Muggy in the Magnolia State

On a day when we mostly drive, you would think I would take less pictures. But no, that was not the case. We stayed at a La Quinta hotel in downtown New Orleans but right around the corner was the Roosevelt, a very posh Waldorf Astoria hotel and it had better coffee. The difference between the people you see and the way that you feel when you enter the Roosevelt is way different from La Quinta. At La Quinta you will see people in their fleece jammies waiting to pour their waffle batter onto one of the two griddles. At Hotel Roosevelt, someone else makes your waffles and your coffee comes in a ceramic mug and certainly NO jammies unless you under 5 years old.

Chris told me I chose the wrong church yesterday, that this one was much prettier and certainly closer to our hotel. So today I had a peek inside and he may be right. It is the lovely Immaculate Conception  Jesuit church. The pews are made of wrought cast iron which can't be terribly comfortable for sitting very long, but it sure is beautiful. I especially liked the moorish influence in the architecture. Go here to see a 360 degree view of the church.

Usually we hit the road by 9:30 and then find a hotel by 3:00. Today was different. We left New Orleans about 9:30 but we back tracked 30 miles to tour the Whitney Plantation, which we had read about in the New York Times. We did not get into the big house because Disney is currently filming a movie there. By the looks of the props set up outside of the house I would guess that the movie is set to come out in fall:

The focus of the Whitney Plantation is from the perspective of the slaves. There are 3 memorials on site; one to the 2,200 children under age 3 who died in slavery in Louisiana, one to the 350+ slaves on the Habitation Haydel, and one to all of the 107,00 slaves as documented in the "Louisiana slave database". The guide reminded us more than once that the numbers are only estimates, when it came to slaves, not all records were complete. If anything the numbers are underestimated.  The slaves' freeman church, Antioch = Free Yoke.

The Whitney Plantation was a sugar cane plantation. Below is a collection of the large cauldrons for boiling the cane into syrup.

One of the greatest things about the tour was the affable presence of the current owner of Whitney Plantation, John Cummings. He is inspirational in his enthusiasm for educating the public about the evils of  slavery and how history impacts our lives today. Then it was Interstate 55 into Jackson MS. The trees got taller and more lush and today we encountered our first serious downpour of rain since leaving Seattle. It did pour and there was thunder but it was 80 degrees outside. Air conditioning is much appreciated!