Beautiful Baton Rouge

We were headed to New Orleans to meet Jeff & Kathy, but planned to spend a week in a city I had heard was worth a visit-Baton Rouge, the Capitol of Louisiana.  The drive was amazing. We sure got a good look at bayou country. The highway was elevated, like a giant bridge for miles & miles. It was hard to believe that people could live in between all of the water, but there were houses (on stilts) and roads. We ran into a major traffic jam as we drove into Baton Rouge and soon realized that traffic is a problem there!

Lots of traffic on this bridge over the mighty Mississippi

Our first outing in Baton Rouge was a visit to the old Governors Mansion.

It has been beautifully restored with each of the bedrooms decorated to represent one of the Governors who had lived in the house.  We had a wonderful docent who told us many stories about the Governors.  The mansion was built by Huey Long, who was Governor from 1928-1932, then was a senator for the state until he was assassinated in 1935. 

Life size standee of Huey Long

He was quite a colorful character, with no lack of ego.  When he decided to run for the Senate, he convinced his best friend to run for Governor, and used his influence to be sure he won - but only after he promised to do what Huey told him to do!  Huey made it known that he intended to run for President.  When he built the mansion, he modeled it after the White House.  Unfortunately, Huey never had the chance to live in the real White House.  While working on legislation in Washington that would cause a justice to lose his position, he snubbed the wrong man (a relative of the justice) and was shot.  He died two days later.

There were many unique items in the mansion. It was also very interesting to see how they dealt with the very warm, humid summers with huge windows designed for cross ventilation and very high ceilings.

Outside were these huge live oaks - notice the ferns growing on the trunk!

 

From the Old Governor's Mansion, we walked toward the river a few blocks to the Old State Capitol Building. 

It was built in 1847 in Gothic Revival style, designed to resemble - surprise - a medieval castle!  It has a gorgeous stained glass dome.

The dome is over a spiral stairway.

This stained glass window was in one of the meeting rooms.

The meeting room

Beautiful entry

The building is also a museum with exhibits about Louisiana history (sorry this is so dark).

Interestingly, the New State Capitol Building was built in 1932 by then Governor, Huey Long!  It cost 5 million dollars, including 1 million in artwork & is still the tallest capitol building in the country.

 

Our next outing was to the WWII destroyer, the USS Kidd and Veterans Museum. 

For the price of admission, you get a map and get to wander through all of the levels of the destroyer.

The ship is a Fletcher class destroyer, weighs 2,050 tons and was equipped to attack surface vessels of all sizes plus submarines and aircraft!

Everything has been restored to give it a very authentic look.

Ron in part of the galley - there were as many as 300 men on the ship.

I think this was referred to as "the war room".  It had maps & charts in addition to the communication equipment.

A lifeboat

The doors were small and stairways were steep!

The back end of a torpedo

Bombs!

The Kidd launched February 28, 1943 & served for nearly 20 years.  The grey paint job is wartime camouflage called "Measure 22" used for the invasion of Japan.  It is designed to let the ship blend in with the greys of the horizon and the sea.

We didn't have time to go through the Veterans Memorial museum, but we did walk through the beautiful memorial garden area.

These are just a few of the memorials here.

 

Of course, we couldn't leave Baton Rouge without seeing one of the plantations in the area.  We chose Nottoway Plantation, the South's largest antebellum mansion. 

It was built in 1859 by John Hampden Randolph for his wife and 11 children. The mansion is 53,000 square feet and overlooks the Mississippi. 

Our tour guide was in costume.  She was very good! Full of fun facts about the mansion and the family.

One of the many fireplaces

Many of the fixtures were original to the home

The place settings are decorated with gold leaf!  They cost several thousand dollars per setting.

This is the Mississippi from the second floor veranda.  The shore line was originally on the other side of the tree line in the distance!  The river has taken a lot of the Randolph land that was sugarcane fields.

Even some of the furniture is original to the mansion. 

 

The daughters of the family had this wing of bedrooms.  Their parent's bedroom overlooked the outside doors.  Only one of the slaves had a key to check on the girls each night.

The boys stayed in rooms separate from the main house & could come and go as they pleased!

                                  The boys & some of the house slaves had rooms in the building below.

             The grounds are  beautiful, with 200 year old live oaks, fountains and gardens.

 

Near our campground was a Bass Pro Outdoor World - omg, it was huge!

This is the restaurant on one side of the store.

We spent a rainy afternoon wandering through the store.

 Inside are all kinds of displays, plus any kind of outdoor equipment you can imagine!

 

We had a great time in Baton Rouge and would recommend it to everyone.  There is so much more to see that I'm sure we will make it a point to come  back!