Each plantation great house in the Deep South is a little different, and of the many I visited I had several favorites, each one for a different reason. In some ways the next plantation along the Mississippi I visited, Houmas House, was my favorite. I thought it had the best flower garden and in some ways the best tour largely because of a great guide dressed as a southern belle who remained completely in character at all times. She put on a great show!

Houmas House also has a somewhat different interior from many of the plantation houses which typically contain a central hall, white walls, portraits hanging on the walls, and somewhat restrained furnishings for a bright cheery overall atmosphere . Houmas house, though, is opulently furnished with dark wood furniture, colored wallpapers, lots of mirrors and silverware on display, and a Gothic feel like something out of a scene in the movie "Interview With a Vampire".

I decided to stop for night in Donaldsonville, a town along river with massive Catholic church and supposedly one of best restaurants in Cajun Country. The Grapevine Café was recommended in my Lonely Planet guidebook and didn't disappoint. I tried to get as Louisiana as I could for my first real feast meal in the state with Louisiana microbrew beers by Abita Brewing Company, Terrapin Soup, Pan-Fried Fish with Seafood Creole sauce, and Bread Pudding with Bourbon Sauce. With lots of driving and food like this in Louisiana, I’m going to look like gluttonous celebrity chef Paul Prudhomme by the time I get home even if I don’t go to his restaurant in New Orleans.

It was Friday night in a small town and lots of people were out on the square in the pleasant evening weather. I wandered around for a while because I had little else to do but felt quite out-of-place in the mostly young African-American crowd with pulsing Rap music blaring from some boom boxes. “So why is it that “the N-word” is so horrible it can’t be spoken on TV or radio even in reference to its usage but is acceptable when it makes up about every third word in modern Rap lyrics?” I wondered. I contemplated the question extensively as I fell asleep with a few more Abita beers in my car in a dark part of a chain motel parking lot.