual because it has so many plants and animals from different zones.  It has pine forests with desert cacti nearby as well as black swamps (they call them baygalls here).  One unique thing is there are five types of carnivorous plants in North America and four of them are found here. Unfortunately, they do not bloom until March, so another item added to the bucket list.

This area had been thousands of miles of virgin forest inhabited only on the edges by native Americans, who did not stay, but enjoyed hunting and gathering here.  Logging began after the Civil War, followed by the discovery of oil nearby in 1901 that started the great Texas Oil Boom, changing the area forever as folks arrived in droves.  Eventually, a number of key conservationists recognized they need to save what was left of the Big Thicket and so it eventually became the first National Preserve, run by the National Park Service.

After the introductory film and looking at their exhibits, I walked the short 1 1/2 mile Kirby Nature Trail that took me through forests of Oak and Beech, then pines and swamps.  Supposed to be good birding, but I was there mid-morning, and apparently most were napping.  All I saw were robins, and heard some cardinals and the insistent tapping of a woodpecker in the distance.  Lots of hurricane damage to large trees.  I did not have to worry about bears and mountain lions here as I did in Big Bend, but they do have bobcats and even panthers, but they are not seen very often.  The biggest animal I saw was a squirrel.

Looked like a lightening strike as the inside was charred 

Up close, the woodpeckers have been busy

These are everywhere in fields and alongside the roads - they are the tailings from crawdads!

It was great to walk in the woods on a lovely day before climbing aboard the Eastbound RV and getting back on I-10.  I stopped mid-afternoon in Lafayette, Louisiana.  Getting across Texas on I10 is MUCH shorter than I20 to I10.

Got a campsite in the small Lafayette city park and enjoyed sitting outside in the 75 degree sunny day.  Tomorrow, I will visit the Cajun Acadian Cultural Center and Vermillionville, both of which are not open on Mondays.

Sunday, January 29, 2017: Houston, Texas

My objective to get through Texas relatively quickly....so drove all this morning to north Houston to visit the National Museum of Funeral History, no this is not a joke.  Really!!  I needed something to break up the long days drive.

So, ate lunch in their parking lot and headed inside, not quite sure what to expect.  Well.....here are the pics and it is not only different, but exceedingly well done and was a nice break from driving.  They started with the Arlington Cemetery Tomb of the Unknown Soldier with uniforms of two of the Marines who served there - they take 21 steps because of the 21 gun salute.  aha!  Then they moved on to Presidential funerals, had an alcove about pop movie, music, cultural folks, some fantastic funeral vehicles, including the hearse used for Presidents Reagan, Ford and Princess Grace.  They talked about the history of embalming, starting with the Egyptians (basically salt drying) until the modern forms of embalming that began during the civil war.

The hearse that carried Presidents Reagan and Ford

Recreation of Lincoln's funeral.  They had a train tour of the US with the casket so folks could pay their respects.

Gorgeous wood carving on this old hearse

A recreation of a casket workroom by the company that made most of the presidential caskets - solid mahogany

Sleigh Hearse

Beautifully carved and painted silver

A Japanese hearse - they also talked about funeral customs of different cultures

Day of the Dead recreation - Mexico celebrates and laughs about death - even the casket coverings are material with funny skeletons

An artist from Africa specializes in making custom fantasy caskets

Embalming started with the Egyptians, basically drying the body

An exquisite funeral bus with room for twenty mourners

In the pop culture category, we had the Wicked Witch Death Certificate

And we had the original glass casket for Snow White from the Disney Film

The white one was for children

A flower car still with its New Jersey license plates

Whoa, this was ordered by a couple who had lost their daughter and decided they would commit murder/suicide to be with their daughter.  Didn't say why the casket maker agreed, but the couple changed their minds and simply moved out of town.

Entrance to the pop culture area where they had original funeral cards, invitations, etc.

They also had a large area that talked about the history of popes and deaths of recent popes 

Recreations were popular here

 Drove another two hours and stayed the night in Beaumont Texas, very near the Louisiana border.

Sunday, January 29, 2017: Sanderson to San Antonio, Texas

Today was a driving day and while enduring mind-numbing dry desert landscapes, I reflected back on Big Bend, it's name coming from the big 90 degree bend that the Rio Grande makes here.  I think the biggest surprise for me was that the Rio Grande was not a large, muddy meandering river, nor was it the small stream that you would sometimes see in the old westerns as they galloped their horses through the river and across the border.



It has always been a powerful river, cutting 1,000 foot deep canyons into the rock and the and the swirling rapids in the narrowed canyons prevented its navigation until (I think) the late 1800's.

Today's Rio Grande current can be deadly, even where it looks calm.  But, the river is much smaller because so much water is removed for irrigation.  Where the river had been wide, muddy and meandering, it is now often broken into a smallish main channel and even smaller side channels.  When it does flood, however, it covers vast areas because except for the rocky canyons, the surrounding landscape is so flat.

Float trips can be done through the canyons, but it is at least a full day trip.  They say the river carries so much sand that on a float trip you can actually hear it grinding away under the raft.  Another item for the bucket list.

Back to driving..... I followed US Route 90 east across south Texas.  On my approaching Big Bend on I-10 and Route 90 as well as leaving and driving Route 90 east, I encountered four border patrol stops where they had dogs and could (but didn't) inspect every vehicle.  But every vehicle was stopped and driver questioned.  I did see some vehicles that were being searched.  I also passed dozens and dozens of border patrol SUVs patrolling along the fenced ranchlands between the highway and the border.

Once I got to Del Rio - a nice little city, the landscape began to change from the dry desert to irrigated plowed fields.  More towns, closer together and lots of green stuff - grass, trees, and in general, much more to see and enjoy.  Just before Del Rio, I crossed the Pecos River and stopped by the overlook to get some photos.  There is a major reservoir in the area called Amistad that is a joint damming project of Mexico and the USA.  After being in the desert so long, it was wonderful to see a large body of water!

Pecos River

Stopped for the night just outside San Antonio.  I have been to the Alamo a few times as well as the Riverwalk, so will not be making any stops here, but continuing east, but now back on I-10.