Hochatown, Oklahoma the next Branson, MO???

It has the feel of the Great Smokey Mountains and is  close to Texas, Arkansas, and Louisiana. By next year, the booming spot in the road just north of Broken Bow, called Hochatown, a longtime mountain retreat for those in the know, will be an ever growing resort town now that the Choctaw Nation has broken ground on their next big casino and resort hotel.  

This Beavers Bend lodge is currently closed for renovations  

Located next to Beavers Bend State Park, the area already has high end vacation rental homes galore.  

The town is preparing for the boom. Temporary traffic lights are now being used.  A bowling alley has opened, a large saloon is already being expanded.  The Maze, zip lines, put put golf, 18 hole public golf course, a couple of micro breweries, a distillery, wineries, coffee shops and restaurants are scattered throughout Hochatown.

 

Boats and wet bikes can be rented for enjoying the lake.  A river for fly fishing, float trips. and horseback riding can be found in the state park.  They have more to offer but I am already sounding like the chamber of commerce and tourist bureau!

Beavers Bens State Park has cabins for rent and several campgrounds. However, the only one that I can recommend is the Buckeye Campground. New with level concrete pads and full hook ups. Large enough for big rigs and fifth wheels. There are several other private RV campgrounds in the area but to be honest none looked very good  

We had an enjoyable stop and we will definitely return. But as soon as people find out about this destination it will be hard to get spaces!  

Avery Island, Louisiana

Tabasco was created by Edmund McIlhenny in 1868 on Avery Island, Louisiana. 

Avery Island isn’t an island. It is a large salt dome or mound surrounded by wetlands. 

McIlhenny was from Maryland originally, but he moved to New Orleans, Louisiana to seek his fortune in banking and was doing well until the civil war. But the aftermath of the war destroyed his business. 

He had acquired some tabasco pepper seeds and he planted them in his garden. 

Sometime around 1867, McIlhenny began experimenting with a sauce made from the peppers. He crushed the red peppers from his plants, mixed them with the salt found naturally on Avery Island and aged the mixture for a month in crocks. 

Today,  peppers are crushed and stored in barrels and topped with salt for up to three years. 

 The pepper seeds and skins are strained and the juice remaining is mixed with white wine vinegar and then aged for three months in these barrels. 

After taste testing and bottling the Tabasco Sauce is born.

After touring we did some Tabasco tastings! 

The ice cream was really good!  

Jungle gardens 

In 1935, McIlhenny opened his 170 acre gardens to the public to enjoy his collection of camellias, azaleas and other imported plants. 

McIlhenny Home

A bird sanctuary where thousands of egrets arrive in the spring and a few hang around year round. 

Along with a few other critters. 

The Buddha statue acquired by the McIlhenny Family is believed to be 900 years old. 

If you notice, the statue is missing the bottom part of one of his ears. A few years back, the ear was broken off by a visitor to the park and taken as a souvenir. Hope that person got bad juju. The Buddha is now housed behind plexiglass. 

People leave offerings to Buddha

 Beautiful moss covered live oak trees! 

New Orleans, LA

I visited New Orleans about 30 years ago for work and Mark went several times with some friends but he has never carried a camera and we had never seen the city together. 

We might have been crazy, in a huge diesel truck, but we drove to the French Quarter and found free (and safe- smile) parking at the corner of Bourbon and Canal streets. 

First stop Jackson Square and the obligatory stop for beignets at Cafe Du Monde. Yep, as good as I remembered! 

We crashed mass at the St. Louis Cathedral. 

They don’t use horses for carriage rides. Mules only! 

Strolled the square to see the art, hear the music, step around homeless and avoid the guy shooting up in a store stoop with two other guys waiting for the needle. Really sad and will be a lasting memory, unfortunately…and the reason we decided that there was not a need to visit at night. 

We strolled Bourbon street and of course had to keep the day drinking, that started with bloody Mary’s at breakfast, going with White Russian daiquiri’s to go in the Quarter. 

Street cars are an efficient way to see the historic district. 

The sights and the sounds! 

We visited the garden district to see the stunning historic homes. 

Sandra Bullocks home

Loyola and Tulane Universities sit side by side and they might have the most beautiful campuses I have ever visited. 

St Charles Street is on the parade route and you can tell just by looking into the trees. 

To get to our RV campground in River Ridge, from the historic district, we passed through an area hard hit by Katrina, Rita and Ida.  You can tell the flooding damage from Katrina is still present 17 years after the hurricane. Houses still boarded up next to fully restored. Can’t imagine the impact of the boarded up house on the neighbors property value. 

I was fascinated by an area packed with shotgun houses. Seriously, some are not much wider than the front door. 

 

Oak Alley Plantation, Vacherie, Louisiana

Oak Alley’s trees are between 250-300 years old. This picture perfectly describes the name. Beautiful. There are 28 trees, to match the 28 columns on the “Big House”. Hurricanes and tropical storms have damaged some of the trees but none down the alley. 

I zoomed in, hopefully, to show the massive root systems.

The mansion was started in 1836 and is constructed of bricks made on site by slaves. Completed 3 years later for the Jacques Roman and his family. 

The plantation produced sugar cane with over 220 slaves working from approximately 1835 to the end of the civil war in 1865. 90 slaves lived on the plantation at the height of wealth and cane production. 

Slave housing

Slave sick room

Names of the slaves registered as working on the plantation

Jacques Roman died in 1848 of tuberculosis and the estate began to be managed by his wife, Marie Roman. She did not have a skill for managing a sugar plantation and her heavy spending nearly bankrupted the estate. 

Jacques and Marie’s bedroom 

Main living area 

In 1859 her son, Henri, took control of the estate and tried to turn things around. The plantation was not physically damaged during the civil war, but the economic impact of the war and the end of slavery made it no longer economically viable.  

Nursery

Henri became severely in debt, mainly to his family. In 1866, his uncle, Valcour Aime and his sisters, Octavie and Louise, put the plantation up for auction and it was sold for $32,800. 

Owner after owner could not maintain the estate and In the 1920’s , the estate fell into disrepair. 

Gardens 

Andrew Stewart purchased the estate for his wife Josephine. The house was restored and modernized. Before her death, Josephine set up a foundation to keep the Oak Alley history alive and it has not been lived in since the 1970’s.