Lisette decided to walk Sheila first thing in the morning, and it was already hot, humid and sticky before 8am! Seems like there's no escaping the heat at the moment. Walking around the lake at the RV park, where motor homes were stationed, seemed to be a good idea, until Lisette saw the "Beware of Alligator" sign on it, and decided to not take Sheila the whole way around!
College Football is Big, Big Business
As we headed downtown, we passed Louisiana State University, and what was the biggest stadium we'd seen on this trip--actually, perhaps ever! Tiger Stadium (also known as "Death Valley") is the home stadium of the LSU Tigers football team, and has a capacity of 102,321 people (a rather odd number), and is the seventh largest stadium in the world. We know that US colleges are big on sports, and can command crowds that outnumber professional sports, but it was still jaw-dropping to see the size and scale of it in person. The largest US stadium (and third largest in the world after stadiums in India and North Korea!!) is Michigan Stadium for the University of Michigan, so we'll see if we can check it out when we get there.
The Old State Capitol
We headed downtown, taking a quick photo of the Sculpture of Oliver Pollock, a merchant and financier of the American Revolutionary War, who is often credited with inventing the U.S. Dollar sign in 1778. A brief stroll from here is the Old State Capitol, which looks like a castle from the outside, and a cathedral from the inside, with its beautiful stained glass windows! It's a Gothic Revival-style building, with white stone walls that have turrets and a moat-like structure, giving it a medieval fortress appearance. Built between 1847 and 1852, it's sometimes called the "Castle on the River" because it's up on a hill overlooking the Mississippi River.
Today, the Old State Capitol is a museum that details Louisiana's political and civil rights history, and admission is free. We could see the governor's former office and other historic documents. There was an interesting exhibit about Huey P. Long, the controversial governor and senator from Louisiana who could have been the state's first US President, but was assassinated in 1935. What was great about this exhibit was that there was a "pro" and "con" section about him and his accomplishments, to provide a balanced assessment where the visitor ultimately decides if they think he was a good leader or not. There was also a detailed exhibit about the democratic process for school kids.
But upon entering the Old State Capitol, what really catches everyone's attention is the grand, exquisite spiral staircase that leads up to the stained-glass dome. Since we were there during the day, it was beaming vibrant colors down on us, like we were inside a kaleidoscope. It's these features that make this probably the most beautiful building in the entire city.
The Old Governor's Mansion
The Old Governor's Mansion was built in 1930 by Senator/Governor Huey P. Long. Designed in the Georgian or Classical Revival styles, it's a beautiful building that's often compared to the White House, with tall Corinthian columns, at the end of a boulevard lined with oak trees. Nine different Louisianan governors lived here between 1930 and 1963.
It's another free museum (yay!), and we probably spent about 30 minutes here, walking past the marble staircase and crystal chandeliers to check out the first room that looked like it was out of a Jane Austin ballroom scene, with debutantes lining up for their first waltz.
The first floor has grand reception rooms, a family dining room and other areas for entertaining guests, and we went up Senator Long’s infamous secret staircase that went up to the main bedroom. Upstairs, there were also the children's rooms, and it was interesting to see the decor of the time (bright pink or purple bathroom, anyone?), and the rooms fitted with items from the period. There was even a small oval office inside, a hint to Senator Long's presidential ambitions before he was assassinated.
The New State Capitol
While we didn't go inside, we drove further along to see the current State Capitol, again developed by US Senator Huey P. Long. Completed in 1932, it's a skyscraper-style building, the tallest state capitol in the United States at 137 meters (450 feet). There are tours and an observation deck inside, and there's probably more details inside about Senator Long, as he was was shot in the hall beside what is now the Speaker's Office, dying two days later.
The Town of Texarkana
We had a long, long drive ahead of us, and we had initially planned to stop at the city of Shreveport in Louisiana to break up the trek, but figured we'd push on as there wasn't much we wanted to see there. Michael ended up driving up almost 5 hours to get to the state of Arkansas, along fairly flat terrain, driving alongside a lot of trucks and fields, until we arrived at a town called Texarkana (who knew that was a name of a town)? If the name isn't a clear giveaway, the city is near the Texas and Arkansas border.
Since we'd driven for so long, we arrived at the Sunrise RV Park well after office hours. The RV spot we had was very basic--just a spot on a gravel site with water, sewer and electricity, but no trees to shade ourselves under, and no picnic area either. But the main thing was that everything worked, and we had the pool to ourselves for the evening! It wasn't too shallow or too warm, and we'd be closer to our next stop in the morning.
Route Map
