After we all had showers and cleaned up a bit, we had a scaled-down version of church with Grandpa, Dylan, and Jadis on HouseParty. It was nice to be able to take some time for the things that matter most.
Later, we went for a drive through downtown Natchitoches, and I totally fell in love with that town! It is absolutely beautiful, charming, and unlike any place I have visited. Since it was Sunday, we didn't stop anywhere, just drove around and saw the sights--things like cobblestone streets, New Orleans-style ironwork balconies, gas lamps with hanging flower arrangements, and best of all, the beautiful river that ran right through town and is the central focus of the town.
This morning, we decided that LaMar and Garrett would take the RV and go to White Castle, where we hoped to tour Nottoway Plantation. The rest of us stayed in Natchitoches to do a little shopping and sightseeing, and then we would catch up to LaMar and Garrett in White Castle.
We headed off to town, stopping along the way briefly to take a photo of the first official bayou we saw:
One of the things we wanted to get in Natchitoches was a vinyl decal to put on the back of the RV. (We have been getting one in every state we have visited.) I Googled souvenir shops and found a couple on Front Street (the main shopping district). So we parked under a beautiful shade tree, snapped some of the pictures above, and headed over to the first shop. The clerk in the store was very friendly and asked if she could help us find anything. I told her what I was looking for, and she pointed out her selection of car decals.
Not seeing what I wanted, I asked her, "Do you have anything that says 'Natch-i-toch-es' on it?" I pronounced it just the way it is spelled, having been taught from my youth to "sound it out" for words I didn't know.
The clerk stared at me blankly for a moment, then said, "Umm, no." I nodded that I understood, and as I started to look through the store, she asked, "So where y'all from?" I told her, and we chatted for a moment about what had brought us there. Then the clerk said casually, "By the way, it's pronounced Nack-a-tish."
Now it was my turn to stare blankly. "It . . . What?"
"Nack-a-tish," she repeated. She pointed up at the wall of t-shirts in her shop. "See? The t-shirt shows you how to say it." I looked at the shirt she was indicating, and sure enough, it showed that Natchitoches equaled "Nack-a-tish." I burst out laughing, both embarrassed about my mistake and amused at how you could possibly derive that pronunciation from that spelling.
We chatted with the clerk a few more minutes after that; she told us that the best place to get meat pies is the gas station out by the interstate, not the overpriced restaurant around the corner. Then I purchased a couple picture books for the school library and we left. We made sure to go by the gas station on our way out of town, although I couldn't eat the meat pie and Sierra was the only one brave enough to try it. She said it was really good.
We had a long drive to get to White Castle, and along the way, LaMar and Garrett called to tell us that Nottoway Plantation was closed, so we couldn't tour it. We decided we would just head on to New Orleans, but then LaMar decided to go check out another plantation house called Oak Alley. That one was open for tours, so we changed course and met him and Garrett at Oak Alley.
I am so glad we were able to do that! It was a very sobering and unglamorous look at plantations being built on the backs of slaves. The foundation running the tours has done a fabulous job of bringing those slaves to life-- letting their individual names and stories be known and giving them well-earned credit for their accomplishments.
The above picture lists the known names of slaves who worked on the plantation before the Civil War. The only way they even know this much about the slaves is from bills of sale on which the slaves' names were listed.
Stories like this make me ashamed of the human race. How it must hurt God to see his children treat each other with such depravity.
The "big house" was interesting to go through, but the real beauties of the plantation were the trees that gave it its name.
This is Oak Alley:
These trees are Virginia live oaks, and they are over two hundred years old. Massive, glorious, beautiful. truly amazing how they have been preserved for so long.
After the tour, our plan was to get to our next RV park and then go into New Orleans for the evening. But the RV park was farther than we had expected, and by the time we got all set up, it was too late to go into New Orleans. So our revised plan is to go into New Orleans tomorrow morning and then on to Pensacola tomorrow afternoon. We will stay overnight there and make the rest of the trek to Athens on Wednesday. It will be nice to get to a place where we can actually stay for a few days!
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