Plantations & Antebellum Homes

Alexander Mouton House, 1122 Lafayette St., Lafayette, LA

Up really early today, due mainly to the poor sleep we got last night. With only a few neighbors in the motel they all seemed to be a rowdy crowd, up till late and ready to fight with each other at any moment. Not the best for sleeping. Also, we had a room with only one Queen sized bed, which is a little snug for my wife and I at our size.

So, we are up at about 6:30 a.m. and dressed, without a shower I might add, and get packed for the day and ready for breakfast. Now this is another fun experience. The "Lobby" of this motel is a small room about eight feet long and six feet wide with a window to the desk clerk when they are there. The breakfast consisted of you choice of a tray of individually wrapped honey buns, a cup of orange juice, coffee and two kinds of cold cereal.

Lafayetter City Hall and statue of Alexander Moulton.

Off we go to check out Louisiana and the Plantations and Antebellum homes. Lafayette is our first town, then St. Martinville and New Iberia. Several stops to take pictures and stroll. One historic site had a short tour through the old Plantation Home and we took a few pictures of the unique furniture. A very different small rocking chair with a drawer in the base, and a Rolling Pin bed. The bed used feathers and dried moss from the trees to stuff the mattress and in the morning the rolling pin, which was part of the head board was taken off and rolled up and down to re-spread the feathers and moss so they didn’t lump so badly. You can see the pin in the photo.

Today was one of the first days we have seen moss on the trees and we took several photos. The very old live oak trees are literally dripping with moss. We were told that in the 1980s the air got so bad that all of the moss was nearly killed off. Only efforts to clean the air have helped bring it back.