The first stop was a restaurant, where we hoped to have a nice lunch. Turns out this restaurant was not open for lunch that day. It was a Saturday. I'm not sure why a town would try to lure visitors to their town, and then not accommodate weekend traffic. Especially during the Mardi Gras season when there are more visitors in the area. We settled for another place that was open, although not on the suggested itinerary...and we weren't very happy with the food. Anyway, strike one.
The next stop was an old bakery that's famous for their french bread. Yum! We could already imagine how good it would be. It's located in the next town about 5 miles down the road. When we arrived, it was closed! Not open on Saturdays. Again, we're confused about their logic. In any case, strike two. At this rate, our sightseeing excursion was looking very bleak. And HeM started mumbling something about never venturing out again without calling ahead, etc., clearly losing his appreciation for 'adventure'. :)
Stop #3 was an old rice mill that's still in operation and offers tours. They claim to be the oldest one in America. We stopped. They were open!
The Konrico rice mill tour starts with a 20-minute film about the history of the area which is called Acadiana. The film is a bit on the grandiose side in its presentation, but informative. The film is followed by a short tour of the mill itself--very old, very dusty, and lots of cobwebs! Actually gives one pause when considering buying their products. And, of course, there's a gift shop. We found some habanero sauce that looked interesting, so we bought a small bottle.
The next stop was Avery Island. This is a salt dome where Tabasco Sauce is made.
We arrived approximately 45 minutes before their closing time, and was able to catch the last tour of the day. We missed the opening film, but caught the gist of it at an audio/display station at the end of the tour. The salt used in making Tabasco Sauce all comes from the salt dome the plant sits upon. And, of course, they have a gift shop. We sampled several different flavors of Tabasco Sauce, and decided to purchase a small bottle of their habanero variety. (We seem to be on a mission to purchase as many samples of hot sauce as we can find. We had already purchased a bottle of Beware hot sauce when we were in Spring, TX.)
So, for our first day of sightseeing we were batting 500. At least, it ended on successes. The next day, we ventured into Baton Rouge. We had 4 items on the list--the state capitol building, one of the art museums near the capitol, lunch at a local downtown restaurant, and find a post office to determine the postage needed on an envelope we were mailing to Arlington.
First stop was the capitol building. It was built during the depression at a cost of 5 million dollars. It was built in 14 months. And it IS impressive. It's the tallest building in Baton Rouge, and has a nice observation tower. One of its tourist attractions is that Huey Long was assassinated there in the halls of the capitol building and one of the columns still bears a bullet hole.
After visiting the capitol, we were ready for lunch. In this same area, there is a convention center, museums, and the USS Kidd. With all these tourist attractions, there must be several eating establishments to choose from. Turns out, NOT! After driving around several blocks in every direction and finding nothing, we finally stumbled upon a McDonald's. Really?? So, we had McDonald's for lunch. Not at all what we had in mind; at least the fries were hot.
Our iPhone gave us directions to a post office that was just a couple of blocks away, so at least that would be easy. After following the navigation offered by the phone, and going in complete circles in the opposite direction a couple of times, we did finally find the post office. Mission accomplished. But the disappointing lunch and the frustrating drive to the post office took its toll on our enthusiasm. We called it a day.
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