April 11, 2024

April 11, 2024

We checked out of our hotel and drove toward the French Quarter of New Orleans. With the unplanned park closure yesterday we need to cram that agenda into this morning's schedule. We found a parking lot and walked towards Jackson Square. The Police are setting barriers up for a parade and the start of the French Quarter Festival. Unfortunately we can’t stay. The center of the square has an equestrian statue of Andrew Jackson who saved the city.

The National Park Visitor Center thankfully opened on time. Because of budgeting, it is now a two-fer housing both Jean Lafitte National Historical Park and the New Orleans Jazz National Historical Park. The exhibits here focus on New Orleans as a melting pot of cultures. Major port cities usually are multicultural but here it was intensified by the change of ownership from Indian to French to Spanish to American. It was doubled by the addition of thousands of African slaves. The result is unique (and delicious) foods, Creole languages, and new musical styles like Jazz, Swing, and Zydeco.

Afterwards we retraced our path back to the car and drove to the Chalmette Battlefield, the main unit of Jean Lafitte NHP. At the end of the War of 1812, Britain wanted to capture the city of New Orleans. Learning of this, General Andrew Jackson rushed here and assembled a confederation of militias, Indians, and Jean Lafitte’s smuggler-pirates. Fortunately New Orleans is not easy to sail to and is protected by a maze of rivers, canals, and swamps. Jackson had a fortified wall built across a Sugar Plantation, blocking the British advance, forcing them to make a suicidal frontal assault. 2000 British soldiers were killed in two hours. Unknown to either side, a peace treaty had been signed a few weeks before in Paris. The victory made Jackson a national hero.

We did a quick driving tour of the battlefield before heading out of town north into Mississippi, and our next hotel accommodations outside the capital city, Jackson. On the way we passed the Lynyrd Skynyrd Monument where the band's plane crashed in 1977 killing five.

We had dinner next door at a Catfish restaurant, one of my favorite Southern meals. We were a little shocked at their explicit Christian decor.