PICTURE POSTCARD PERFECT

First thing this morning we headed to the Main Street in Natchitoches. It is right opposite a river and has lots of black wrought iron.  It really is picture postcard perfect.  Yet the most obliging woman in the Welcome Center said 9:30 am yesterday they experienced a fierce, yet brief, storm, with hail and rain so hard she couldn't see across the road to the river.  Lots of trees blown down, apparently.

Now here is a Natchitoches Fact: "Steel Magnolias" was written and filmed here.  Here is the house.

We visited the state's oldest mercantile store.  Talk about stepping back in time!  Such character and the size of the cash register.  It was decades old plus Coke was available cold in this old ice chest.  Quaint!

This is a hot area.  How hot?  Even the public restrooms are air conditioned! So the gardens of the well-heeled have plenty of shade trees around them to lower the temperature.  We set off on the Cane River Heritage Road, off the main highway, through farm land, headed for the old Oakland Plantation.  This is now run by the National Parks and we stood in one of two remaining slave huts whilst the Park Ranger gave his talk.  The plantation once had 150 slaves and grew cotton.  Sharecroppers lived in this hut until the 1970s, with electricity, but no running water!  A hard life! 

This plantation house is an example of Creole architecture.  We would call it Queenslander, as the house is raised off the ground to allow air to flow around and under.

We tried several small towns which sounded inviting on the map, but were so small there was little or no retail there and the poorest, smallest type of houses.  Depressing! So we returned to the highway, with the thick forest right beside, or open farmland.  We headed for New Iberia, home of James Lee Burke's fictional Cajun detective,  Dave Robicheaux.  The Main Street near the Bayou Teche, which seems to be a river, was picturesque.  I saw Victor's Cafeteria where Dave often eats and the Sheriff's building where he works. But it was the houses along West Main Street that were so gracious and Southern.

And there is more to come tomorrow.  We ate tonight in The River Inn and  I had my first taste of gumbo.  Our waitress was astonished.  "You don't have gumbo in Australia?"