Louisana - Laissez Joy rouler!

Aloha all!

at the height of slavery, there were about 46,000 plantations in the South. I mention this mostly because some of you might feel like we are trying to see them all. But knowing this, I am sure you agree that visiting eleven plantation homes in the past ten days is very reasonable, right?

Laissez les bon temps rouler

Each one of those places is intriguing, beautiful and sad. Tragically, the plantations were all built or sustained by slave labor. Yes, some plantation owners might have treated their slaves better than others, but the whole concept of people owning other people is still strange and disgusting. I am relieved that pretty much all the tours we took did not whitewash that. That being said, it’s hard not to be intrigued by the stories of these places and by their beauty. 

Even though the homes share similar origins and architecture, every one of our experiences was unique, so we kept visiting more and more while traveling up the Mississippi from just west of New Orleans to Natchez, Mississippi:

• The Ardoyne Plantation was unique not only because it was our first. This 1894 plantation home has been lived in by the same family for six generations now and we got a private tour from one of the current occupants! They are a Harvest Host location, so we “had to” take a tour to earn our free campsite for the night. Contrary to our Hawaiian counterparts, there is still sugar cane being grown on their fields. The family is not involved in that, but I am sure they are plenty busy taking care of the big old beautiful house and by giving tours. That includes keeping their upstairs living room and hallways tidy enough to make it presentable for tours. I guess inheriting a home like this is a blessing…and a curse.
  
  

  

  Ardoyne Plantation 

  
  
• The unique aspect of the ED White State Historical Site is that while this 1790 house was also a plantation home, it is preserved for a different reason: ED White Sr. was governor of Louisana and his son became Chief Justice of the US Supreme Court. 
• The tour at the Laura Plantation was our favorite. Joseph is a gifted tour guide, interpreting the complex history of this “Creole Plantation”. Given the chance, I seriously would have taken the same tour a second time. The house is the most colorful and it is beautifully restored. It also had a lot of original furnishings, but that’s not what the tour was about. The house was merely a backdrop and the furnishings merely props for our gifted story teller to bring the people who lived here alive. We were so intrigued that we bought Laura’s memoirs. We have not yet even started reading them and I’m afraid it’s not going to be as fascinating as being there and listening to Joseph.
  
  

  

  Joseph & the Amazing Technicolor Tour
  at Laura's Plantation 

  
  
• The very aptly named Oak Alley Plantation might be the most picturesque. Every one of those Live Oak trees is spectacular by itself, the alley formed by 28 of them leading up to this home is just magical. We spent half a day there, touring the house and the gardens, eating a delicious lunch, attending an excellent talk in the slave quarters and walking up and down that Oak Alley several times.
  
  

  

  The oak alley at the Oak Alley Plantation

  
  
• Many of the plantation homes have beautiful gardens, but the delightful gardens of the Houma House definitely were our favorite. I wish my garden loving dad could have been with us. These gardens were beautiful and also full of playful sculptures and little surprises. We did not even mind when we found out that pretty much the whole garden design is not historic, but a modern addition of the current owner in the last two decades. We also did not mind that this “free” Harvest Host campsite ended up costing us more than even the fanciest campground, calculating the house tour, the adjacent Great River Road Museum, the cocktail in the garden and the dinner in the elegant Carriage House restaurant. 
  
  

  

  Houma House & Gardens

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• The history of the Oakley Plantation is just as interesting as the others, but I’m sure the family who lived here exactly 200 years ago would be surprised to learn that their property is now named and known for the guy they hired for 3 1/2 months to tutor their daughter. They actually fired that tutor because he wanted to get paid even for the days when their daughter was sick. I’m sure he didn’t mind having more time to paint birds. John James Audubon did more of his famous bird drawings here than anywhere else. Unfortunately, Audubon did not get the full recognition for his now famous drawings. But even though it happened many decades after his death, I’m sure Audubon would get a kick out of having not just a Society named after him, but also the plantation where he was fired after not even four months. The place is now the “Audubon State Historic Site”.
• The unique aspect of the Myrtles Plantation is that it claims to be one of “America’s most haunted places”. We spent the night here because it’s another Harvest Host location, most of the other guests staying here seemed to be ‘ghost hunters’. They do specific ghost tours, but even our ‘regular’ tour included many stories of ghosts, spirits and unexplained phenomena. I’m usually very suspicious about any of those claims. However, I am not sure how the reflection of a grey haired man appeared on a photograph of a fellow guest, even though no such person was on our tour. We spent a very peaceful night at the Myrtles Plantation, despite all the supposed resident ghosts. The only thing we heard at night was an amazingly loud cacophony of sounds from birds, bullfrogs, ducks, crickets and who knows, maybe some ghosts. However, I did experience a mysterious transformation overnight: I woke up the next morning and loved grits.
  
  

  

  The Myrtles Plantation 

  
  
• The Rosedown Plantation has probably the second best oak alley and the second best garden. We also got another private tour, which was excellent even though it was obviously rehearsed and recited word for word. But Rosedown still had a very unique aspect: Even though the site is run by the state, they hired a cat as their official greeter. Bob’s very friendly, but he fits that prejudice of the lazy state employee quite well.
• The Melrose Plantation is run by our beloved National Park Service. So you’d think that it would be interpreted the best, right? The place looks pretty impressive, but we were only allowed to tour the grounds. The buildings were all closed, supposedly due to CDC guidelines, even though that’s not really what the CDC says anymore. Anyway, instead of the anticipated talk with a ranger, we had a long talk with a couple from Texas, which was equally interesting.
• The Auburn Home has a very special feature. Apparently, there are only four freestanding, wooden spiral staircases in America. This was our second one after one in a church in Santa Fe. We will never make it to all 46,000 plantations, but maybe we can make it to the remaining two of these staircases:
  
  

  

  Freestanding, wooden spiral staircase
  at the Auburn Home

  
  
• The “Rosalie” in Natchez was the eleventh, but probably not last and definitely not least of our home tours. This owners of this 1822 mansion paid a pice for having the most impressive house in the most prominent location on the bluff over the Mississippi in Natchez. When the Union troops moved into Natchez after their victory in Vicksburg, they moved right into this house. The gentleman of the house was out fighting for the Confederacy, but the Union general apparently was very gracious. The ladies living in the house got to stay in the house during the occupation and were guaranteed that their house and furnishings were handles with care. That was good for them and for us, so we got to tour another beautiful, well preserved home with an interesting story.

It would be easy to fill your days just with tours of these historic homes, but we do enjoy a little more variety, so here are a few other things we did since the last blog post:

• We toured an Oil Rig! “Mr. Charlie” was the very first movable oil rig. Before its invention in the 50’s, oil platforms were built and dismantled every time they had to move to a new site. Mr. Charlie drilled in over 200 locations. The innovative design caught on quickly and by the 80’s the design had improved so much that Mr. Charlie became obsolete, he is now a museum and a training center…and probably the only oil rig I will ever be on.
  
  

  

  'Mr. Charlie' - The world's first movable oil rig

  
  
• The National Hansen’s Disease Museum in Carville, Louisana was of particular interest to us in comparison to Kalaupapa on Molokai. Between the two it’s a very easy decision: If you are visiting as a tourist today, go to Kalaupapa. The setting surrounded by the Pacific Ocean and the steep lush cliffs of Molokai’s north shore is spectacular and the tour we did there was one of the most interesting things I have ever done in Hawaii. The facility in Carville is now a National Guard post and it’s in a flat, nondescript area behind the Mississippi levees. The actual museum was still closed due to covid, but at least they had a good audio driving tour. However, if you ever time travel back 100 years and are unlucky to catch leprosy, I urge you to do anything you can to come to Carville rather than Kalaupapa. Especially in the beginning, patients in Hawaii were basically dropped off at Kalaupapa (sometimes even in the treacherous waters around the peninsula) to die. Compared to that, conditions in Carville were very humane. I am sure it was still devastating being sent here. Patients were still basically imprisoned and the social stigma was extreme. But some of the descriptions of the facilities at Carville read like that of a spa or retreat: They had a golf course, a fishing pond, mail service and most of all: Access to actual doctors for medical treatment. The Carville Leprosarium was also instrumental in finding a cure for the disease in the 1940’s. 
• We also played our first round of stick golf outside of Hawaii. The Copper Mill Country Club was a nice, laid back place to do that. They let me play from the lady’s tees, they gave Sandra unlimited mulligans and they let us stay overnight on their parking lot, all for a very reasonable rate, even by Waiehu standards. 
  
  

  

  Copper Mill Golf Course

  
  
• Traveling along part of the Great River Road, we also made a habit of going for a walk on the levees along the Mississippi almost every day. 
• In Natchez, we also visited an exhibition of historic photographs, the mounds of the Natchez Indians and the very interesting Natchez Museum of African American History. At one time, Natchez had the dubious claim of having the second largest slave market in America.
  
  

  

  At the Natchez Museum of African American History

Now we are finally on the Natchez Trace, which is a 444 mile scenic Parkway from Natchez, Mississippi to Nashville Tennessee. At the visitor center they told us we could spend a whole week doing the whole Natchez Trace. I don’t think they know how slow we travel. I am taking bets whether we will make it to Nashville in two weeks. 

Aloha,

Chris & Sandra

Joy is on the road again!

Aloha all,

this is how much we love road trips: In the less than two weeks since we started this trip, we found out someone stole our catalytic converter while Joy was in storage, Sandra had to see a chiropractor with an injured back, we went through a tornado warning and yesterday we were dealing with plumbing issues in Hawaii, a leak in Joy and trouble with an Airbnb arrival in our unit back home all at the same time….and we STILL love being back on the road!

Joy under Live Oak Trees

Because of the stolen catalytic converter it took a while to get going this time, but after four days of dealing with the insurance, the repair shop and walking in circles around the campground, we were excited to finally hit the open road. 

We already had three great "Harvest Host” experiences so far. In case you don’t know what Harvest Hosts are, I am happy to explain, even though it might sound a bit like an infomercial: It is a club that connects RVers with businesses that let you stay overnight for free. All you have to do is utilizing their services: So at the Pour Brother Brewery, we had to drink some beer, at Vermillionville we had to tour a historic village and at Lake Martin we had to take a swamp tour. That’s all not that terrible, considering those are the types of things we like to do anyway. However, many golf courses are also part of Harvest Host, so once Sandra’s back is fully healed, we might occasionally have to play a round of golf to earn our free night!

Paying our dues at the Pour Brothers Brewery 

In Beaumont, TX we visited two historic homes. Even though many of these homes are newer than the house my grandparents lived in, we find these tours fascinating and love hearing how people lived a century or so ago. The staff and volunteers at these places seemed genuinely happy to share the history of the homes. The new post-vaccination travel boom does not seem to hit these lesser known historical places. We were the only guests at both places and got private tours both times. At one of the homes, the tour was supposed to be self guided, but the security guard was as eager to share his knowledge as we were eager to hear it. 

McFaddin Ward House in Beaumont, TX

The two houses were quite different: The Chambers House was upper middle class while the McFaddin-Ward House was upper upper class. A hundred years ago, it was pretty impressive that the Chambers had running water, telephone, electricity and other modern amenities. But most of us have that today…hey, we have all of that in Joy! The Chambers were clearly trying to keep up not just with the Joneses, but also with the McFaddins. However, they didn’t quite get there, the McFaddins also had a gymnasium and a two car AND eight horse carriage house. Both of the homes were donated by the descendants to honor their families. They have never been lived in except by family of the original occupants and are now run by non profit organizations. At first, the Historical Society running the Chambers House did not want to take on the project to restore the house when it was offered to them in 2005. They were afraid that remodeling and preserving the home would ruin them. The last surviving descendant was an old lady who had lived there all her life and had not done any mayor repairs or remodels in decades. In fact, a lot of the house was the same it was 100 years ago. That’s great from a historians perspective, but terrible if you have to pay for the restoration. But then they found out that the little old lady also left them 12 million dollars in the bank as an endowment to take care of things. I had a feeling that our five dollars for the tour alone would not cover the costs. The McFaddin family is a little more discreet. Nobody seems to know how much they left as an endowment to preserve their house and their legacy. Let’s just say: they don’t bother to charge anything for the tours and when I offered to make a donation, they basically said: We don’t accept any donations, we already have all the money we will ever need. 

We also visited the “Babe” Didrikson Zaharias Museum in Beaumont. In case you are as ignorant as we were until last week: She is arguably the best female athlete of the last century. She excelled at golf, basketball, track and pretty much anything else. Out of all her records and accomplishments, this one probably sums it up the best: To this day, she is the only athlete, male or female who won Olympic gold medals in running, jumping and throwing events!

Shangri La Botanical Gardens in Orange, TX

In Orange, the easternmost town in Texas, we found someone who was able to keep up with the McFaddins. The Starck House was still closed (not sure whether it was because of storm damage from the hurricanes last year or because of Covid), but we saw it from the outside and it looked very impressive. And the Starck foundation was left with enough funds to also open a Botanical Garden and an impressive Art Museum, both of which we were allowed to visit for free. But we want to come back when we can also see the home of these generous people and maybe catch a show at the very impressive looking theater they built right downtown. It looks bigger and fancier even than the MACC on Maui, for a town of just 18,000 souls! Orange also has the best bread pudding, if you ever get to the end of Texas in the east, make sure to stop in Orange, if not for the free gardens or museum, then for the bread pudding at the Old Orange Cafe.

Louisiana Welcome Center

We had made it only two miles into Louisiana before we saw our first alligators. It looks like they employ them at the welcome center, I’m just not sure whether it’s as an attraction or as a deterrent. The alligators have been following us ever since. So far we were lucky that we saw the little cute ones pretty close up and the scary big ones only wehen we were far enough away, safely inside Joy….or on a boat. 

Alligator at the Cameron Prairie National Wildlife Refuge

The western Louisiana gulf coast was hit by back-to-back hurricanes last year. Most homes and businesses are fully open again, but there is still some damage and debris around. We talked to the friendly folks at the Creole Nature Trail Adventure Center for over an hour, about the storms, the alligators and also the nature trail, which is a scenic drive through the marshland and along the gulf coast, which just reopened after the storms. For most visitors, the main problem is that all the restroom facilities have been wiped out. That’s not a problem if you bring your own bathroom with you. However, our issue was that the temporary dock for the one ferry crossing along the way had a very steep ramp and can not accommodate RVs, forcing us to turn around half way into the drive. But we still got to see plenty of alligators. 

Vermillionville in Lafayette, LA is another one of these historic villages we like to visit. They might all look similar, but there is always something new to see or learn. Or in this case to taste and to hear. We had a surprisingly delicious lunch here. My favorite part was Kevin, the Cajun interpreter, musician, historian, story and joke teller. I could have just sat on that porch and listen to him all day, that would have been worth the price of admission, especially since it included a spot next to a pretty pond for us to stay at. Have I sold you on that Harvest Host membership yet?

Kevin, the Cajun entertainer at Vermillionville

In Lafayette, we also played our first round of disc golf of this trip. Actually, not a full round, because we wanted to take it easy on Sandra’s recovering back and because several of the baskets were flooded. Had one of my approach shots landed 15 feet to the left, it would have hit an alligator! 

Disc Golf Course in Lafayette, LA

Even though we had seen alligators every day, we still loved our swamp tour around Lake Martin. It’s a birder’s paradise and still very pretty and very interesting for non-birders like us. 

On Monday, the weather turned from good to bad and then quickly to ugly. At first, we took that as a sign to slow down, so all we had planned for the day was lunch and laundry. For lunch, we got really lucky, because we just happen to be next to Beaux Bridge, the "Crawfish Capitol of the World". What a feast: 3 pounds of fresh crawfish for under $20 and you don’t even have to worry about overeating because I swear we burned as many calories cracking them open as we took in eating them. What a fun, delicious, messy lunch!

“Crazy ‘bout Crawfish” in Beaux Bridge, LA

At the campground in the evening, we felt lucky at first because tornado warnings were issued for all the places we had been to or had planned to go to, but not for where we were. But the next update put us right in the middle of a tornado warning, so we abandoned Joy and took shelter in the brick bathhouse. To our surprise, only one other camper deemed it necessary to seek shelter there. One other camper just came in to take a shower. It was a very severe thunderstorm, but luckily, the tornado never materialized. We and Joy got away without any damage. Actually, Joy had a leak, but it only manifested itself because of the storm, it was not caused by the storm. And thanks to our friendly, tech savvy remote trouble shooter, we think we were able to find and fix the leak. Thank you, Bern!

Jungle Gardens at Avery Island 

We had been to the Tabasco Factory Tour on Avery Island on our first road trip in 2008, but for some reason, we missed the “Jungle Gardens” back then. That was reason enough to go back. What a beautiful place. We did this big garden partially as a drive through tour and walked the other half. This being southern Louisiana, of course they have alligators and spectacular live oak trees, but our favorite was “Bird City”. The grandson from the original founder and inventor of the iconic Tabasco Hot Pepper sauce built the perfect nesting site for all kinds of birds in his garden. For us, it still makes for a spectacular place to enjoy a wild bird spectacle. As serious birders (I’m talking about you, Alex!) know, this site is also responsible for saving the Snowy Egret from extinction. 

“Bird City” in the Jungle Gardens

Every single bottle of Tabasco comes from this one plant on Avery Island. As much as we love this place, it’s a shame that we don’t really like the actual Tabasco sauce all that much. But in the factory museum, we learnt that there are now actually 7 flavors of Tabasco available and we got some samples, maybe there is one that we like as much as the place where it’s made.

Tabasco’s “Family of Flavors”

Even more than on previous trips, we are taking it super slow and never rush, but I can’t believe we did all this in less than two weeks. Life is so full on the road: Even while dealing with repairs, leaks, injuries and tornadoes, there was still so much time for exploration.

Today, we went on an oil rig, but I’m afraid if I start writing about that experience, the blog will get so long that I will loose you on my first update from this trip. But who knows, we might see something else this week to write another blog post soon.

Aloha from Louisana,

Chris & Sandra

Lakes, Swamps & Bayous

Aloha all,

thanks as always for your interest in a German-Hawaiian perspective of Road Tripping through America. Last night (I think for the first time ever) I was “accused” of not having written enough about our trip this year. So don’t blame me if this blog post turns out longer than you care to read. Also, rest assured that it’s our final travel blog for this year. Not to ruin the suspense, but we have safely returned to Maui, just in time to miss any potential post-election craziness on the mainland and….drumroll…for Sandra to go back to work!

Since we were less rushed on this trip, we often slept in until it was warm enough to have breakfast outdoors. But our last day in Arkansas started off with such a spectacular sunrise that we got out of Joy before it was safe to do so in shorts and T-shirt. But it was well worth it:

Mystical Sunrise at Lake Greeson

This was part of stretch of five nights in a row in five different lakefront campsites. We are slowly starting to imagine that when we grow old, we might become more like “normal” campers and actually stay in one of these beautiful places for a few days. But for now, we always seem more curious about the next place. As pretty as most of these campgrounds are, we’d probably get bored staying in one place, unless we start to get into fishing.

Maybe we should get up this early more often...

After our “Lazy Lake Days”, Jefferson, TX was just the right town to re-introduce us to civilization: Small enough to explore the town on foot, sleepy enough to feel safe during a pandemic, old enough to have a historical museum, warm enough to have a delicious lunch outside and quirky enough to have the most elaborate model train set I have ever seen: 

1/3 of the model train set at the Jefferson Historical Museum

Hard to believe that this little town used to be the second busiest port in Texas. During the heydays of Jefferson (around the time of the civil war) their population was about 15 times as big as today. You can still see the glory of days past in some impressive historical buildings. Jefferson owed its importance to a huge log jam called the “Great Red River Raft” which made the otherwise tiny Red River navigable. This log jam was at times over 160 miles long and lasted over 600 years! 

Johnson Ranch & Marina at Caddo Lake

We had been to Caddo Lake last year and loved it so much that we made sure to come here again on this trip. This time we rented a canoe for a full day to explore the lake and the bayous around it. And even though we had been here before, the day canoeing on lake Caddo was unanimously voted the most fun activity we did on this entire trip. It is such a magical place that I am surprised how 'low key' it remains. If it got too busy, too developed or too fancy, it could ruin this special place, but for now it’s just perfect and we hope it stays this way, so we can stop by every time we are in the area for a few serene hours on the water. 

Canoeing on Lake Caddo - voted favorite five hours of our 2020 trip

Still not sure whether it's a Water Lily or Lotus flower?

Lake Caddo - what a bizarre and wonderful place

Of course it’s not all as idyllic as it seems: The plants that cover large parts of the water and make it looks so magical are an invasive pest. The water level is controlled by a system of levies and dams now, which is great for us to paddle and for local fishermen and outfitters to make a living, but also great for invasive plants.  

this is Not a road, we paddled down this overgrown alley!

We’ve always been grateful for park rangers, volunteers and other dedicated workers at historical sites. But on this trip in particular, we’ve been to a few places that would have been disappointing without a good interpreter. The “Mission Dolores” in St. Augustine, TX is the best example. The only other mission we had been to was the Alamo in San Antonio, where of course it’s all about the Texas revolution and less about the history of Spanish missions trying to convert the natives to become Catholic. So the Mission Dolores sounded like an interesting place to visit. Little did we know that there is nothing, absolutely Nothing, left of the actual mission. Ironically, the last remnants of the fort were paved over by the road that leads to the historical site. But we had a fascinating visit thanks to the site manager and museum curator, who talked to us and answered my questions for over two hours…I can’t believe that I am the same guy who was bored in history class in high school…

Not Mission Dolores,
not even a replica of Mission Dolores,
just the visitor center at the
former site of Mission Dolores

I have to admit even at the Big Thicket National Preserve, I enjoyed our talk with the park ranger more than the walks and hikes we did. Not only because there were no mosquitos inside the visitor center.

The carnivorous Pitcher Plant

Ranger talk at an oversized pitcher plant 

A few years ago, we spent a week in Pompeii, Italy with our families. Somewhat out of the blue, last week my dad told us about a Pompeiian Villa in Malibu, CA. We filed it as a place we can visit whenever we go that far west again. But the very next day, Sandra found another Pompeiian Villa in Port Arthur, TX, just a few miles from where we were. Of course we made the little detour. Due to the pandemic, the villa is not always open these days. We “had to” visit the local history museum to get a tour to the villa from there. And after the necessary arm twisting, we also agreed to a guided tour through the museum. All together, we got a private tour for almost three hours through the museum and the villa. I’m starting to think that the pandemic is a good time to travel if you enjoy tour guides who are eager to finally share their knowledge again.

Atrium at the Pompeiian Villa in Port Arthur, TX

Joy at the Pompeiian Villa

Port Arthur is pretty close to Houston already, but we had extended our trip by two days, so we had time to take a little detour along the gulf coast. This included driving through a crazy thunderstorm and Joy’s first ferry ride from the Bolivar Peninsula to Galveston Island. 

Joy's first ferry ride

We had heard some less than flattering things about the Texas Gulf Coast, but we were very impressed. Maybe the beaches are not the most pristine or the finest sand, but that’s not really what one would be looking for when coming from Maui anyway. But the drive was very scenic, the crabs very delicious and Galveston seems like a fun town, even though we only did a brief drive through tour of the town, just a sneak peek to realize that we have to come back for a longer visit some day. We probably should not wait too long, they tend to get a lot of hurricanes in this area, you never know how long until another storm changes everything again.

Crab dinner on Bolivar Peninsula

We did visit two of the historical mansions in Galveston. At the “Bishop’s Palace” they only had self guided tours, the house was impressive, but we were in and out in half an hour. At the Moody Mansion, we went back to our in depth style. We were the only ones signed up for the guided tour and got another very detailed two hour tour. But don’t worry, if you are getting tired of even just reading about yet another long tour of some historical site, this was the last one for this trip.

Moody Mansion in Galveston

We did stop at the San Jacinto Memorial. This is the site where Texas won their independence by defeating and capturing the Mexican President Santa Anna in 1836. And because this is Texas, for the centennial celebration, they built the tallest masonry column in the world. The 34 feet Texas Lone Star on the top makes it bigger than the Washington Monument in DC. They show an interesting movie about the Texas revolution, which included the “Independence Hall” in Washington-on-Brazos which we had visited at the very beginning of this trip. With that, we had come full circle. 

San Jacinto Memorial

From here on out, we were mostly on a mission to get Joy winterized and get our covid test for the flight back to Maui, which all went smoothly. Joy is now stored for her winter hibernation until hopefully we will get to travel again next spring. Who knows, somewhere there might be more lakes with pretty campsites around them and more tour guides who need someone to listen to what they have to share... 

A hui hou, Joy!

Chris & Sandra

Extreme Social Distancing in Oklahoma and Arkansas

Aloha all,

Oklahoma will always hold a special place in our hearts as the 50th state for us to get to. It was last, but definitely not least, so we are glad to return so quickly to this underrated place. If you just want to see that Oklahoma is prettier than most people think, you can just look at the pictures below, if you want to find out why we like it so much, you’ll have to look at all those words in between the pictures, too. 

The aptly named American BeautyBerry

Our timing was lucky on our first night back in Oklahoma: The motorcycle rally at the campground we stayed at had just finished and we got the best campsite: All by ourselves; right by the river. I love floating down rivers and we still had our tubes from last year. I was very excited and did not mind that it took me at least 15 minutes to blow it up. However, my enthusiasm was quickly deflated when after just a few minutes, I floated right into a sharp stick. But we’re still excited to be back in Oklahoma!

Before and after the Sharp Stick

We visited the very interesting Choctaw Capitol Museum. The history of Oklahoma as “Indian Territory” makes this state very unique and there’s always more to learn. I knew this area was part of the Louisiana Purchase, but I was not aware that using it to relocate native tribes was part of Thomas Jefferson’s reasoning for buying it. As brutal (and for many fatal) as the Trail of Tears was, apparently this forced removal and shameful treatment of Native Americans was the more humane option. Letting them keep their native homelands was apparently never seriously considered. Deceases that were accidentally introduced (and even intentionally spread) together with the forced removal from their homelands have decimated native populations, but from our brief experiences and limited perspective, it seems like the tribes in Oklahoma today are doing very well. 

Capitol of the Choctaw Nation

The Museum in the Choctaw Capitol had an exhibition about the “Original Codetalkers”. They have gotten a lot less recognition, but three decades before the Navajo Codetalkers helped in WW2, the Choctaw helped with secret communications in the first world war. We heard some Choctaw being spoken and I can confirm, there’s no way Germans ears could have picked up any of that. The ironic part is that the military used the Choctaw Codetalkers only a few decades after the official policy forbid the Choctaw and other tribes to use their native language.   

Speaking of native languages: We also visited “Sequoya’s Cabin”. He was a Cherokee tribal member who is credited with putting the Cherokee language in writing in the early 1800’s. To accomplish that, he did not use the Latin alphabet, like most other native languages, but he created a whole new syllabary.   

ᎠᏍᎦᏯ ᎩᎦᎨᏱ

If your device displayed the word above, you can see how pretty it looks and it proves that the Cherokee language lives on and adapts even in the digital age by being included in the Unicode, the world’s standard for digital text. 

Another sad and ironic twist: Sequoya volunteered to fight for Andrew Jackson. A few years later, when Jackson had become president, he returned the favor by pushing for the forceful removal of native tribes, including the Cherokee and Sequoya, resulting in the tragic Trail of Tears.

The drive to our next site was supposed to take us through Arkansas for just about 10 minutes. Then we saw one of those brown signs and ended up spending two days in Fort Smith. Just proves that any National Park Service site is worth visiting, even though the actual visitor center was closed due to the pandemic. Again, we were lucky to run into a volunteer who gave us a private tour of the fort. Actually, not just any volunteer, it was historian and author Markus ‘MC’ Woodward. Not only did he take almost 3 hours to tell us about the history of the fort, he even pretended to enjoy himself, saying he hasn’t talked this much since he retired from teaching. 

Our personal tour guide at Fort Smith NHS

With our curiosity awoken, we explored more of the town of Fort Smith. We visited the local history museum, where I particularly enjoyed the exhibition about the myth and the facts about Judge Parker, the so called “Hanging Judge”. While it is true that in the Wild West era of Fort Smith, there were some hangings, a lot of the folklore was added by Hollywood and by the local tourism authority to entice travelers to ‘hang around a while’.

Fort Smith also has the unique distinction to have the only whorehouse on the National Register of Historic Places. Yes, you read that right. It’s called “Miss Laura’s Social Club and it has a fascinating history! Despite the ongoing pandemic, it was also the only place so far where at least Sandra got a quick medical check up and she was quickly cleared as healthy enough…to work as one of Miss Laura’s girls…

The only Whorehouse on the National Register of Historic Places

On a beautiful walk along the Arkansas River we discovered a good excuse why we will have to return to Fort Smith soon. The very impressive looking building of the “US Marshal Museum” is built, but the exhibitions won’t open for another year or so. Sounds like something right up our alley since we know hardly anything about the US Marshal Service and this is probably the only place where we will ever learn anything about them. Some people don’t read a book because they wait for the movie. We’ll wait for the museum.

The (future) site of the National Marshal Museum

Back in Oklahoma, the Spiro Mounds Archaeology Center is one of the most important, but also one of the most underwhelming historical sites to visit. Millions (!) of native American artifacts have been discovered here, including some of the best preserved and most ornate. For centuries, it was the cultural center of tribes ruling about half of what is America today! But don’t feel bad if you don’t know much about the Spiro Mounds, neither did we. Like the manager of the site explained: "Our problem is that the sites you can visit today are basically piles of dirt." With tourism and the Instagram factor in mind, the cliff dwellings at Mesa Verde were a much better idea. Due to remote location and the lack of a place to take an impressive selfie, this important place is very sparsely visited. In fact, currently there is only one person working at the entire site. His name is Dennis Peterson and he is one of the most gifted interpreters I have ever met. Any little question of mine triggered an interesting history lesson. I am not kidding: We spent 4 hours at this site: About 30 minutes walking around the piles of dirt, 25 minutes in the tiny museum and the rest talking to Dennis or in this case more being talked to by Dennis. His enthusiasm is even more impressive knowing that he has managed this place for over 35 years! And $7 is a pretty cheap tuition for a series of history lectures by such an expert. 

Yes, the sign at the entrance is the most photogenic
thing at Spiro Mounds

As Tommy commented, we can be “such suckers for superlatives”, which is kind of ironic because that seems very much like an American thing to me. But it’s true, we drove up to Cavanal Hill simply because it claims to be the “World’s Highest Hill” at 1,999 feet. It’s a dubious claim since it’s unsure from where they measure that (it’s more than 2,000 feet above sea level) and there is no official differentiation between a hill versus a mountain at 2,000 feet. I had hoped for a little better view from the top but the marker was the most impressive part, not even a shop to buy the T-shirt to prove we’ve been to the highest hill…

Maybe the highest hill or
possibly the lowest mountain in the world

And some people never learn…so the next day we went to another rock with a dubious claim to fame: The “Heavener Runestone Park” used to be a state park and the claim was that vikings had sailed to America about 1,000 years ago, came up the Mississippi and Arkansas River and engraved a traditional rune stone here. The theory has not been substantiated, so it’s no longer a state park, but a free local park run by volunteers. But even if it’s a “fake” and the rune stone is only 100 instead of 1,000 years old: This would still make it the oldest physical evidence of “fake news” west of the Mississippi, if you were to be into those kinds of superlatives.

The approx. 100 or possibly 1,000 year old Heavener Runestone

Maybe because we don’t try to do quite as much as normally and we stay away from cities and events, we have been staying at even more pretty campgrounds than we usually do. We have spent at least half our nights at campsites right on lakes, which is surprising in an area that has hardly any natural lakes at all. But we enjoy the “fake lakes” as I call the reservoirs. Most of them were built by the Army Corps of Engineers for flood control. To our benefit, around the lakes, they often built several campgrounds, hiking trails and even some disc golf courses for our enjoyment.

We took the Talimena National Scenic Byway back into Arkansas. We are slightly too early for the best fall colors, but the scenery and the weather is perfect for strolls, walks and hikes through nature. So as a reward for reading (or at least scrolling) this far, I’ll leave you with some nature pictures or ‘extreme social distancing’ pictures, since we are sometimes the only ones on a trail:

Stick Bug on a Stick

The Motherload of Mushrooms at Lake Ouashita

The "Ghost Plant"

The first fall colors

Trail in Queen Wilhelmina State Park

(Not) stuck between a rock and another rock
at Robber's Cave State Park

Oklahoma is OK!

Life is Good at yet another pretty campsite buy a lake,

Aloha from Lake Greeson,

Chris & Sandra