Day 69 5/9 Wednesday, Surviving the Storm! Plantation Visit

So here we are…we survived the Cat 1 hurricane. In fact we slept right through the night and found out that it really didn’t cross the coast anywhere near New Orleans. We did not receive any strong winds or rain during the night. Unfortunately, some of the places we stopped to visit on our way here, including Mobile were hit by the storm and suffered damage from huge seas, rain and winds. As the schools and some businesses said they would be closed for today due to the storm we were not sure if things would be open. We checked to see if one of the large plantations was going to be open and it was so we headed out to it. It took us about 90 minutes to drive to the Oak Alley Plantation. The weather was fine and it was very quiet as we think that most tourist weren’t sure if things would be open. This beautiful plantation was set on 25 acres close to the Mississippi River. It was built in the 1840s and was a sugar cane plantation. We thoroughly enjoyed exploring the gardens and grounds and enjoyed the guided tour of the magnificent “Big House”. Oak Alley Plantation had nearly 100 slaves working on it during its early days. We listened to a lovely site interpreter who told us about 3 of the slaves who lived on the plantation. There were rebuilt slave huts on the plantation that contained a lot of information and artefacts. It really gave us a good insight into what life was like for the slaves. I have just finished reading a fantastic book called Cane River by Lalita Tademy about the lives of 3 slave women. It is based on family research and is set in an area close to where we are. We had lunch at the café on the grounds and then drove to the levy to check out the Mississippi. We knew we were a fair way up the river but couldn’t believe the size of the ships, so far up the river. We then drove back to visit the Lower 9^th Ward area of New Orleans. We had been told that this one of the worst areas effected by flooding when a canal levy burst its banks after hurricane Catrina. Many of the houses were just left and people did not return. After returning home we spoke to our neighbour, a retired police-officer (we feel much safer now!) and he said all this area was underwater when the levy broke. The only part of his home above the water was the roof. He said when the levy broke the area was hit by a huge amount of water. His brother who was a fire-fighter had the terrible job of going into the homes to pull out the drowned bodies. Very sad. We are hoping to go to Acme Oysters for dinner tonight as many people have told us it’s the place to go.