Friday, December 16, 2005
Winter Touristing
Louisiana Weather
Tuesday was sunny and upper 60’s. Wednesday it rained buckets in the afternoon with temperature in the mid 60’s. Thursday the sun shone again and temp dipped to upper 50’s. Such is the off again- on again winter in Louisiana.
Natchitoches (pronounced Nak-uh-dish)
This is the oldest continually settled town in the Louisiana Purchase. The French built a fort here in the 18th century. A recreated fort is now a state historic site. Downriver were the cotton plantations. Oakland Plantation, with lots of original outbuildings, is now a National Historic Site. One of the great advantages of winter touristing is there are not a lot of tourists so there’s lots of time to ask questions and visit with the guides. The ranger on duty at the National Park was a student intern / history major and our costumed guide at the Fort was a student at the local University. Both had lots of time to chat with us.
Nak-uh-dish (it’s easier to write than the true spelling) is famous because Steel Magnolias was filmed here. We took a trolley tour and saw the film sites as well as the historical buildings. Nearly every old house in town is now a B & B. Our guide says this is because when they filmed the movie there were not enough hotel rooms for all the cast and crew—so after that the B & B trend started. There are 80 B & B’s now in a town of 12,000, and they are all filled weekends in December. There is a big Christmas light festival with lots of tourists—we had to leave our RV park, because the weekend was booked. We did get a look at the lights on Thursday night.
Tuesday was sunny and upper 60’s. Wednesday it rained buckets in the afternoon with temperature in the mid 60’s. Thursday the sun shone again and temp dipped to upper 50’s. Such is the off again- on again winter in Louisiana.
Natchitoches (pronounced Nak-uh-dish)
This is the oldest continually settled town in the Louisiana Purchase. The French built a fort here in the 18th century. A recreated fort is now a state historic site. Downriver were the cotton plantations. Oakland Plantation, with lots of original outbuildings, is now a National Historic Site. One of the great advantages of winter touristing is there are not a lot of tourists so there’s lots of time to ask questions and visit with the guides. The ranger on duty at the National Park was a student intern / history major and our costumed guide at the Fort was a student at the local University. Both had lots of time to chat with us.
Nak-uh-dish (it’s easier to write than the true spelling) is famous because Steel Magnolias was filmed here. We took a trolley tour and saw the film sites as well as the historical buildings. Nearly every old house in town is now a B & B. Our guide says this is because when they filmed the movie there were not enough hotel rooms for all the cast and crew—so after that the B & B trend started. There are 80 B & B’s now in a town of 12,000, and they are all filled weekends in December. There is a big Christmas light festival with lots of tourists—we had to leave our RV park, because the weekend was booked. We did get a look at the lights on Thursday night.
# posted by Carol Harma @ 7:12 PM 
