Laura Plantation: Slave Quarters

We spent one day of our trip on a tour out of New Orleans. Our first stop was the Laura Plantation in Vacherie, LA. Unlike most (maybe all) of the other plantation tours in the aree, this one does not gloss over the history of slavery that is so prevalent in this region. The tour focused on the woman who ran the plantation, and on the lives of the slaves on the plantation. The plantation house itself was damaged by fire about 18 months ago, but the tour did not suffer for the fact that we could not really get…

French Quarter After the Rain

After ten years of talking about it, my friend Donna and I finally made it to New Orleans last May, with husbands in tow. It seems a little spooky to us now. We’d dreamed about this trip for so long, but every year something got in the way. Finally, somehow, we decided that 2005 would be the year. What a good thing we did. New Orleans won’t be the same again for a long time, if ever. The four of us were so charmed by New Orleans, and we’re hardly alone in that. The people and the food and the…