Last week we took a trip to Baton Rouge for a bowling tournament. Unfortunately we didn’t get a lot of pictures there, but I did take several at an old plantation house where we took a tour on our way to New Orleans. I’ll write a little more about the actual trip later, but for now here are the pictures. This first one is the view from our hotel room in Baton Rouge looking down on the Mississippi River:
We rented a car for the trip from Baton Rouge to New Orleans and stopped for a tour at the Houmas House (http://www.houmashouse.com/), an old sugar cane plantation. The tour was great, and we got a lot of the history of the area, which was one of the best parts of all the tours that we did.
Some art above one of the marble fireplaces in the Houmas House
This silver statue of Abraham Lincoln had amazing detail. You could see his fingernails and the veins on his hands.
This is a vampire hunting kit that was a gift from Anne Rice
The tour guide said that they consulted several voodoo priests who would not even come into the room because of this item
The oak alley leading up to the front of the house used to be much longer. The wind would blow down the tunnel, cooling all along the way and eventually coming in to cool the house.
One of the old oak trees. The tour guide said it was around 600 years old.
A fancy old Tiffany lamp
An old fountain at the back of the Houmas House
The gardens at the Houmas House were beautiful. I think the guide said there are 14 full time gardeners. I’m used to the dry heat of California where all the plants bake. The humidity and the moist ground in the south are great for helping all this foliage survive.
A photo of the wife and me on our way out of the garden.