01-06NOV14 - Tickfaw State Park, Springfield, LA (visiting w/guldenschuhs)

Saturday, 01NOV, Corrie & Rebecca headed to the annual local crafts fair at Southdown Plantation, leaving Dan to baby sit.  Sunday morning Rebecca & Dan took Jaxson & Mason for a walk in the nearby Mandalay National Wildlife Refuge.  Even though the Refuge has thousands of acres, there is only one short nature trail; unfortunately 99% of the Refuge is only accessible by water (ie boat).

http://www.fws.gov/mandalay/

Tuesday (election day) morning, 04NOV, we headed to Tickfaw State Park near Hammond, LA, to meet up with our old friends the Chuck & Anneke Guldenschuh.

http://www.crt.state.la.us/louisiana-state-parks/parks/tickfaw-state-park/

Followers of our BLOG know that Chuck & Dan served together in the Coast Guard starting in 1979 in Rotterdam, the Netherlands.  Our paths have crossed repeatedly (even serving together again in Rotterdam in 1995/97); & as fulltime RV’ers since 2006.  See below BLOG for our last visit with them.

http://theryanrvexpress.blogspot.com/2014/02/0304feb14-navarre-fl-via-tallahassee-fl.html

After setting up camp & snacking, we headed to a Roadside attraction Dan had read about - “Dr Charles Smith’s African-American Heritage Museum & Black Veterans Archive”.  As the website Roadside America states:

“Years of steady work have again transformed Dr. Charles' yard into a folk art mass, used by him as a springboard for lessons in black history for anyone who stops by and wants to listen. "People don't really pick it up until you talk to them," said Dr. Charles. "Then the whole picture comes clear, and everything reads like a book."

Although well into his seventies, Dr. Charles still has the two-fisted forcefulness of a Marine, with strongly worded opinions on everything from race to politics. His museum covers some very unpleasant topics, but he's so earnest and big-hearted that it all somehow doesn't seem so bad.

"When you get back in your car and think about it," said Dr. Charles, "You go, 'Well, shee-it, he's right! He's got a lot of balls for saying it, but he's sure right."”

Check out the below internet link for more details & location.

http://www.roadsideamerica.com/story/38831

After that we had a walkabout in Hammond’s very nice looking downtown.  Then it was back to their RV for dinner & Mexican train dominoes.

Wednesday morning we all headed over to the state park’s Nature Center.  This was a very nice facility with educational displays and an outdoor boardwalk trail (on the walk we spotted a water moccasin).  Then we all drove to Baton Rouge, where the first stop was for lunch at Poor Boy Lloyd’s.  Lloyd’s is a Baton Rouge institution famous for their PoBoys, only open for breakfast & lunch.

http://www.poorboylloyds.com/

Then we walked a couple of blocks to tour the old state capitol building; formally known as “The Louisiana Old State Capitol Museum”.  Outside the museum we discovered a WWI French boxcar, which was part of the 1949 Merci Train.  Over four year ago we ran across one of these in Albuquerque & as we said in our 27MAR10 BLOG – “This is another of those small pieces of USA history that is extremely interesting but unheard of.  The Merci Train was a French reply to the 1947 USA Friendship Train put together by Drew Pearson.  We won’t bore you with the details, but encourage you to check it out on the internet.”

The below internet link will tell you where the Merci Train boxcar is located in your state.

http://mercitrain.org/

The museum’s building was the Louisiana Capitol Building from 1852 to 1932.  The interior of the building has been beautifully restored with many stain glass windows; & the museum has many displays showing the various “capitols” of Louisiana, starting with the Spanish conquistadors to present day Governors in Baton Rouge.  This being Louisiana, a large portion of the displays deal with Governor Huey P Long (aka The Kingfish).  Long was a bigger than life Louisiana Governor (& eventually US Senator) who was planning to run for President, when he was apparently assassinated in 1935.  (We say “apparently” because the exact circumstances of the shooting are not clear; & he may have been shot by his bodyguard & that was covered up?)  A very interesting museum!  Then it was back to their RV for Mexican train dominoes, dinner & more reminiscing. See their BLOG for their spin on our visit/time together:

http://goldenshoervtrip.blogspot.com/2014/11/friends-and-activist-artist.html

http://goldenshoervtrip.blogspot.com/2014/11/baton-rouge-and-old-state-capitol.html

http://www.louisianaoldstatecapitol.org/

Thursday morning, 06NOV, we said our good-byes & headed to Dixie RV to have our dash AC looked at once again!  Dan had called Dixie back in mid-October: but they had no service appointments available & put us on waiting list.  After sitting around all day we finally learn that the magnetic clutch on the new AC compressor is bad & the whole unit may need replacing!  Since the unit is less than one year old & probably has less than 20 hours on it, Dan plans on seeing if it is covered by any warranty at the repair facility that installed it when return to Houma?