May 16th - 1 Year Anniversary - Home in Louisiana

On this date one year ago we drove across the Mississippi River into this great state of Louisiana and renewed our citizenship.  It has been a wonderful year, meeting many new friends, attending festivals, enjoying the friendship and fellowship of the people of this fine place.  We miss our friends from other places, but thanks to technology and transportation, we never leave good friends, just add more.

We love living in Louisiana; it is truly home.

5/16/2010 - Returning to Louisiana, Mississippi River Bridge, Vidalia, LA

Mississippi Flooding

The flooding in 2011 from the Mississippi River is significant, exceeding or approaching the record flood levels from the great floods of 1927 and 1973.  I am saving newspaper articles from the Town Talk of Alexandria, Louisiana in an album for reference.

The Army Corps of Engineers has documented the potential flood inundation in Louisiana from assumed openings of the Bonnet Carre spillway, Morganza spillway, and Old River Control structure.

Old River Control Structure - 5/7/2011

The Mississippi continues to rise to record or near record levels, flooding huge areas from the Midwest to the South.  We visited the Old River Control Structure north of Simmesport, LA on Saturday (see my January blog post) and walked out to the middle of the structure.  It was an awesome site to see eight flood gates open and to see and hear the power of the water from the Mississippi as it came out of the flood gates on it's way to the nearby Atchafalaya River.  Check out this video.

We saw many pickup trucks hauling household goods as people were moving from the low areas before they are flooded.  It's sad to realize how many people will be impacted by the floods, but encouraging that they have the opportunity to save some of their belongings.

The road to the Angola Ferry was flooded seriously.  I know they were evacuating the prisoners to a tent city on high ground.

And on a good note, we had lunch in Simmesport at the Family Grill where I had a great Garfish Sandwich.

Civil War Sesquicentennial - 4/28-5/1 2011

The sister cities of Alexandria and Pineville, La., commemorated the Sesquicentennial of the Civil War with a weekend of living history, reenactments and other activities.  We attended several events:

• Kent Plantation House experiencing life on the home front 
• Tyrone Plantation with Civil War artillery reenacters, and story tellers sharing experiences of slaves
• Fort Randolph and Buhlow Historic Site hearing historians share the history of the Red River Campaign, and Union and Confederate re-enactors in a battle on the site of earthwork forts built during the War. The forts were a response to the Union Fleet's Red River Campaign.

It was a very special remembrance of a difficult war.  


 

Churning butter at Kent House

Preparing to fire at Tyrone Plantation

The Civil War Guide to the Red River Campaign of March - May 1864 is described in a document available from this Louisiana College Department of History web page.