Natchitoches, LA. Part One

Patrick and I just got back from a little "babymoon" my friends Margie and Josh were so nice to make possible for us.  Margie agreed to watch our kids for a few days so we could get away for awhile.  Now Patrick has been away on business trips and such several times over the years but I have not been without kids since Isabelle was born five and a half years ago.  We considered several different areas to go to, including New Orleans, Galveston and Eureka Springs, AK, but settled on Natchitoches, LA.  Nagadoches you say?  No, Natchitoches....the first is in Texas and pronounced "Nack -a-doch-es" and the second is in Louisiana and pronounced "Nak-a-d(t)ish".  Both were named after a Native American tribe in the area, the difference being that the TX one was the Spanish interpretation of an Indian word and the Louisiana one was a French interpretation.  Anyway, Natchitoches was the filming site of the movie Steel Magnolias.  I watched this again back in March and realized how close it was to where we live (only five hours or so).  I immediately called Patrick (he was away at the time) and told him we should plan a weekend or something there.  So when Margie volunteered to watch our kids we were able to get away for four nights and five days.

   We stayed at a lovely B&B called "The Queen Anne".  We stayed in the Library Room, which I think was the best looking room.  The only drawback being it was located right off the parlor, directly across from the front door and had two 10' pocket doors rather than a regular door.   There was a plaque outside the room simply stating "Library" ('cuz that was the name of the room).  Unfortunately, everyone who came thought this meant there was a library in there and were constantly trying to open our doors...there was also a crack you could see through on the bottom half of where the doors joined, so I wasn't comfortable changing or anything in the bedroom as someone could be trying to peer through the doors to see.  Other than this, the room was awesome;

Cool Setee and bookshelves..."library room" get it?

Really big bed...

Pretty armoir with the tv and deceptively comfy couch. 

The first night we arrived we were the only guests there and had our run of the place.  They had a huge bowl of those yummy mints that crush when you bite them in the parlor.  Needless to say we made a serious dent in the bowl before we left. ;)  That first night we went into all of the other rooms (all of which were on the second floor) and decided that even though some of them had two person jacuzzi's and ours was only a single, the size and decor still made ours the best.  We ate at Chili's that night where I ordered a "thick and frosty chocolate shake."  Never ever order this.  There is no ice cream and I sincerely doubt there is any milk in it either.  It looks more like those powder mixes you can blend with crushed ice to make a "shake."  Yuck.

 

They say the gate stays white because John Wayne touched it..

 The next day after breakfast we decided to try and tour the plantations in the area before I got too tired from walking.  This was a good idea, if we had tried it later in the week I may have died.  The first plantation we saw was Oakland.  It had been privately owned until very recently and the family still visited on occasion and even gave tours now and then.  It was pretty cool to see the outbuildings and such.  The main house was interesting and had been decorated in a 1950's style to portray how it had looked while the family had been there.  Very interesting...

Trundle bed in the kids room

The next plantation we saw was the Magnolia plantation.  It was cool because it had belonged to the black mistress of the son from the Oakland plantation (Therese Coin-Coin...or something).  They had ten children together and he built her this place to live.  Later it became better known as an artist colony in the early 1900's.  Many famous people stayed here including Earnest Hemingway and Steinbeck, though they were only there for a week or two.  Apparently the woman who ran the place, who was widowed very young, would let anyone with "talent" stay there for free, but she would ask everyday what they had accomplished and if they hadn't done anything in three days they were invited to leave.   It was more traditionally decorated, which was cool.  It was also home to Clementine Hunter,  a former slave painter who is known for her "primitive" art.

 

Magnolia Plantation

African House...ignore the 2x4's holding up the sides

Forge in Blacksmiths shop at Melrose

The last one we saw was the Melrose plantation.  This one only had the grounds open as the home was still a private residence.  There were some archaeology people from UT Houston there doing a dig and after I casually mentioned that I had studied anthropology and taken an archaeology field school class, they became our best friends and showed/told us all sorts of cool stuff involving Hoodoo deposits they had found in an old midwifes quarters as well as the blacksmiths forge.  It was cool.   It was also very hot...and humid, that part sucked.
 

Had to stop...

That night we came back to the b&b to find that four ladies had arrived.  They were all kindergarten teachers who met up every four years or so to travel together.  They were very nice and reminded me of my mom...but this meant we kept a little more to our room then we had the previous night.  After we showered (cuz it was so muggy you were dripping sweat all day...many were concerned that I was going to get dehydrated since I was so pregnant), I decided we should dress up for dinner...'cuz we had brought the clothes.  So we went to The Landing Restaurant on historic Front Street.  It wasn't really a "have to dress up" kind of place, but it was fun to be fancy anyway.  Shortly after we arrived a band started playing, which was cool.  We had fried alligator for an appetizer...it tasted kind of like chicken.  Of course it was breaded and fried and dipped in ranch, so I guess the natural flavor was probably covered up pretty well.  We got the waitress to take a pic of us...Patrick had a hard time understanding her accent, which I thought was funny since I hardly heard one.  That was an interesting side note.  We really didn't hear many thick or obvious accents at all.  I wondered if it was because of the naturalization brought about by television and such obscuring local accents...Patrick thought it was more likely that we had lived in the south so long that we didn't hear it anymore.  I think he was right as we were both speaking with an accent by the time we left...

Aaw, aren't we cute? ;)

After dinner we went back to the hotel and managed to watch an episode of Psych on the computer using their free wifi.  This was the only night this worked.  I think our laptop had a virus or something and didn't work too well after that for more then just checking email and such.  I don't know why the pics are so blurry...I blame our cheap crappy camera.  Sometimes it decides to focus, other times it can't be bothered.  Stay tuned for Part Two of our trip. ;)

PS: Sorry about the random pic placement, blogger is being stupid.