Next stop: Melrose (aka, Yucca) Plantation

 Melrose is a 200-yr-old cotton and pecan plantation, begun by the son of a French planter and his African slave, whom he later freed.

 I mentioned the rainy weather earlier...  Well, it was in this spot, walking on that brick pathway, that I experienced a very weird phenomenon that, for now, I will just call Extreme Squishiness.  The ground was SO saturated that, when I walked on the bricks, I could hear squishing, sucking sounds for several feet around me!!  At first I thought maybe there were some kind of critters making the sounds, but every time I stopped to just listen, the sounds went away!?!  And every time I started walking again, they came back!?!  I finally realized it had to be me causing the squishes!  And the little muffled gurgles were coming from the soaked grass!  Too weird!!!  Maybe that's how some of those b movies get going...where the ground suddenly opens up and just sucks you right in!

And then...down the street a ways...  Looks like this home has lost its people.  The flag is up (on the mailbox), but there's no one home...

The Cane River National Heritage Area - Magnolia Plantation

Our campground owner suggested this one other tourist must-do.  It consists of a 35 mile stretch starting at Natchitoches and heading south.  There are many very authentic plantations along the route.

 We took the freeway south and then got off for our first stop - the Magnolia Plantation.  This cotton plantation was started in the mid-18th century with Spanish and French land grants.

 The main plantation home is still owned by the family, but the park service owns most of the other buildings, including this one - the slave hospital/overseer's house.

 And who are these people?!

 As you can see, it was a "gloomy" day that I loved!  Somehow it lent more of a "feel" to the place.  These were the slave quarters.

 Looking back at the slave hospital/overseer's house.  Because of all the rain, walking out to the slave quarters was a little mushy in spots!

 More photos of the slave quarters.

And we'll finish out with a little story - completely unrelated to plantations, but more to do with those people shown in the previous picture.  Bill decided to stay with the dogs in the truck, while I walked around and took photos.  Apparently, he got out to take them for a walk, but as soon as he opened one of the back doors, Hayes was out!  And, immediately ran to the neighboring vehicle and jumped into the lap of a woman sitting in the front seat with her door open!!  Thank goodness she liked dogs OK!!!!   Yep, that's our Hayes...

Anyways, onwards...!

Flower Festivals and Celebrations of Spring!

How can you make a really cute little historic district even prettier?

 With flowers, of course!

(free chocolate wouldn't hurt either, actually...) 

 The flowers were so incredible, they must've just overwhelmed that poor feller!  Knocked him out cold!  (or hot, to be temperature accurate)

 Purdy flowers.

 Looking down at the garden in front of the Badin-Roque house, right by the Cane River Lake.

 Taking the fancy stairs down to the house and gardens.

 Nice fake rock work that you will soon see Zouey mistake for the real thing...

 Cool little gecko guy!  (at least I think he's a gecko...?  Maybe he's just a lizard?)  Anyways, he was a cute decoration on the Badin-Roque house.

 Neat wrought iron bench with names incorporated into the structure.

 Sweet little home and yard across the river.

The crews were still at it!

 Know this name?  I know Kaye and Craig do (if they're reading this!)!  I highly recommend you read "Boys in the Boat."  Then, not only will you know about "the Boat," but you'll know about another amazing man and his crewmates pulling off fantastic feats during a fascinating time in our history...

Pretty pretty, huh?

Not all good days...

I like to share our fun experiences and the beautiful sights we see.  Only rarely do I post the ugly, yucky stuff.  But ugly does happen.  Fortunately, only occasionally.  So...while we were in a really neat place we had a really yucky thing happen....  A drunk driver.

 This guy was so smashed, and so were three cars (incl. his) by the time he was done.  And he was only done because we blocked him in so he couldn't continue on his merry little way...!!  

I had seen him coming down the side street but assumed he was going to stop like he was supposed to - we had the right of way on the main road.  That's the way it's supposed to work...  But no, he just kept coming and rammed right into us.  Didn't even slow down.  And obviously had no intention of stopping afterwards either.  It wasn't that he was going fast - he wasn't, maybe 25mph - but he just kept going.  So we followed him, honking, trying to get him to stop.  He continued on, completely undeterred.  After making a couple of turns, running over a sidewalk and shop sign, he turned onto another street, but he didn't really do the turn part too well and mostly just crashed into the poor little white car on the other side.  Bill, being the quick thinker, told me to block him in.  Didn't stop him from trying to leave though!  He kept trying to back up, revving his engine against our truck.  People came out and were taking photos.  Bill called the cops.  And out of seemingly nowhere, the guy's sister shows up and tries to talk me into letting him go!  Her words "Let him go!  He's inebriated!  Let him go!"  Seriously?!!!!!  I'd say she was out of her mind one way or another as well...  And that was confirmed when I found out another little bit to the story...  When the guy finally got it that he couldn't leave in his car, his sister got him into HER car and gave HIM the keys!!!!!!!!!  Bill had gotten out of the truck and saw this whole interaction and had me block the sister's car.  Finally, this convinced them to give up.  But the real kicker?  The sister's little boy was in the front seat of her car...  Yeah.  Anyways, the cops came and took the guy away.  Unfortunately, we were all so focused on him that the sister was able to just leave.  She should've been taken away too for child endangerment.  I'm sure the cops would have seen it the same way.  

Our poor truck, beat up again.  Right, front.  And then the sad-looking tow bar...frowning...  We ended up getting the chassis and tow bar straightened enough to be functional but decided to wait on the cosmetics till we get back to San Diego.  Looking back, we were very lucky that he wasn't going faster and that we weren't farther into the intersection...  Also, very glad he wasn't armed.  The owner of the little white car got scared he was going to pull out a gun when he started rummaging in his car...(fortunately, not the case, but you never know!)

 Hasta la vista buddy!  Actually, it sort of sounded like they might "vista" this guy fairly frequently.  Frequent offender...?  Such a young guy to be so wasted middle of the day, such a waste, period.

And through all this, we had the dogs.  And it was pretty warm out.  Too hot for them to stay in the truck...  So they got to come out, talk to bystanders, and give the cop big Thank You!!! kisses!

The Grand Ecore

The campground owner recommended we do a few things while in the area, one of which was to see the Grand Ecore Visitors Center.  So we did.

 It consisted of a gorgeous wooden building (with some nice exhibits inside),

 and a couple of my favorite magnolia trees outside, 

 a great porch to hang out on, and

a wide-open view of the Red River.

Family photos

Life at the Ajax Country Living RV Park...

 No, Dad doesn't mind being the dogs' playground mat...

 and cuddle object!

 Hayes and Tractor, still in the early stages of getting to know one another, but obviously moving in the direction of Friends!

 And one thing we can ALL come together on...  Yep, F-OO-D!!!!!!!!

 Still working on the friends thing...

 The cats have decided they are NOT going to let this new dog ruin THEIR walk!  Move aside, big boy!!  Cats coming through!

 At times turbulent, it was the beginning of a beautiful relationship...

 Hayes thought the kitties were SO interesting!

 They're different species and all, but they really are twins.  I'm looking back at these photos, writing this two months after the fact, and I can see how these two were meant to be.  They are matching personalities - both loving, and loving to be involved in everything!

 And while I'm not so sure that Hayes' palate is that discriminating, Bill insists that he has a special affinity for apples...  And Zou never cared for apples before, but she's discovered they're not so bad (after all, she can't let Hayes get ALL the treats!!).

 Yes, this IS Ouray all over again...!!!

 Yeah, working it out...

 Becoming bedtime buddies.  Now, two months later, every night the two of them vie for the space in between our pillows...  Whomever gets there first gets the primo spot, and the latecomer then settles for slightly lower down, between us.  While perhaps slightly displaced at times, Tractor couldn't be happier to share with this guy.  I've never heard Tractor purr louder...

 And a sure sign of Tractor's trust in this new family member:  he dons his box, knowing this guy is right there.  Talk about rendering one's self vulnerable and not prepared to defend...

Apparently, at this point, Tractor had concluded that he didn't really need to defend himself from this guy (other than from being stepped on or played with too roughly, which is still somewhat true).  He diagnosed Hayes' intentions as good, and he was right.