Baton Rouge, Louisiana

Well, we have finally left the Destin area. As beautiful as it was it is nice to be on the road again. We were there for over 2 weeks. From Destin we traveled 4 hours to Gulfport/Biloxi area. Many of you will remember that this was one of the places that got hit by Katrina. We only stayed one night but before we left in the morning a few of us drove down to see the damage (we are still with our BC friends). The first 4 blocks from the ocean are just concrete slabs. There was not one house left standing. About 4 blocks in there were houses with lots of damage, some fixed up, some just abandoned. While we were driving around we noticed a group of young people cleaning up. Turns out it was a youth group from Columbus, Ohio helping to clean up and staying at the local Presbyterian Church. We helped them a bit....we didn't have gloves and we handed out pop that Jim had in his truck. It shocked us to see so much desolation still over a year later. A local woman stopped by and told us a few stories from the storm, computers found in trees, couches floating by. All along Beach Drive is a beautiful beach which is still closed to the public and half of the boardwalk is still laying broken on the ground.

From Gulfport we drove another 2 hours to Baton Rouge in Louisiana. We are staying at a beautiful municipal campground with horses all around. The girls are enjoying that although they can't ride the horses because they have some disease going around called Strangle. We are right on the other side of the levee on the Mississippi river (which the girls can spell backward and forward...outloud.....continually).

This afternoon we went to a french colonial plantation home. This was not a spectacular as those homes with the columns because it would have been built about 100 years sooner. The plantation started by growing the plant that produces indigo but because of its carcinogenic properties the slaves generally lived only 5 years working with the stuff. This of course was not good because they had to keep buying new slaves. Next they grew cotton until a sugar crusher was invented and then everyone in this area switched to sugar cane. They were busy with the sugar cane all year long. This particular plantation home also had slave quarters and overseerers house to see. About 50 slaves at this plantation worked everyday for just this one family....unbelievable. Jenna of course would have been at marriagable age....as far as education went I think she liked that part where she wouldn't have to learn math and could just learn piano and painting. Boys as young as Matthew would be put to work as slaves, fanning the dinner table or roasting the coffee beans for 2 hours at a time in front of the fire in the kitchen.

I think we will be staying here for a few more days and see if we can find a black church on Sunday. As soon as I figure out the new camera I will post pictures.