Sorry for the delay in posting Part 2, it’s been a particularly busy week since we got back into town. Sooooo, Saturday morning we checked out of the hotel and stopped for breakfast at a Denny’s just outside of New Orleans (my breakfast came with turkey bacon; how many animals is that now? 3, 4?). Then we were headed for Vacherie, Louisiana and it’s plethora of plantations! It only took an hour and a half or so to get there. When we arrived, we were given a tour of our cottage, and now you’ll get one!
Here’s the entry/dining room:
The den:
Bedroom #1:
Bedroom #2 (ours):
The sun porch:
And my favorite room, the kitchen!:
That kitchen was so cute! I couldn’t wait to get to cookin’ in it!
First though, we took a walk around the property...
...and ended up in the gift shop where I bought a replica of an antique fly catcher, and finally got to try a mint julep! It was essentially just a big plastic cup with a lid and a straw, filled with whiskey and a sprig of mint. I hear tell that there was also some sort of simple syrup in there, but you couldn’t really tell. I figured I had better get cooking before the julep got the better of me, so we headed back to our cottage. We had stopped at a grocery store called Rouse’s on our way out of New Orleans and picked up the makin’s for a spaghetti supper. Once I got the sauce on, it was merely a matter of letting it simmer away for a couple of hours.
Blake had already fallen into a nap by the time I got the sauce going, so I joined him. We finally ate around 8pm, and after our food settled we decided to go for a moonlit walk around the property. It was really neat to kind of feel like we had run of the place. There were some people renting one of the other cottages, but we never saw them.
The rest of the evening was pretty uneventful, just a lot of relaxin’ goin’ on. Sunday morning we got up and started packing, but not before I had my cup of coffee on the sun porch! After our complimentary breakfast in the plantation’s restaurant (complete with grits, y’all!), we finally got a look at the inside of the “big house” when we went on the tour. No photographs are allowed inside the house, but we were able to snap some shots from the 2nd floor balcony.
The tour was short and sweet and our little tour guide (in period costume) definitely had her lines memorized. After having our picture taken on "Ron and Glenda's Tree"...
(Here's Ron and Glenda at their tree):
...we finally said our goodbyes to Oak Alley and headed down the road to Evergreen Plantation (but not before buying a whole lot of other crap in the gift shop though!).
Evergreen Plantation is just a stone’s throw away, and while more modest a property than Oak Alley, it’s almost neater to me in a lot of ways. It has its own alley of oaks, and though the trees aren’t as old as those at Oak Alley, the alley itself is many, many times as long. It seemed to go on forever. Plus the trees are covered in moss, which makes them (to me) exceptionally picturesque. It’s sort of what you expect of an old oak tree in the Deep South.
Our tour guide, Josephine, was very personable (Blake had the hots for her), and much less rehearsed than the guide at Oak Alley. She just kind of sat around and talked about the history, which was nice.
There are still 22 original slave cabins on the property, one of which we were allowed to go into.
There was a small citrus orchard on the property which I had been eyeballing during the tour, and I was thrilled at the end when Josephine told us we were free to pick as much of the fruit as we liked! I loaded up with tangerines, oranges, grapefruit and kumquats!!
Then it was time to get back on the road and finally head home. Our last stop for food was at a Wendy’s somewhere around Lafayette or Lake Charles, I can’t remember which. Realizing I hadn’t eaten a chicken in any form on this trip, I promptly ordered a fried chicken sandwich for my final non-vegan meal. You’ll be happy to know I immediately returned to my vegan ways the next day, and have not faltered since. What a fun trip!!
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