I truly decided to relax this morning. After making my bed, I stayed in my PJ’s until 11:00 in the morning. It’s been decades since I’ve done that. By noon, though, I’d had enough of that so I showered and headed out to do a little exploring.
This is where I ended up. I decided to visit the Oakland Plantation outside of Natchitoches. Lots of plantations were located along the Cane River back in the day.
It turned out that this was National Junior Ranger Day at this National Park. There were quite a few youngsters moving around from exhibit to exhibit, but the crowds weren’t stifling.
I was there for the 1:00 tour of the Main House. It was built in 1821. It still retains most of its original heavy cypress timber construction and bousillage-filled walls. Bousillage was a new word for me today. It’s kind of like adobe, but uses Spanish moss in the mixture instead of straw. It was used to insulate the walls.
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We had a good park ranger for the tour group. The area leading to the front of the house is lined with giant live oak trees. Just what you would expect in a southern plantation. The canopy of trees provided a tunnel for the breezes off of the Cane River to flow down into the open windows of the house.
I also learned that these first Creole plantation owners drank a lot of French wine. They used the empty bottles to line their flower gardens. Many of these bottles are from the early 1800’s. So I guess recycling isn’t really a new thing.
I walked some of the grounds, but although my hip doesn’t hurt one bit, my stamina isn’t what it was before the surgery yet. I need to figure out some lower back exercises. Any ideas out there?
I also stopped at the Natchitoches National Fish Hatchery on the way back to the rig, but the only part open was a small aquarium featuring local river, lake, and pond species. I had forgotten that most FWS staff don’t work on the weekends, so the ponds with the fish they were growing were closed to entry.
I have a long, for me, drive coming up tomorrow to get to the Maumelle COE campground outside of Little Rock, Arkansas. In all my years of traveling with a trailer or motorhome, I’ve always turned off the fridge while driving. As Emma and I were sitting outside this evening, I got to wondering about my small converter. Since I have a residential fridge now that only operates on electric, could I use the converter to keep it running while I drive down the road? This is the first rig I’ve had with an inverter, and I do next to no boondocking, so I really haven’t used it. With the small solar panel on the roof that charges the batteries, and running the engine, won’t that be enough charge to keep it running for six hours or so? The temps are likely to be in the 80’s for my travel day. Don’t know why I haven’t thought about this before. I would appreciate any input from those of you that know about inverters.
Thanks for stopping by… talk to you later, Judy
