We left Louisiana this morning after touring Honey Island Swamp with Cajun Encounters, where our very entertaining tour guide Greg took us by covered boat down the Pearl River into the swamp. Adam spotted the first alligator of the tour, though we got to see several others -- the tour guides lure them out by tossing marshmallows into the water, which the alligators apparently love -- plus turtles, dragonflies, herons, bald cypress, and several other birds and insects. It was very hot out but the swamp was shaded and the air was lovely when the boat motored down the river, and because they swamp has no stagnant water, there were no mosquitos.

We stopped for lunch at a huge Chinese buffet and sushi bar in Mississippi, where we also went into Best Buy to get Michael Jackson's Number Ones, having concluded that since it's the soundtrack for this road trip already courtesy the news, we might as well enjoy it. Then we drove through Alabama and a corner of Georgia into Tennessee, where we arrived in Chattanooga just as the sun was setting behind AT&T Stadium. Once the baseball game ended, there were fireworks that we could see clearly from our tenth floor hotel room window. Since we had CDs on rather than radio news, I have only one question regarding Sarah Palin, which is: WTF? But then, in my quick skimming of the pundits on the internet, that seems to be their reaction too!


( Alligators and Vampires )

Have a very happy Independence Day, or, if you live outside the U.S., a great weekend!

We started the day Thursday driving out of the city past famous above-ground cemeteries to Destrehan Plantation, the 1787 manor on the Mississippi River that produced indigo, then sugar, then served as a refinery for Amoco before the manor house, slave cabins, and some of the other buildings were restored. The plantation has an 1804 document signed by Thomas Jefferson that appointed Jean Noel Destrehan to the council that governed the Louisiana Territory, plus reproductions of the papers that transferred the Louisiana Purchase from Spain to France to the United States. There's a tour of the home describing the lives of the plantation owners and their slaves, plus an outdoor demonstration of how sugar was refined there. It was beastly hot once outside the climate-controlled mansion, but we got to see dragonflies, lizards, and various birds that live along the Mississippi, including a flock of egrets.

We had a small lunch so that after stopping in a couple of stores, we could have beignets at Cafe du Monde. I think older son ate five of them. We walked to the Voodoo Museum and Voodoo Spiritual Temple, both off Dumaine, plus we visited the French Market and the Jazz National Historical Park, where two rangers were giving a terrific demonstration of the range of music developed and played in New Orleans, primarily blues and second-line funeral spirituals. We had dinner at Café Beignet, as much because the live jazz band Steamboat Willie plays at the Music Legends Park location on Bourbon Street as for the food (more gumbo, jambalaya, muffaletta, and fresh-squeezed lemonade, plus apaulled stopped for a hand grenade at Tropical Isle because we figured we had to have that or a hurricane). I know a lot of people find the French Quarter loud and tacky these days but I really love it -- I adored standing on a corner at the start of a thunderstorm with live jazz behind me, live zydeco across one street and live blues-rock across another, watching people dancing to different rhythms.


( On the Mississippi )

On Friday, sadly, we are leaving New Orleans, though we are going on a swamp tour before we head back into Alabama.

Wednesday was our 19th wedding anniversary, and we had a delightful day in New Orleans to celebrate. In the morning we went to Jackson Square, where we toured the Cabildo, St. Louis Cathedral, and the Presbytere. The Cabildo is now part of the Louisiana State Museum, and houses exhibits on regional history and music, but it was originally the seat of Spanish government (and later housed the mayor and state supreme court) and the Louisiana Purchase documents were signed here. The cathedral is a Catholic minor basilica and was restored for the American Bicentennial. The Presbytere was built on the site of the residence of the Capuchin monks and currently has an exhibit on Zulu and Carnival, including the most amazing costumes I've ever seen.

We ate lunch in the park in Jackson Square before walking to the aquarium past the horse-drawn carriages, riverboats, National Park Service center, and dozens of French Quarter antique stores and praline shops. I knew nothing about the Audubon Aquarium of the Americas before we got there, quite the opposite of my experience with the Georgia Aquarium, and it turned out to be a nice surprise -- the penguins are very accessible and so are the sharks, rays, and other animals in the big ocean tanks, nothing was crowded (including the stingray touch tank), there were many exhibits on local ecology plus a rainforest with birds and snakes, and in general it's a great place especially with kids.

We walked around a bit in various shops (Voodoo, hot sauce, Mardi Gras souvenirs) but we were very fried from the heat, so we went back to the hotel for some late-afternoon pralines and air conditioning before we headed out again to go to Cajun Cabin, having opted for highly-rated gumbo and jambalaya over live music since the kids wanted to swim. Tomorrow night they're going to hear jazz whether they want to or not. I have bought only the tackiest, most touristy souvenirs for myself and others here and must contemplate proper keepsakes when we get back from Destrehan Plantation in the morning!


( Moon Over Bourbon Street )

I am writing this from the Ramada Inn on Bourbon Street, former location of the French opera house at the corner of Toulouse, where we have returned after a fabulous Cajun dinner at La Bayou -- I'm sure there are better restaurants in the French Quarter but I'm not sure there are many where one can get so many different dishes so well done for so little money -- and wandering around stores selling Mardi Gras beads, voodoo charms, fleur de lis jewelry, images of women my sons probably did not need to see (well, they had probably seen them before, but they didn't need to see them with me around!) and vampire collectibles. It's all utterly delightful, particularly since we are in the quiet part of the hotel where the all-night music can't be heard at 2 a.m.

We started our day very early in Pensacola, since we had good weather -- big breakfast buffet, then a couple of hours on the beach, where we saw lots of fish and comb jellies in the clear water, followed by a visit to the Gulf Islands National Seashore visitor center and their exhibits on sustainable lumber, shipbuilding, and wildlife in the region. It started to rain hard before we could walk the circular path by the water, so we went on to Davis Bayou in Mississippi after a quick stop for lunch. There were no alligators in the swamp that we could see, but there were turtles, crabs, fish, dragonflies, herons, and lots of other wildlife.

We made a brief stop in Biloxi to see the lighthouse and beach, then drove over the Louisiana border, across the enormous bridge spanning Lake Pontchartrain, and into the devastated area of New Orleans near the water there, with dozens of buildings still abandoned or partially collapsed. The French Quarter, however, is very lively even at this hour on a weeknight, with both the music and adult nightclub scenes thriving. Thus far we haven't done any serious sightseeing so I'll save city photos for tomorrow and stick with the delights of the waterways of Florida and Mississippi...


( Glories of the Gulf )

Wednesday we will visit Jackson Square and the Audubon Aquarium of the Americas!

It is currently storming in the Florida panhandle, but I don't care because I got more than an hour in the Gulf of Mexico in the early evening, where the water was warm, the air was relatively cool (it was nearly 100 in Mobile earlier in the day), and there were few people and lots of seashells. I didn't know what to expect, having never seen the Gulf before this afternoon -- I didn't find mole crabs, but I did find little burrowing coquina clams like in the Carolinas, and there were herring gulls, laughing gulls, and pelicans all flying over the water which had fairly good-sized waves in the wake of the afternoon's thunderstorms.

Earlier in the day, we left Georgia and drove into Atlanta, where we picnicked at a very warm rest stop before heading into Mobile to visit the Museum of Mobile in the Southern Market, which used to be City Hall. There's a temporary exhibit on Florida's East Coast pirates -- pieces of eight and artifacts from the Atocha wreck, plus maps, weapons, and illustrations of Drake (considered a pirate in these parts apparently), Teach, Bonny, Read, Gambi, Lafitte, et al. There are also history exhibits on the city and the region, including a replica of the hold of a slave ship, the interior of a Confederate submarine, one of Mobile-born Hank Aaron's home run balls, several historic carriages and house models, and an exhibit on Mardi Gras in Alabama.


( On the Gulf of Mexico )

Tuesday after some morning beach time we are off to Biloxi and New Orleans!

We spent Sunday in downtown Atlanta, which had some very entertaining aspects and some disappointing aspects. I readily admit that we have been spoiled when it comes to aquariums -- we've seen the best, in some cases behind the scenes, in both the U.S. and the U.K. -- but many people and tour books both had said that the Georgia Aquarium was a can't-miss attraction, so we had rather high expectations. We were very disappointed to learn that the penguins are completely off display unless one pays $50+ a person for a behind-the-scenes tour -- outside our budget, given that the aquarium has an entrance fee (and they nickel-and-dime you inside for everything from the Titanic touring exhibit, which is fair enough, to the short Disney-ripoff looking movie, which we skipped, to plastic bags for lunch leftovers which...don't get me started, and they yelled at me for taking a photo of the "Hairy Otter" t-shirt display in the gift shop, possibly because they stole the logo from the Maryland Zoo). We didn't find much Southern hospitality there.

So while the Georgia Aquarium is a must-see for anyone obsessed with sharks, given that it has enormous whale sharks in a fantastic ocean tank that also has many other species of sharks, rays and fish, and there are several touch tanks terrific for kids, I don't think the aquarium comes close to the Cincinnati Aquarium in overall impact, and I prefer the more low-key style of the Baltimore, Boston and Chicago aquariums (I haven't been to the latter in many years, so perhaps it has changed, but I don't remember huge advertising billboards, prominently placed gift shops, or crowds so thick that it was impossible to see most of the smaller tanks up close without waiting a long time). I find it ironic that World of Coca-Cola, which is an entirely commercial enterprise with all the tourist-trap insanity implied -- a steampunkish Coke "happiness" film, a 4-D presentation about Coke around the world, a room running Coke advertisements over the years -- feels lower-key and less hyped than the aquarium in some ways.

Our plan for the evening was to have dinner somewhere downtown, hopefully with krabapple, but she has a sinus infection so we didn't get to meet up with her, and when we arrived at the Atlanta Underground after a quick stop at the Georgia State House, we discovered that it closed an hour earlier than we thought, so we went through quickly on the main level which is most of what survives of pre-Civil War Atlanta -- the city was founded as a railroad crossroads, and a depot (the one from Gone With the Wind) once stood where the Underground is now, created during the 1920's when viaducts elevated the streets and left the old storefronts below the surface. So we went back to the hotel, took the kids swimming, and cooked Indian food in the microwave in our room to save money for dining in New Orleans!


( Downtown Atlanta )

Monday we will leave Georgia, visit historical stuff in Mobile, then head to the beach near Pensacola!

After arriving from Augusta in the late morning, we spent nearly the entire day at the Atlanta History Center. This fabulous museum has a main building with several interactive museum exhibits on the history of Atlanta, the Civil War, and the Olympic Games, plus a historic research center, extensive gardens and woods, and two historic houses -- the Swan House, which was originally the main building on the private estate, and the Tullie Smith Farm, whose main house was moved to the property to become part of the collection and has other buildings restored or brought from other local farms. (The Margaret Mitchell House, which we stopped at briefly late in the day, is also part of the museum.)

We had lunch in the Coca-Cola Cafe (a Chick-fil-A covered with historic Coke posters and decorations), then walked to the Swan House, the 1928 home of the Inman family who inherited a fortune from cotton futures. The library and master bathroom are really stunning, as is the massive fountain out front. Then we wandered in the 100-degree heat to the farm, where we saw sheep and chickens as well as the large farmhouse and reconstructed slave cabin. Back at the museum that houses the Atlanta History Museum and Centennial Olympic Games Museum, we went through the large Civil War exhibit with artifacts and short films covering each year of the war from Atlanta's perspective, and the kids tried out the rowing machines and bikes in the Olympics exhibit which has the only complete collection of Olympic torches and medals in the U.S.


( Atlanta History )

Sunday we will visit the aquarium, Coca-Cola factory, Underground, and Martin Luther King memorial!

We have left Charleston after a fabulous day at the waterfront there, starting with a morning walk from our hotel to the Spirit of Charleston, which took us on a half-hour cruise past the Charleston coastline and the visiting tall ships to Fort Sumter. I learned a lot -- for instance, I didn't realize that the entire island upon which the fort stands was built on an underwater sandbar -- from the audio tour on the boat, which covers both the historical background and some of the architecture of the city. Adam and I stood on the forward deck for the whole cruise watching the pelicans, swallows and seagulls, plus Pride of Baltimore under sail and tugboats directing enormous freight tankers to the deep-water docks. It was very hot within the fort where the Civil War started, though also lovely, with little fiddler crabs and arthropods among the rocks.

After the boat ride back, we went to the South Carolina Aquarium, which mostly focuses on native species though it has a visiting exhibit on Magellanic penguins on loan from SeaWorld. We picnicked on the tables behind the aquarium overlooking the harbor, then we went to the dive and feeding at the big sea tank, which has sharks, a sea turtle, moray eel, and a lot of fish. We also spent a lot of time in the "outdoor" exhibit of shore birds, turtles, crabs, and fish found near the harbor (the room is surrounded by mesh but is open to the air and has local plants). And we saw the Carolina rainforest, an exhibit on rivers with otters and snakes, the touch tank with horseshoe crabs, urchins and rays, an interactive exhibit on camping with skunks and owls, and the aforementioned penguins, whose feeding we attended. In the late afternoon, we drove to Augusta, where we had dinner in our hotel room and took the kids to the pool.


( Charleston Harbor )

Saturday we go to Atlanta to see Civil War sites and Gone with the Wind settings!

We are in glorious South Carolina, which was mired in gubernatorial scandal this morning but that has been wiped off the front pages by the definitive end of my childhood via the deaths of Farrah Fawcett and Michael Jackson. That was all anyone was talking about as we traveled today -- the former not entirely surprising given her well-publicized struggle with cancer, the latter a total shock. It's always interesting to me how people feel this sense of having something in common with total strangers via celebrity deaths, even someone as controversial as Jackson was in recent years.

The other running theme of our day was stray cats, several of whom tried to adopt us (and it's probably a good thing we weren't going home, or the first one would probably have succeeded). After saying farewell to that cat outside the motel, we went to Petersburg National Battlefield, which has a museum and several large earthworks preserved -- its most famous feature, the Crater, was created by a massive mine explosion that killed about 300 Confederate soldiers instantly. We also went to a reconstructed Union trench site with cabins and an underground magazine. Then we drove to Bentonville for lunch, site of a smaller Civil War battle, and into South Carolina where we stopped briefly at South of the Border, which remains as tacky, stereotypical, and goofy as ever.

Now we are in Charleston, where we arrived around dinnertime and ate during the late afternoon thunderstorm that broke the heat. Afterward, we walked from our hotel down to the waterfront, where the ships for Harborfest had arrived -- some were sailing under the bridge giving tours, like Pride of Baltimore, but most were docked, and we got to see both ships we'd visited before (the Schooner Virginia, the Mircea) and gorgeous big ships like the Dutch Europa, the Russian Kruzenshtern (which broke a mast sailing to Charleston), and the French schooners Etoile and Belle Poule. The sunset was glorious as we walked back past the customs house and old market; we had Ben & Jerry's after we passed the fiddler crab-filled marsh, listening to cicadas and watching the bats fly above the trees.


( Petersburg to Charleston )

No poems while I'm traveling -- it's too complicated to keep straight what I've already posted, sorry. I spent the early part of the day fighting with an Avery template to print address labels for Adam's Bar Mitzvah thank you notes, then panicked, sent the kids to the pool, packed, and got out of the house as rush hour was ending, which was the perfect time to brave I-95 South.

It wasn't yet dark after 9 p.m. when we reached Richmond and met dementordelta for ice cream. Then we headed on to Petersburg, where we'll visit the battlefield in the morning before heading to Charleston -- after tracking down rubber bands for Adam's braces, since he somehow managed to lose his package of them between our house and the motel. I am hoping the CVS in town has them; if not, it may be an interesting (hah) day tomorrow.

Here are the last of my Baltimore photos from last weekend:


( Summer Solstice in Baltimore )