Locusts and red sticks

Baton Rouge, LA – Palm trees are lining the terrace around the swimming pool at the KOA campground we’re staying in tonight in Denham Springs, on the outskirts of Baton Rouge.  They are one of the first real signs that we’re actually in the south – and earlier today we saw the first wisps of Spanish moss on some of the trees along the Natchez Trace – another sure sign.

In terms of temperatures, it’s not exactly balmy even yet. Under normal circumstances, it would be 60 degrees Fahrenheit in the day and 40 at night, but we’re seeing nighttime temperatures in the 20s.  That means we have to detach our water hose each night so our pipes don’t freeze, and run the furnace while we snuggle under our down-filled duvet.  But we’re not complaining!  There’s no snow!

Our journey today followed a kind of Z shape (that’s “zee” in these parts!).  We left Vicksburg, heading eastward toward Jackson, in order to take up the Natchez Trace Parkway once again.  The parkway took us southwest, ending just north of the Louisiana state line. At that point we took State Highway 61 to Baton Rouge, and to reach our campground, we had to head about seven miles east of the city along Interstate 12, completing the Z shape.

We thoroughly enjoyed the final 100 miles of the Trace Parkway, with its scenic surroundings, light traffic and excellent driving surface. Commercial traffic is not allowed, so we were surprised to see a transport truck pass us in a northerly direction not long after we started today’s trip.  There’s always somebody who wants to bend the rules.

Our lunchtime stop was at milepost 15.5 (Mile 1 is at the southern end; Mile 444 at Nashville where we started), where we visited the homestead at Mount Locust.  It’s the only structure left of all the stands (or inns) along the Trace, and it has been fully restored.  The homestead was just a home to begin with, but the constant flow of travelers stopping by for a meal and a place to spend the night soon necessitated the building of a four-room guest house so there wouldn’t be bodies bunked down on all the verandahs every night.  They called the guest quarters Sleepy Hollow.

Paulina Ferguson-Chamberlain was the lady of the house and after being widowed twice, she went on to run the homestead, a flourishing plantation and the guesthouse for many years on her own, with the help of her 11 children. She died at age 80 in 1849.

We were a bit sorry to finally come to the end of the parkway and rejoin state and interstate highways.  It was such a peaceful interlude in our travels which we will not forget for a long time.

When we stopped at the Louisiana state line welcome center, we asked the staff how Baton Rouge came to have that name. They couldn’t tell us!  So we did our own research, and learned that native tribes marked the limit of their territory with a red stick.  French explorer Sieur d’Iberville came to the region in 1699 and saw one such stick and used it to describe the spot.  Baton Rouge has borne that name ever since.