We had a nice day checking out Whitney Plantation and learning more about the history of the area.
I woke up just past 6am on my own, but I had a good night. The fan of the AC helps a lot to cut out outside noise, and creates a great white-noise to sleep, plus the temp at 74 is just right I think. I feel rested. After I woke up, I left the fan running so it’d continue working as white noise and keep everyone else sleeping while I got some things done. I was able to write a post and publish another. Then I went for a run around 9am. I had a really nice run here. They have a trail that comes right by the door of the campground, it’s the Laffiti Greenway Trail, and as I ran through it, there were signs that it connects to other trails, and maybe those kept connecting further. The trail was nice, clean, well taken care of and there were security cameras pretty much the entire way. There were ladies on their own, old ladies, young, and everyone was just enjoying their walk without any concerns. The trail went through some cool neighborhoods that seemed to be getting or had recently gotten revitalized. Many new buildings, new stores, etc. I loved it, and thought if we had time later in the day we should come back in our bikes. After I got back, I showered and was ready to go.
Bella and Bia woke up almost at the same time, right around 8:30, and Carol woke up soon after them. The girls kind of had a pass to be on their electronics today, so they changed and had breakfast right away. Bella did some of her Science work, at least all the pages I had selected for her, and then they were both watching their favorite shows on their own devices.
Carol had breakfast, did some stuff around the trailer, took care of messages, Maggie, etc.
For breakfast, we all had our beignets from yesterday. I didn’t heat mine up but the girls warmed theirs up. Oh those were good with coffee, but for someone who never has much to eat for breakfast, that was quite much.
I called my aunt Clacyr as well after I got back from my run, she turned 80 today! Wow, 80 and healthy, and full of life. Feliz Aniversario tia! S2
Once we were all ready to go, we left, and the first stop was for gas. I had not filled up since before we left to come here, and was on E for the first time, pretty much since owning the truck. There was a station about a mile or so from the campground, so we went there. It was an older station, the card reader was not reading my cards, and diesel there was much more than other places around, but I ended up getting some diesel there anyway…. Peace of mind. Then we started our drive towards Whitney Plantation. And, I have another peeing story hahahahaha… as we were getting close to the place, I had to go, so I saw a gas station in the middle of nowhere, just two pumps, a small store, that’s it… next to the road, but nothing else around. I went there, stopped the truck to the side of the station and went in. No restroom! Dang it. I really had to go. The truck was parked in a way that Carol’s side (passenger) was shielded from the view from the gas station, so I walked as if I was going to talk to Carol through the window outside, and felt no-one would see me “doing it”, so I did, right there. hahahahah… oh boy.
Carol had looked up a place to eat in a nearby town, so we drove there from the gas station. Our drive to and from Whitney Plantation and area was over lots of roads built over swamps, miles and miles of roads over water. It was pretty interesting.
We went to B&C Cajun Seafood restaurant for lunch, which is 5 miles from the plantation. It’s a nice little place, with local cuisine in the menu, so a great stop for us. We ordered shrimp and crawfish boils, a sampler platter with boudin, gator bites, hush puppies and seafood gumbo. Bella had an order of fried boudin, she loves it. Carol and I got local beers too, Dixie, which was pretty good. Our meal was great, and we ate everything. I think there was one piece of hush puppies left. My only beef with the place was that the server was not wearing a mask, at all, not even trying.
With our tanks refilled, we went to the plantation. As we drove into the area, they had a water way on the right and one on the left, like small ponds. The one on the right was closer to the driveway and there was a small alligator right there by the edge of the water. I stopped and Carol took some pictures. Bella was all excited to be the first one to spot a gator in the wild. The Whitney Plantation place is very pretty. It is a well maintained facility, with many original buildings there yet. We took the self guided tour, so we had downloaded their app, which would tell us about each building, and add some stories and history to it. The focus of this plantation tour is on the history of slavery in the area, so it was mainly around the slaves, how they lived, what they had to do, punishments for not following what the owners wanted them to do, or running away, the trading of slaves, etc. It is quite a sad past. The tour is interesting, and makes it more concrete that even after slavery was abolished, it took generations for people to leave those places, and really be free. Carol enjoyed the tour the most, then I think Bia was next. She really was impressed about how this all worked, and especially how cruel things were. We were done in under 2 hours, and all felt it was a nice trip.
From there, we drove back home, but made a stop at a grocery store first, for a few supplies. As I was walking around I saw the had boudin in the sausage department, so I told Bella and she came running all excited. We got some for her (and I), and I also got a hot cajun sausage made locally, and also some local beers. After the grocery store I filled up the truck again, so we don’t have to worry about getting Diesel tomorrow, and we were back at the RV Park.
We just relaxed the rest of the day. We talked to Bob and Judy for a while, long enough that Bob went to bed before we hung up hehehehe. Carol made Sfihas for dinner, they were great. Carol also did laundry later that night, and by time she decided to go get the clothes from the drier, the building was closed. Hahaha. So our laundry will spend the night in the drier, at least it’s right across the street and I can just got get it in the morning. We watched a movie after talking to Bob and Judy, and just a bit more TV after that, then went to bed just after midnight. It had been a while since we were all up that late.
We had a nice day visiting Whitney Plantation and seeing more of the area.