Le Baton Rouge & Houma, LA

Monday, March 2
It was about 100 miles from Natchez to Baton Rouge. We stopped just shy in Baker, at a Dollar General for some sandals & snacks & chic-fil-a. Our place - a gorgeous home in Beauregard Town, a nationally registered historic area, walkable to downtown; it also came with a porch cat. Once settled, I forced the group to go thrifting with me, hoping for some good southern finds (not fruitful, sadly).

Baton Rouge ("the Red Stick City") was established as a military post by the French in 1719, but the name of the city came about in 1699 when French explorers found a red cypress tree's underbelly, marking the boundary between the Houma and Bayogoula tribal hunting grounds. They called the tree, "le baton rouge." Archaeologists have been able to date habitation in the area back to 8000 BC. Since Euro settlement, BR came under 7 governance's: France, England, Spain, Louisiana, the Florida Republic, the Confederate States and the US.

We walked to dinner, to Stroubes. Our server was top tier: funny, encouraging, informative. The meal was high end: a couple loaves of hot herb-crusted bread, bleu cheese wedges, duck & andouille eggrolls, crispy brussel sprouts with pork belly, some old fashioneds & french 75s and a bottle of Chappellet Mountain Cuvee Proprietor's Blend ('18). We ordered everything as the server liked it; her favorite meal, her favorite presentation. After dinner we walked downtown, to the riverfront along the Mississippi River levee, past the old Georgia State Capitol - a Gothic statehouse that has withstood war & fire, down the city dock across from the USS Kidd, to a docked riverboat. Spent a lot of time in stimulus beside and on top of a 14-foot stainless steel spherical sculpture (designed for interaction); A sensor within the river, measuring the water's speed and height connects with software within the sculpture, converting its data into frequencies that sounds like singing. Response from visitors changes the way the frequencies respond. It's designer - Po Shu Wang - donated it to the city to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the Rotary Club of Baton Rouge. Couplings split; Cousin & Neil to an Irish bar downtown called Happy's, where the staff wore micro kilts.

Tuesday, March 3
Leaving town we stopped off at LSU: stately oak trees, broad magnolias, it's legendary stadiums. If there had been more time, I was hoping to check out LSU's hilltop arboretum, a plantation, or walk blue bonnet swamp, but we were pointed towards a swamp tour down in Houma, LA, about 85 miles south of town.

Developed for sugar cane plantations in the antebellum years, Houma is thick in French & Cajun history. Many in the community continue to work as their ancestors did, as shrimpers, oystermen, crabbers, fishermen and trappers, with others having moved towards the oil industry and ship building.

We arrived early for lunch at the Bayou Delight Restaurant off Bayou Black, where we'd also meet up with our guide. Bayou Delight is a sort of decaying homage to "Alligator" Annie Miller, the walls covered in  balmy sepia photographs of Annie nuzzling alligators, taxidermied alligator heads for sale, trophy case, plastic checked tablecloths. Sweet teas all around, Cajun fried pickles, boudin bites, fried chicken, seafood Cajun gumbo, red beans, rice & sausage. M had set up the tour, which turned out to be with Annie Miller's son, Jimmy Bonvillain. The tour would take us through his family history, which really deepened our gratitude & joy.

Annie Miller was a Cajun naturalist who put Houma-Terrebonne on the map by creating Louisiana's first swamp-boat business. She was theatrical, short, stocky, with a signature red scarf. She grew up in Bayou Black, trapping, hunting, fishing, living off the land. She'd catch snakes and sell them to zoos and laboratories. She caught two otters, tamed them and sold them to Walt Disney for movies. She trapped nutria, muskrat, crab and fish. She'd call alligators to her boat by name as if they were her children. Annie passed away in 2003. Today there are about 30 swamp tour operations that fringe the southern edge of the state. Her success led the local government to declare sections of the marsh and bayous as alligator preserves.

We climbed into the airboat's flat bottom, powered by an auto engine with its sweet pungent gas. Along with us was one other couple, some french canadians. They sky was broody but held out on us until the end. With a belly full of grease and hootch blood, the Louisiana air felt restorative. We'd duck our heads to pass under low bridges. Passed a young alligator sunning on top of swamp foliage, appearing to smile. Fit like a perfect peg in and through a salt-water control structure. Scoped oil money houses with cottonmouth water moccasins sunning on their bayou access docks. Distinguished the differences between the marsh, the swamp/bayous and canals. Through the Mandalay Wildlife Refuge. Crossed the Intercoastal Waterway. A backdrop of Spanish moss, water hyacinth, cypress knees, palmetto. The effect of erosion on the wetlands. Jimmy whips out a hand-concocted wood stick with ducktaped hook, skewers a piece of raw chicken and calls out to his friend, a couple-year-old alligator, drawing him further away from the territory of some big currently-hibernating beast, afraid that he'd suffer a boundary murder (the bigger the gator the longer the hibernation period).

We were educated on the hunting practices in Houma. About permits and this-for-that's. Drawings for tags made available only after a certain number of nutria are killed. The orange-toothed rodents were imported from S. America for their fur and have grown rampant in the area (can have up to 3 litters a year), causing extensive damage to marsh vegetation. Trapping nutria has always consisted of some sort of incentive, but there was a time in the 1970's in particular where Annie Miller made a buttload of money for nutria pelts before a move away from fur fashion in the 80's drove down the price. Other invasive non-natives that I thought were adding to the lush, but which are actually permeating diversity, habitat quality and the natives, are plants like hydrilla (India), salvinia (S. America), Chinese tallow trees, water lilys, etc. A bald eagle danced between tall cypress trees as Jimmy called to him; flung some raw chicken bits into the water, and we watched with baited breath as the bird swooped in. It was an educational and intimate experience. I enjoyed getting to know about a single family's experience growing up for generations on the Bayou Black. If it's to happen again, I'd love to see some thousand pound beast in stalk from some private fanboat with a huge Chevy purr.

Next stop - New Orleans, LA.