Deep Fried Kudzu

October 7, 2005January 6, 2020

Le Pavillon Hotel (stay 2 post-Katrina), New Orleans LA

We stayed at Le Pav less than a month before the hurricane (that visit here); here’s our trip a month *after* the hurricane:

Room: There *are* hotels open in New Orleans – they’re filled with government people. We were able to get a room at Le Pav for a couple of nights. I’m embarrassed to say what we paid for this room, but I can tell you that it was significant (what can you do?). This room, like the one we stayed in last time, was really small, and the bathroom this time was even smaller than our previous stay.

Lobby: The lobby is still as beautiful as ever. The hotel is filled with firefighters from Yonkers and EPA people and all kinds of government contractors. When Av was waiting for an elevator, a firefighter stopped him and half-jokingly asked if he was in the right place – he couldn’t believe that they had been put up in such a nice hotel.

Service: I’m just going to type in this letter that everyone receives at check-in:

September 26, 2005
Dear Hotel Guest,
We would first like to thank you for staying with us in our time of rebuilding the great city of New Orleans. During this rebuilding process some hotel services are not available and others, although available, are limited. As our guest, we would like to make you aware of these changes.

Due to the displacement of our staff, we are unable to provide daily housekeeping service. Once weekly service will be available. If you need anything such as towels, shampoo, soap, etc. please call extension 4250 and we will gladly bring it to you.
The water hotel is being treated with a chlorine solution but city officials have not yet declared it safe for drinking or brushing your teeth (my note: actually there were warnings that it wasn’t even, at the time, safe to get on your skin….so we brushed our teeth and bathed using bottled water.). We have bottled water available downstairs in the lobby near the elevator for your use, free of charge.
Late night front desk and telephone operator personnel will not be available between the hours of 11:00pm and 7:00am. Upon check in you will be provided with a direct phone number to your room which bypasses the operator station. Please give this number to anyone who may call you during these late hours. If you should need assistance, please speak to our security team located in the main lobby.
Breakfast and dinner will be available a la carte in the Gallery Lounge (and then it lists the hours). (My note: supper was a buffet on all disposable plates and cups. It was $25 per person.)
The Gallery Lounge will be open from 4:00pm to 11:00pm.
Room service is not available. If you need special assistance, dial 4250.
The rooftop pool, hot tub and fitness center is open from 5:00am to 1:00am.
Parking is located across the street. It is currently self-park, free of charge (my note: it stayed at capacity most of the day and night).
The cable television is not currently working (my note: we were only able to get one local channel on antenna).
Guest laundry and dry cleaning service is not available at this time.
Bell service is not available, however if you need to use a cart, one will be provided for you. If further assistance is needed, please let us know.
Our famous PB and J hour is ongoing between 10:00 and 11:00pm.

Thank you for your understanding and cooperation. If you have any questions or concerns, feel free to contact the front desk at extension 4250.

Sincerely,
Ed Morin
Managing Director

Food: We did have supper there one night, the only option was a buffet, and it was $25/pp.

Extra: The PB and J was nice.

Our experience is this: Le Pav wasn’t our favorite hotel before the hurricane, and although we appreciate that there was room for us, the fact that we paid a multiple of the rate we did last time didn’t exactly endear us to it. The Ritz is great (we stay there a few times each year), the Monteleone is nice, the W is cool, and Queen and Crescent isn’t expensive (those four are our fav hotels in New Orleans). Many more hotels are opening in December, and that should bring prices down.

October 7, 2005

Back to New Orleans

Av and I made it back to New Orleans. Crossing over the causeway into Metairie was no problem, but there were checkpoints to get any further into the city. Av had his credentials so we had no trouble.

The first place we went to was Lakeview. I don’t know how to describe it…..it was dirty, dusty, there was an incredible putrid stink in certain places…..we got out of the car at one point and it was like we were the only two people left on the planet. All of the houses had water marks. 5′, 8′, 10′. The spray-painted signs showed if there were any bodies found. Thankfully, most of them showed a zero, but I saw one or two that had big numbers like nine. I told Av I thought that someone must have filled out the ‘x’ wrong. I don’t know. There were other signs, like someone had spraypainted a zero in the bottom quadrant of the ‘x’ but next to it put ‘one person still alive’. There was another that said “cat rescued 9/24”. There were also cars that had been spraypainted to show that they had been checked, and thankfully every one I saw had a zero on it. These are things you never expect to see, ever. Things you never even know to consider.

The French Quarter is much, much better. I’ll post pics of our hotel in a day or two, but we stayed at Le Pavillon along with tons and tons of EPA and other governmental people. The water wasn’t safe to drink or to get on your skin, so we bathed and brushed our teeth with bottled water. All the food was served on disposable plates. Not many places were open. FEMA, Red Cross, National Guard, government people were *everywhere*. We brought a couple of cans of gasoline with us on this trip, but we didn’t need them. We thought that there might not be gasoline available in New Orleans, but there were some stations open in Metairie and there was one off Lee Circle that was open and the attendant told Av that they had never even lost their power the whole time….

The Garden District did okay too. There was some flooding, but nothing like Lakeview.

BTW, the Superdome roof looks like junk. The outside of it has mostly been cleaned up – I remember very vividly seeing the pictures on television of stuff just being *everywhere*. The neutral ground on Canal is mostly cleaned up, and people are using it for parking (it’s not like the streetcar is going to be a problem). You can park anywhere and you won’t get booted – the police are being really nice about letting people park wherever, which is good because a lot of the parking decks aren’t open.

In Metairie, there was flooding and residents there have been back for a few days. We saw lots and lots of carpet and furniture thrown out, and refrigerators with duct tape around them. After that many days without electricity, nobody wants to open their refrigerator. Seriously.

I know I have lots more to say, but it’s really a little much to think about right now.

For now, I have a lot of pictures uploaded to my Flickr set from this trip.

October 6, 2005January 6, 2020

Hampton Inn North, Jackson MS

We’ve stayed at this particular Hampton before, but it’s been a while. Hotel availability in Jackson is still not very easy to come by since the hurricane(s):

Room: This Hampton Inn (North) in Jackson was just below average for the typical Hampton we stay at. The bed was a little uncomfortable – a little hard and spring-y. There wasn’t much on the walls, and one of the walls had a little gash in it like the wallpaper had been ripped into.

Lobby: Usual Hampton lobby area.

Service: Front desk was nice when we were checking in, but when we were checking out there was no one at the desk for a few minutes and when the person did come to the front (there were other people waiting too) she wasn’t exactly cheery.

Food: We did get a little snack from the breakfast area on our way out, but the biscuits were so cold that we only took one bite.

Extra: It’s Jackson, post-Katrina. One takes what one can get.

Our experience is this: We would consider staying here again, only if the one downtown (close to the coliseum) was sold out or the Marriott was offering rooms at $150+ again like they were this particular day.

One more thing (not hotel-related) – Que Sera Sera: The hotel is not far from downtown, so Av and I discussed whether to try Que Sera Sera (on State St) *or* Keifer’s (on Congress) for supper. It was a Sunday night, so a lot of places were closed, but we had wanted to try both of them anyway. We settled on Que Sera Sera and ate outside, which was nice. I had their ‘award-winning’ pasta, but it was really pretty sad. Av’s pick was better – he got one of the appetizers as his main dish. Overall, we were glad we had gotten to eat al fresco….but we wouldn’t go back.

October 3, 2005January 6, 2020

Old Courthouse Museum, Vicksburg MS

We’ve been meaning to visit the Old Courthouse Museum in Vicksburg for so long, and we finally got to it last week. *All* the pics I made at the museum can be found here at my Flickr set.

There is one picture among all the others that I must show — regarding the **famous** minie ball pregnancy – this minie ball passed through a soldier and into a fertile young lady…you know the rest. The sign says:

During the battle of Raymond, Miss., in 1863, a minie ball reportedly passed through the reproductive organs of a young lady who was standing on the porch of her nearby home. The story was written 11 years later by Dr. LeGrand G. Capers of Vicksburg for the American Medical Weekly. Capers claimed that he treated the wounds, that the girl became pregnant from the fertile minie ball, that he delivered the baby, introduced the girl to the soldier, that the two were married and had two more children by the normal method! (We don’t ask you to believe the story, just enjoy it!)

October 2, 2005January 6, 2020

Margaret’s Grocery, 2005 Pics, Vicksburg MS

The last time Av and I took pics of Margaret’s Grocery outside Vicksburg was in 2001 (my previous post for that can be found here). I had heard that Reverend H.D. Dennis (who married Margaret and promised to build her something incredible) had painted more of the buildings in pink blocks… Here are new pics from just a few days ago:

The brown sign in the middle, toward the top, says “the home of the double headed eagle”. The large pink sign says, “the true gospel is preached here”.

One of these signs says: Matt. 16-18. The rock church on the rock. Read it. And Study It.

The big red sign says: The house of prayer for all people to worship. Read your Bible and study your Bible. Jews and Gentiles.

The set with all the pics we took of Margaret’s Grocery can be found here on my Flickr set.

September 30, 2005January 6, 2020

Walnut Hills, Vicksburg MS

Walnut Hills is a ‘revolving table’ restaurant, which means that you sit at a large table with 10 or 12 other people and food is put in front of you on a giant lazy susan that everybody spins to get the dish they like.

Just getting started:

We talked mostly to two couples, one was local and they were super-nice. They were originally from the Delta, and so we got to talk about Cleveland and that area for a while. The other couple (also super-nice) was in Vicksburg because they were on their way back from visiting their condo in Biloxi to see what damage had occurred after Hurricane Katrina. As it turns out, their condo (ground level unit) was damaged very badly. And the couple – they were from Franklin, Tennessee – were in for a fight with their insurance company. They said they had asked their agent when the policy for the condo was written about tidal waves and such, and they were told that they couldn’t get that type of policy written for that location. They will also have to fight (just like everybody else) because their condo is a huge, broken mess and if the damage is due to wind, then they have a certain amount of coverage. But if everything was okay until the storm surge, then it’s classified as a flood and they’re completely out of luck. It’s just something you feel terribly about.

We did get to talk about nicer subjects than the hurricane, and really had a lovely lunch with some very nice people.

As far as what was served, there was coleslaw, fried chicken, greens, rice, macaroni and tomatoes, I can’t even remember everything that they put out….Av especially likes their chicken. The only thing I wasn’t crazy about, that I didn’t remember from the last time we visited, was that they only served unsweet tea!
—
In Vicksburg, Av and I also really like Solly’s Hot Tamales (1921 Washington St).

September 29, 2005August 15, 2017

Natchez City Cemetery, Natchez MS and Trying to Find Miss Sophronia

We’ve been to the Natchez city cemetery several, several times – but I noticed when I went to their website that the site has a section for particularly interesting monuments. I couldn’t right-off find the book that we’d bought earlier about the cemetery, but I made some quick notes about some of the monuments I wanted to take pics of. Here are just a few:

This monument above is for Louise. The Unfortunate.

How sad!
Apparently she came to Natchez to meet and marry her fiance. He either died or just didn’t show up, and she didn’t want to return home. She supposedly went from respectable career choices like seamstress and housekeeper to – over the years – careers that were, ahem, less respectable in society. There are three ideas as to how she came to be buried in this plot, with a headstone (even though no dates are on it), and this is from the cemetery’s website:

…some say Louise became friends with a doctor who treated her during her hard life Under-the-Hill, and upon her death he paid for her funeral. Some say a wealthy plantation owner who frequented her room on lonely nights paid her funeral expenses. Others say a preacher paid for her funeral from his pauper funds, but she wasn’t buried in a pauper’s grave.

Natchez Drug Company / Turning Angel, Natchez City Cemetery, Natchez MS

This pic above is of a monument that was erected by the owner of the Natchez Drug Company. There was an explosion at the building that leveled the five-story structure and among others killed five of his employees, the youngest being twelve years old.

The monument reads:

Erected by the Natchez Drug Company to the memory of the unfortunate employees who lost their lives in the great disaster that destroyed its building on March 14, 1908.

Carrie O. Murray
Inez Netterville
Luella D. Booth
Mary E. Worthy
Ada White

In front of this angel monument are headstones for each of the employees. The angel on the monument is referred to as the ‘turning angel’ because it appears to turn at night as cars’ headlights shine on it from the main road.

Christian Schwartz Monument, Natchez City Cemetery, Natchez MS

Schwartz monument – Christian Schwartz had ‘White House’, the home now known as ‘Glen Auburn’ built.

—

….so we left the cemetery and went to some little just-for-tourists shop right downtown to ask them if they knew where we could find Miss Sophronia that day. Miss Sophronia sells pralines outside Rosalie and also where the Delta Queen and Mississippi Queen steamboats dock, some other places too. When we walked in to this little touristy shop (which I could not believe we were going to, but okay, we wanted to find her), we were asked by this man who didn’t sound at all like he was from anywhere south of Pittsburgh if we wanted to try *their* PRAY-LEENS. (no.)

“Prah-leens” please.

He didn’t know who Miss Sophronia was.

Update 2015: Miss Sophronia passed away July 21, 2015.

She touched the lives of a number of people with her quick style and jovial nature. She enjoyed making praline candy and delighted in meeting people from all over the United States and other countries while selling her pralines during the fall and spring tourist seasons and throughout the year at the various antebellum homes in Natchez and under-the-hill. Nobody was a stranger to her.

September 28, 2005August 14, 2017

Grand Village of the Natchez Indians in Natchez, MS

The first time I’d ever seen mounds like these was earlier this summer when Av and I visited Moundville (that visit here). Since we were going through Natchez on our way to Baton Rouge, we stopped at the Grand Village of the Natchez Indians park for just a few minutes.

One site noted that although people have been in Mississippi for 12,000 years, mounds have only been developed since about 2100 years ago, and their construction continued until about 300 years ago. The mounds here in Natchez aren’t built as high as the ones in Moundville. The ones in Natchez are about 8′ high.

From one of the markers:

Reconstructed Natchez House and Granary
The Natchez Indians lived in permanent houses of mud and pole construction with thatched grass roofs. The granary held surplus corn. The structure to the left of the granary provided shade and served as a drying platform.

above, inside of the house.

There are many other American Indian mounds in Mississippi – several in the Delta, some around Tupelo, and others close to Jackson. I’d love to see all of them! Some of them are flat on top, some of them are domed, and some of them have a pyramid shape. The Emerald mound, which we haven’t visited yet, is the second-largest mound in the US – it’s eight acres, and on top of it are two other mounds!

September 27, 2005August 14, 2017

Port Gibson, MS

Legend has it that Grant said Port Gibson was “too beautiful to burn” – so Port Gibson has this saying on signs around town and in their literature.

I think the most striking thing about Port Gibson (it happens to be the 3rd-oldest incorporated town in the US) is the First Presbyterian Church there.

First Presbyterian Church - Gold Hand Pointing Toward Heaven - Port Gibson MS

That gold hand pointing up is made of metal – it was originally carved from wood. It’s exactly what it’s supposed to be – pointing toward heaven. If you have a super-zoom camera lens, you can see that there are little prickly things all over the top of the hand which keep birds from landing on it.

This is from the church’s website:

By 1859, the congregation numbered 160, and they decided to tear down their old sanctuary and build anew. But because of threats of war, the northern contractor only completed the walls up to the parapet. Elder H.N. Spencer took over the project, and lent the congregation $8,000 to complete it, a debt which he forgave in his will. He is also said to have given $500 in silver coins to be cast into the bell in the steeple, weighing 2,032 pounds. It was first rung on October 10, 1860. Mr. Spencer completed the building in December of 1860, the same month in which Dr. Butler died. His funeral is said to have been the first service held in the new sanctuary.

The Hand pointing to Heaven” is the unique feature of this Romanesque Revival style edifice. The first hand was carved from wood by Daniel Foley, a young local craftsman. The ravages of time, however, destroyed it; and around 1901, the present hand was commissioned and installed. It was taken down in 1989 to be repaired and replated. It was raised again in 1990 and placed atop a newly re-enforced steeple.

September 26, 2005January 6, 2020

Fort Cobun at Grand Gulf, MS and Osage Oranges

Av and I have been to Grand Gulf, MS (Google Maps doesn’t recognize Grand Gulf. Grand Gulf is between Vicksburg and Port Gibson – there is a sign on the highway that will show you where to turn.) before, and decided to visit again last week since we were going close to it, from Vicksburg to Baton Rouge. I really wanted to see if the osage orange trees were okay, since the hurricane had brought down so many trees.

Abandoned Church, Fort Cobun - Grand Gulf, MS

Isn’t this abandoned church so pretty?

Here’s one of the osage oranges. Some people call them hedgeapples, and others call them ‘brain fruit’ because of their texture (closer shot below):

…and they’re such an odd color! Up until earlier this year, when we first visited Grand Gulf, I had never seen one! I only figured out what they were called when I did a Google search.

There was a historic sign with the history of Grand Gulf:

The town of Grand Gulf began in the 18th century as a small British settlement. By 1828 it had grown to a village of three stores, one tavern, and several houses. There was a stage line to Port Gibson and steamboats stopped at its wharves. Incorporated in 1833, Grand Gulf received its name from a large whirlpool formed as the Mississippi River struck a great rock formation. By the late 1830s Grand Gulf had become an important port and trading center with seventy-six city blocks and about 1000 people. Grand Gulf’s decline began in 1843 with a yellow fever epidemic. In 1853 a tornado devastated a large portion of the town. Yellow fever and cholera epidemics resulted in further population losses. To make matters worse, the Mississippi River changed its course and began eating into the land on which the town was built. Between 1855 and 1860, fifty-five city blocks were destroyed by the river. By 1860 only one hundred fifty-eight lived there. During the Civil War, Federal troops and gunboats destroyed the remainder of the town. The town was never rebuilt after the war and today even the river has deserted what was once a bustling river port. All that remains are a few antebellum buildings scattered along what was once the outskirts of the town.

Besides the military park, all that’s left around here is some hunting lodges and an Entergy nuclear plant. Pics from our last visit can be found here.