After Orlando and the “Sad Food” experience, we pulled over to check out Silver Springs. We arrived an hour before sunset (that's when they close the park) and the nice ranger at the front gate let us in for free and told is that if we “Hoof' it!” we can catch the “Swamp Trail”, one of the most beautiful trails in Florida. We that kind of anticipation we fastened our backpacks, tightened our shoelaces and started hoofing the trail. It was gorgeous. It ends with a beautiful boardwalk over the swamp with crystal clear water and a silence you hear only when you're six feet under.
We left Silver Springs and continued towards Tallahassee. We decided, given the horrible lunch we had, that we should stop at some supermarket along the way and buy some groceries to make our own sandwiches. We found a Walmart a few miles after Silver Springs. There is no nice way to say what I'm about to say, but it has to be said. If you want to see the real America, step into a Walmart, preferably, somewhere around Silver Springs. The place is HUGE, with rows and rows of packed, processed foods that all taste the same. The people you cross in the aisles are sad (from eating all the “Sad Food”) and most of them are so fat, they need a little electrical cart to carry them from one place to the other. And the saddest thing is that their whole family is fat...and sad. Their kids walk around with gigantic sodas, stuffing their face with all sorts of unhealthy foods. Junk food and drink comes in XXXL packages and costs 99 cents. As we were wandering around the store, we decided we needed a cooler to store the groceries we bought so we headed down to the sport and camping department. Well, along with sleeping bags and coolers, this Walmart also sells shotguns, crossbows, knifes and various other instruments to shoot, kill and place over the fireplace some poor, innocent deer. With all the hunting equipment one can buy at Walmart, I'm pretty sure that deer doesn't stand a chance, and moreover, the hunter wouldn't have to, god forbid, exert any effort into the hunt. Anyway, we picked up our cooler and groceries and got back on the road. The drive was long, as we pulled into Tallahassee, we've been on the road for about 8 hours. We checked into the “Days Inn” hotel off I-10. Now, we knew before we set out on this journey that we'd come across some spooky hotels and this was our first (and probably not last). The front desk had an annoying receptionist called Debbie who we think totally screwed us over with the price of the room. The first room we got smelled like someone (and potentially more than one person) had died there, the carpet had a suspicious red blotch on the carpet next to the bed (suicide?), the sheets were torn and in general it was plain dirty. I went back to Debbie, who at this point had an even more annoyed look on her face, and asked for another room. The next room was a little better...it still felt dirty, but we were tired and looking for another hotel after 8 hours of driving was not an option. The next morning we got up, had the “Continental breakfast” and hit the road to New Orleans.
On the way to New Orleans we stopped at Ponce Du Leon to check out another park. The park was deserted, there was no ranger at the gate but a little hole in the wall which said “Deposit entrance fee here”. Although deserted, the park was really beautiful, it had a huge pool with crystal clear water from the river, and there was a trail that was partially flooded at certain point which went through the swamp. After some hiking we sat down at a picnic table, pulled out our cooler and groceries and had lunch.
Several hours later we pulled into New Orleans. The drive into New Orleans is gorgeous! There's a very dramatic highway-slash-bridge that traverses the swamplands and drives straight into the city. We checked into “The Olde Inn” and went searching for dinner. The receptionist told us that all the locals hang out on Frenchman Street and that we should avoid the tourist traps on Royal and Bourbon Street. We thanked her for that piece of useful information and found a small restaurant called “Snug Harbor” on Frenchman. Gila had the Blackened Fish, which is supposed to be a well known Creole dish and I had fish as well, which was equally good. As we are tourist, we couldn't resist checking out Royal and Bourbon Streets...and yes, they were loud and full of fellow tourists so we cut to a quieter street. In general, you could say that Royal street is the place to go for high-end shopping and Bourbon is “Sin Street”, a place to get drunk, get loud and get down and dirty. New Orleans, as we later learned, had a reputation for being a dirty city (and I mean that very literally), full of questionable people and other colorful characters. The old district still retains that overall feeling today and that is its magic. The next day we walked through all the sites in our checklist – Jackson Square, Cafe Du Monde, The French Market, etc. Cafe Du Monde had a line like a ride in Disney World, so we gave it a pass. The cafe is famous for the “Beignets” which are fried squares of dough with powdered sugar and cafe au lait. The French Market was a little disappointing but we just kind of walked through it. We did find a little jem called “The Hermann-Grima House”, a gorgeous colonial style town house on St. Louis Street which was built by a German Jewish merchant in the 18th (?) century. Mr. Hermann made a fortune importing goods from the plantations and selling them in New Orleans. The house contained many interesting artifacts of the period and it was there that we learned to appreciate the everyday washing machine and dishwasher (not that we own either one of those). Mr. Hermann lost his fortune and the house was sold to the Grimas who at some point turned it into a museum. If you're in New Orleans don't miss this house.
The next morning we woke up with an adventurous idea, “If we're in Louisiana, we want to see a plantation!” We opened our trusty guide and found route 18 which led to “Oak Alley Plantation”. Route 18 is one of America's scenic byways and it winds along the Mississippi river for a good length of it. A few problems we encountered driving Route 18: on the right, where the river should be, is a high levee which blocks any view to the river and on the left are either power plants or run down little towns with nothing to see. Nevertheless, getting off I-10 and having the time to appreciate the landscape on Route 18 was refreshing. Route 18 is also known as “Plantation Alley”, and as you drive through it, you can catch a glimpse of a Greek revival style mansion surrounded by a sugar cane plantation. Beautiful! The area housed two thirds of American millionaires back in the days of slavery and out of the 200 plantations about 50 or so still exists. The Oak Alley Plantation was one of those who survived through the years and even had the fortune of housing the set of “Interview with a Vampire”, starting Tom Cruise. It is a gorgeous building with two rows of fourteen, 300 year old oak trees leading up to the entrance and huge white Doric columns lining the front (did we promise Greek Revival or not?). Our tour guide was dressed in a dress of the period and had a heavy Southern accent with every other word being “Ya' all”. The tour through the house was accompanied by stories about the owners, a wealthy couple who inherited a fortune made from the family's sugar cane plantation. He was over 40, she was barely 18. He wanted to live in the country, she wanted to party in the city (New Orleans). He died, she tried to run the business and ran it to the ground. The Civil War wiped away their fortune and they sold the house to pay for their debts. The woman who bought the house (for 50 grand) grew cattle on it. One day, when she was out of the house, her cattle broke into the house and destroyed all the marble flooring in the living room. The owners still live on the property, they have a few houses in the far corner and their plantation is leased to a sugar company. Along with the Hermann-Grima house, we concluded that the saying “Easy come. Easy go” is indicative of the period in terms of fortunes won and fortunes lost. At the end of the tour, our guide rang a huge bell which was positioned in the middle of the yard and was used to manage the slaves and plantation schedule. We were also offered a cool refreshing drink, “Mint Julep”, which was a local favorite back then. We had the virgin version (no Bourbon). Oh, by the way, we also learned to appreciate ice. It turns out that when it got really hot in the house (as it usually did, given it is Louisiana), the owner would buy huge junks of ice at outrageous prices and place them on the dinning table over a harp shaped fan which a slave standing in the corner would be rocking from side to side by pulling on a rope. The side to side motion would circulate the cold air from the ice around the room. Interesting. Also notice that I “skipped” over the part about the slave in the corner, which is how white people in the South talk about slavery today, that is, by “skipping” over it really quickly, hoping that nobody noticed that they said “slave”. Other words, like “man/woman of color” are also used from time to time. Followed by a quick explanation how the owner of the house a moral dilemmas about slavery and as a matter of fact even freed a few of his slaves. What ever gets you through the night.
We left Oak Alley Plantation and got back on I-10 headed towards Houston, Texas. On the way we stopped at Lake Martin to catch a ride on a boat through the swamp but ended up walking a little around the lake. We stopped and turned back when we saw empty shotgun shells on the ground, a decoy duck in the swamp and duck whistles blowing in the distance. You can say we didn't feel like having our heads blown off by and eager hunter. But that's just us. We spent the night at “The Executive Inn” which contrary to its illustrious name, is a dump. I'm exaggerating, it was ok. Just another roadside hotel. We've left Houston and are off to San Antonio to visit some of the places I still remember from ages 12 and 13 after my dad was relocated to Kelly Air Force base to serve as a liaison officer to the Israeli Air Force. I'm pretty excited to see our old house, my school – Coke R. Stevenson Middle School – and the Alamo, “Remember the Alamo!”
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