Happy Spring from Natchitoches, Louisiana. I’m writing this on the 20th, so it is officially spring, and it feels like it here in the South. Flowers are blooming, the sun is shining, and with the longer days, it is a great time to be outside. I’ve been trying to make some headway this week, traveling to the far southwest of Louisiana and then up the west side of the state. It’s been a great week of beaches, plantations and really cool small towns. I’ve had some great Creole food and met some wonderful people. It has been another amazing week on the road in America.
After I wrote last week’s post, I had a quiet night in New Iberia, but ventured downtown in the morning to see what I could see. I was really glad I did. The downtown area is in the midst of a comeback with many of the storefronts occupied and it had a great vibe to it. It’s a cute little area, and I hope they keep working on bringing it back. I started my day with a visit to the wonderful Bayou Teche Museum right in the heart of downtown. The museum focused on the bayou which runs through the middle of New Iberia and connects points further north to the Atchfalaya River. It was a major thoroughfare in early Louisiana and was the impetus for the settlement of the area. At this point, I’ve been in a lot of small town museums, and this one was particularly well done. There were enough artifacts to be thorough but not cluttered, and enough interactivity to keep from being boring. I really enjoyed learning more about the rural jazz of the region and the ride down the “elevator” into the salt mine made me smile. There was an excellent film on the history of the region as well. The ladies working there were wonderful and happy to talk about their town…
Spring seems to have sprung here in Louisiana this week with temperatures reaching the low eighties with a wonderful breeze to cool everything off. People were out mowing their lawns in the nice weather, and the smell of freshly cut grass enhanced that notion in my mind. Louisiana strawberries are coming into season, and Daylight Savings Time has extended my days a little bit, making everything feel less rushed. It has been a wonderful winter here in the South, but it is nice to see some of these indicators that the season is changing.
After Mardi Gras and months and months on the road, I took a little break for a few days. I was staying with my friend Luke and I had a lot of work to catch up on, so I just laid low on Thursday and Friday. I got back to the gym and started eating salads again. I did edit a lot of Mardi Gras photos though, with more to come, and created a few posts about my New Orleans experiences.
Whitehall was the winter residence of Henry Flagler, the father of Florida tourism. Having made his fortune in Standard Oil, Flagler set out to build a railroad from Jacksonville to Key West and a hotel and tourism empire along the way. Bringing tourists too Florida was one thing, but he also brought fruit and vegetables from Florida as well, making tourism and agriculture the two foundations blocks of the Florida economy. One of his signature hotels, The Breakers, is located in Palm Beach very close to Whitehall.
Built in 1902, this Gilded Age, Beaux Arts mansion boasts 75 rooms including a grand ballroom, a spectacular music room, a wonderful library and a beautiful dining room. When it was built, Whitehall included all of the modern amenities of the time including electricity, indoor plumbing and even a telephone. They also had central heat which was surprisingly used mostly in summer to dry the building out from the damaging Florida humidity. It is a beautiful home, inside and out with some phenomenal detail work (albeit most of it was created with plaster casts). I really enjoyed my visit, and I hope you enjoy these photos from Henry Flagler’s Whitehall.
I'm going to write this a little early this week as I am headed down to Bonnaroo in the morning. I'll be there for almost the whole week, so I thought I would write this and then put away my computer and go enjoy the festival. I've spent this past week heading up the west side of Tennessee, through a lot of cute small towns and state parks, and finally making my way across the north and into Clarksville. It's been a pretty quiet week, but a good one for sure. It's really starting to heat up down here and while I am really looking forward to Bonnaroo, I'll be making a beeline north when it's over. While it hasn't been the most exciting week I've had, I've still been enjoying myself. Here are some of the things I got into this week on the road.
I left Bartlett when I finished writing last week and headed back north to Mason. I wanted to visit the original Gus's Fried Chicken there…
It's been another great week on the road, this one spent in wonderful West Tennessee. It's been a hot week, as summer is moving in fast here in the south, but with it come the festivals and fun of the season. My week has been full of barbecue and music and really good people. West Tennessee is very distinct from the eastern part of the state, more resembling the Mississippi Delta which it is intimately connected to, than the rest of Tennessee. This region is flatter and poorer than the east of the state, but it is still full of wonderful stops and cool things to see.
When I finally left Nashville, I headed down the Natchez Trace Parkway. The parkway roughly follows the old Natchez Trace, an ancient trail which leads from Natchez, Mississippi to Nashville. In the days before the great paddle wheelers plied the Mississippi River, boats carrying cotton, hides and other goods made a one-way trip down to the major port of Natchez. The boatmen would then sell their boats, whole or for scrap and walk back up the Natchez Trace 400 miles or so back to Nashville and start all over again. It was interesting to duck off the Parkway and walk some of the historic trail and imagine myself back in those days doing the same.
It has been another busy but wonderful week out here on the road. I curled my way up into the far northeast of Tennessee to visit the Tri-Cities of Johnson City, Bristol and Kingsport. From there I traveled across the north of the state to Big South Fork National Recreation Area and then headed south to the cute little town of Dayton. I've gotten to see some really cool and interesting sites, heard some great music and have done a lot of writing and research for my next podcast. The weather continues to get warmer and the flowers are really starting to come out in force. Unfortunately, with them have come my allergies, but I'm not letting them get me down. There is just too much to see and do in Tennessee to worry about a little pollen.
It's been a pretty quiet but fun week out here in western South Carolina. I've been trying to catch up on some things, so that has taken a lot of my time, but I'm almost there. A lot of the week has been spent here in Greenville, one of my new favorite towns, but it's been great to be here. This next week will probably be my last in South Carolina.
I started the week by finishing my latest podcast. The stories are from the eastern part of the state and this one came out pretty well. It tells the story of Vanna White, from Conway, South Carolina and her rise to fame. I talk about the revolutionary war history of the state and how it led to the state flag. It may look like there's a crescent moon on the flag, but there isn't. Then I talk about Francis Marion, the legendary Swamp Fox and how is bad ankles may have saved the Patriot cause in the Revolution. Next was the story of Robert Small. Born a slave, he made a daring escape and dash to freedom during the Civil War and went on to win a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives. We hear about the S.S. Central America and how, when it sunk off the coast of South Carolina...
I am always in awe of true craftspeople. In an era of mass production, anyone who has continued to work with their hands to create something both useful and beautiful is pretty awesome in my book. When I can visit somewhere where each piece was produced with love and attention to detail, I can get lost just looking around. And when you add in an historic angle to it, I'm sold. That's why I was so thrilled to visit Westmoore Pottery in Seagrove, North Carolina, a truly special place.
West Virginia is now behind me, fading away in my rearview mirror, but not in my memory or my heart. I chose West Virginia to start this 4 year journey for a reason. West Virginia is one of the most misunderstood states in the country. People have an image in their head of a bunch of backwoods hillbillies picking their banjos and sipping moonshine from a mason jar. And there is certainly some element of truth to that, but that isn't the whole story. West Virginia is a beautiful place with a wonderful State Park system, some top-notch universities, a deeply proud musical tradition, some fun and vibrant cities and a host of off-the-beaten-track sites, shops and restaurants to enjoy. The people, though maybe a little shy, are kind and friendly and generally very welcoming.
