Three

Three plantations in one day make for a wonderful day, but getting home from them after a fabulous restaurant meal at almost 11pm makes for not much time to blog.

Early is as early does, and i early got up and found directions everyplace and went and bought cold drinks and made a picnic lunch for all of us.

Then we hit the river, first to Evergreen Plantation.  It is the best preserved plantation in the country, with almost all of the original buildings still extant and in situ.  The owner only recently opened it to the public, and it is still a working plantation, with sugar cane grown on about 400 acres if i'm remembering correctly.

Oak Alley came next.  It is one of the more "commercial", touristy sites, but the double column of oaks out front and behind are magnificent.  Oaks were planted that way, facing the river, so that they would act as a wind tunnel, funneling the cooling river breezes right to the house, which was kept opened up most of the time.  We had our picnic on the grounds there, and very much admired the costumes of the tour guides.

Finally we went to Houmas House.  Wow.  We bought tickets, went in, and since the next tour was in 5 minutes, a nice gentleman in a golf cart offered us a ride.  After we got to our tour guide, who was also in a period dress, she asked if we realized that man was the owner of the plantation!  He loves this place, has restored it so fabulously it's amazing, and hangs around the grounds when he's not in his office.

He also lives there, and his bedroom, with the period furnishings like the rest of the house, is part of the tour.  The tour guide told us that on this particular morning, he had overslept, and she had walked in around 9am and he said he thought it was around six.  She informed him it was nine and she was on her way to get her first tour group and he needed to get out of there!  He smiled and got up and was gone by the time the tour got to his room.

Houmas House is also the home of one of Esquire Magazines' 20 best restaurants in the country, and that's where we had dinner.  We talked, and laughed, and had a blast, and as i said, by the time i got home it was late.

Of course, i walked in to hungry kittens and a messy kitchen, but a couple of hard looks from me and the kids helped out, so i could write.

Today, NOLA is on the docket, after those of us who feel the need to tend to our souls attend church.


Today is

Al-Yaom Al-Watany -- Saudi Arabia (National Day/Founding of the Kingdom)

Augustalia -- Roman Empire (birthday of Caesar Augustus, still the traditional New Year's Day in Constantinople and in the Eastern Orthodox Church)

Bunster Winding -- Fairy Calendar

Checkers Day/Dogs in Politics Day -- thanks to Mr. Nixon; and i'm tempted t further comment, but this one is too easy

Citua -- Ancient Inca Empire (feast to the Moon, and to banish disease, in the month of Coyaraimi, date approximate)

Clypping the Church Ceremony -- Painswick, Gloucestershire, England (since 1321, surrounding the church hand in hand for the Clypping Hymn and an open air ceremony)

El Grito de Lares -- Lares, Puerto Rico (anniversary of the first uprising against Spanish rule in 1868)

Innergize Day -- the day to take time for yourself!

National White Chocolate Day

Neptune Day -- planet discovered this day in 1846 by Johann Galle of Germany

St. Adamnan's Day (Patron of Donegal, Ireland; Raphoe, Ireland)

St. Padre Pio's Day

XTERRA Trail Run Nationals -- Ogden/Snowbasin, UT, US (finale of the series of extreme runs held across the country through the year, featuring 21k of extreme, off-road trail runs)


Anniversaries Today:

The University of Alberta in Alberta, Canada, is founded, 1908


Birthdays Today:

Jason Alexander, 1959
Bruce Springsteen, 1949
Mary Kay Place, 1947
Paul Petersen, 1945
Julio Iglesias, 1943
Tom Lester, 1938
Ray Charles, 1930
John Coltrane, 1926
Mickey Rooney, 1920
Walter Pigeon, 1897
William H. McGuffey, 1800
Kublai Khan, 1215
Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus, BC63
Euripides, BC480


Today in History:

Concord of Worms, 1122
The first major battle of the Wars of the Roses, at Blore Heath in Staffordshire, 1459
First commencement exercises of Harvard College in Cambridge, Mass., 1642
Liechtenstein declares its independence from the German Empire, 1719
John Paul Jones' "Bon Homme Richard" defeats the HMS Serepis, 1779
Lewis and Clark arrive back in St. Louis from their explorations, 1806
The Knickerbockers Baseball Club, the first baseball team to play under the modern rules, is founded in New York, 1845
Neptune is discovered by French astronomer Urbain Jean Joseph Le Verrier and British astronomer John Couch Adams, 1846
Nintendo Koppai, later known as Nintendo Company, Limited, is founded by Fusajiro Yamauchi; it produces and markets the playing card game Hanafuda, 1889
The Phantom of the Opera (original title: Le Fantome de l'Opera), a novel by French writer Gaston Leroux, was first published, 1909
The MS Princess of Tasmania, Australia’s first passenger roll-on/roll-off diesel ferry, makes her maiden voyage across Bass Strait, 1959
Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos announces over television and radio the implementation of martial law, 1972
Juan Perón returns to power in Argentina, 1973
Saint Kitts and Nevis joins the United Nations, 1983
Qantas Flight 1 overruns the runway in Bangkok during a storm; some passengers only receive minor injuries, it is still the worst crash in Qantas's history, 1991
The first public version of the web browser Mozilla Firefox ("Phoenix 0.1") is released, 2002
Hurricane Jeanne strikes Haiti and leaves at least 1,070 dead, 2004