New Orleans, Louisiana and The Myrtles, November 1987

Mark and I met in July of 1987 at the CSC company picnic. We suspected from Day one that we were meant to be together. By November we were planning a vacation together. I remembered from an earlier trip that I had enjoyed New Orleans, but had always wished that I'd had more time to see the city. And some place warmer at Thanksgiving really appealed to me.

We drove down to New Orleans, taking two full days to get there. The first night we stopped in Blacks burg and I met Mark's brother, Burt. We stayed at Burt and his wife's home that night, then left early in the morning. Driving a good deal of the day we ended up at the Town House Motel in Laurel, MS the next night. And the third day, Sunday, we were in the Big Easy.

After my luck planning the trip the year before to Europe, I decided to try my luck at planning this trip and identified a great hotel, the Hotel La Salle, just north of the French Quarter on Canal Street. The hotel was great; it was a European style hotel, which meant no TV or bathrooms in the rooms, but the room rate was low. And there was coffee in the lobby in the morning. It was next to a big theatre, the play kind of theatre, and in the same building with a PopEye's franchise. The only problem was that the noise from Canal Street was pretty loud, and I needed earplugs to get through the night.

Mark and I spent the first three days in the city. We took a walking tour of the French Quarter, and a tour of the St. Lawrence Cemetery given by the National Park Service. The NPS tours are a great value in New Orleans. We shopped for stuff to bring home to the kids. I loved the NPS tour of the quarter, explaining the changes in architecture, and the different wrought iron and all.

We took an afternoon tour on the Steamship Natchez, even got pictures or our young selves getting on. I had a portrait done in pastel that still hangs in my bedroom, by an artist on Jackson square.

The last day in the city we headed out a bit to Jean Lafitte National Historical Park's Barataria Unit. It preserves 8600 acres of Louisiana wetlands, and is a fascinating example of an unusual biological environment. We spent most of the day in this special place together before heading back to the city for the night.

We also ate. Our favorite restaurant, which I had found in many guide books, was Gallatoire's I had a wonderful chicken dish with the first peas that I have ever liked and potatoes. I cannot remember what Mark ate, but I know the standout was the bread. We also ate at Central Grocery an italian grocery specializing in Muffletas, which were too big to do anything but split. The garlicky olive salad they put on them is just wonderful. We also ate at a restaurant, Eddie's I think it was, in a more remote section of town, where my catfish was seasoned just perfectly and my red beans an rice had just that right spicing!! Yum.

Of course, we stopped on Bourbon Street, stopping at some Jazz clubs, and for a Hurricane at Pat O'Brien's. And every day we took some time to have cafe au lait and beignets at the Cafe du Monde. Just thinking about it is making me miss New Orleans.

The day after we visited Barataria, we headed on to the Myrtles plantation, located somewhat north of Baton Rouge. A bed and breakfast in an old plantation house, it was less ostentatious than I expected. That day was Thanksgiving, and we enjoyed two separate tours of the house before sitting down to a yummy overwhelming Thanksgiving dinner. One thing you'll never do in Louisiana is go hungry!

The Myrtles was a beautiful mansion, with ironwork framing the porch and the lushness of fertile earth and aged oaks all around. It is also the most haunted house in America. Our first tour was of the plantation, but the second tour was a ghost tour. The owner explained every murder that had occurred in the house, from violence in the living room, to men shot on the porch, to little girls poisoned via birthday cake by the cook. And we got the stories of many many sightings of ghosts. Although placed in the room that had the lowest level of activity, Mark slept not a wink that night.

The live oaks in the front yard reminded Julie of Whitman's poem "I saw in Louisiana a Live Oak Growing", which has been a favorite of hers, and on a walk we caught several chameleons. In the morning, after a lovely breakfast on the porch, we headed of and away, not before Mark tried to say farewell to the ghosts.

But duty called, and we had to get home to go back to life.