JURASSIC PARK IN LOUISIANA

Dinosaurs Galore!

This prehistoric park is close to Cajun Palms RV Resort.  We could hear dinosaur noises coming from this walk-thru park. We expected a Disney like experience where the creatures were animated and bellered like in the movies but alas none of the dinosaurs along the walkway moved or made noise.  Nonetheless, it was a nice day to go for a walk along the shaded paved path in a dinosaur park.

Pterosaur - "Winged Lizard"

The Pterosaur was a flying reptile and a carnivore.  They ranged from a few inches up to 40 feet long. They walked on their elbows, by folding in their wings. They had a large brain and excellent eyesight.

Velociraptor - "Swift Plunderer"

 The Velociraptor was about the size of a really large turkey, and believed to have had feathers. They travelled in packs.  They ran with their sickle-shaped toes pointed back, ready to tear apart any prey they go hold of. Their tails were inflexible and not useful as weapons, but it kept them balanced as they ran, hunted and jumped.  They may have been able to run up to 40 mph on their skinny legs, but only in short bursts.

Camarasaurus - "Chambered Lizard"

The Camarasaurus was up to 85 feet in length, up to 15 tall and up to 20 tons. It had a larger, hollow-like head in comparison to other sauropods. It had a relatively short neck and tail. It was a herbivore with teeth strong and robust indicating it may have processed food in its mouth a while before swallowing.

Tyrannosaurus Rex - "Tyrant Lizard King"

The T-Rex, a carnivore,  was up to 42 feet in length, up to 13 feet tall and up to seven tons. It has massive jaws with 50 to 60 blade-like teeth, some up to nine inches long! It could bite its prey with the force of 2000-3000 pounds of pressure. When it ran, it could go 20 mph and cover 15 feet in one step. Its arms were only three feet long with two-fingered hands, not too helpful in fighting other dinosaurs.

Styracosaurus - "Spiked Lizard"

The Styracosaurus was a herbivore that ate ferns and plants.  It was up to 17 feet long, up to six feet tall and up to three tons. Their large frills had at least six horns on them. It also had a two foot horn extending from its snout and smaller horns poking out from its cheeks. The horns were likely used to defend them from predators.

Olorotitan - "Giant Swan"

The Olorotitan was an herbivore that ate twigs and leaves. It was up to 40 feet in length, up to 13 feet tall and weighed up to five tons.  It had a relatively long neck compared to other duck billed dinosaurs. They walked primarily on two legs though it may have grazed on all four legs. It was the fastest of the hadrosaurs when on its hind legs.

Gastonia 

The Gastonia was a herbivore that ate plants,  It was up to 15 feet long, up to five feet tall and weighed up to one ton.  It had poor eyesight but a great sense of smell and hearing.  It moved slow and probably behaved like most turtles, lying low and waiting for predators to pass.  The only way to take this creature down would have been by flipping it on its back as it had a soft belly. Its head contained a mobile brain case, perhaps for shock absorbency in case of head butting in a confrontation. The Gastonia was recently discovered and named in 1998 after Rob Gaston who found the first specimen. Research is still being done on how rapidly they grew and how much they needed to eat.

In the Mouth of a Dinosaur

The highlight was the roomful of animated dinosaurs a the end of the tour and before entering the gift shop.  The tail of the dinosaur looked like it could knock the head off a really tall person.

THE JUNGLE GARDENS OF AVERY ISLAND

Home of E.A. McIlhenny

Edward Avery McIlhenny was a self-taught naturalist who returned from an arctic expedition in 1898.  Shortly after he took over the family's Tabasco pepper sauce business.  He married Mary Matthews of New Orleans and built a house called Mayward Hill in what became Jungle Gardens. Together they raised three children on the island.  He applied his skills to running the family business, caring for his mother and extended family members, and learned to harness his boundless curiosity, abilities and vigor to serve this small isolated "island."
The original house burned in 1924 but was rebuilt.

Southern Live Oak Tree

It was on Avery Island that owner Ed McIlhenny helped save the snowy egret from extinction by building an aviary and then capturing and raising eight wild egrets. After they had raised their hatches and were ready to migrate, McIlhenny freed them. The egrets returned the next spring and every spring since then. Egrets and herons have returned by the thousands to the rookery now called "Bird City".

Four Foot Alligator Sunning by Lagoon

Jungle Gardens is home to a large collection of camellias. Thousands of plants represent 600 varieties, including imports from Japan and France, as well as varieties that McIlhenny developed on Avery Island.

Cleveland Oak is Over 300 Years Old

The Cleveland Oak was named for U.S. President Grover Cleveland. Cleveland was a close friend of Joe Jefferson, the actor Rip Van Winkle fame who owned nearby Jefferson Island. In 1891, Cleveland came to south Louisiana to stay with Jefferson and at that time visited Avery Island.  Cleveland had two oaks named after him during that trip, one on Jefferson Island and this one on Avery Island.  McIlhenny family tradition states that Cleveland hugged these trees, explaining why they were named in his honor.  The Cleveland Oak on Avery Island is about 23 feet in circumference and over 300 years old.

Holly Arch Planted in the 1920s

Wildlife includes white tailed deer, rabbits, alligators, coyote, turtles, possums, squirrels, nutria, raccoons, and bobcats. Jungle Gardens is a birder's paradise, home to hundreds of species of resident and migratory birds.

Buddha Created 900 Years Ago

A Buddha was a gift to E. A. McIlhenny in 1936. It was created for the Shonfa Temple during the reign of Emperor Hui-Tsung some 900 years ago. The statue overlooks a picturesque lagoon.

Palm Garden

The Palm Garden was once an old mining sand pit that has evolved into a pleasant and shady walk. The Pindo Jelly is centered in the garden sitting on a hill surrounded by Sago Palms and stones E.A.'s collection of palms include unusual specimens from around the world.  He planted palms and cacti here because they love sandy soil.

Avery Island is a salt dome that extends eight miles beneath the earth's surface. The protruding "island" part of this formation rising above the surface is home to the world's most beautiful sanctuaries for the preservation and study of flora and fauna.

FROGMORE PLANTATION & GINS

1800's Plantation Store

The Frogmore Plantation was built near Native American mounds in the fertile Mississippi Delta, across the Mississippi River from Natchez. There is no grand antebellum house to walk through.  This is a working plantation established in the early 1800's. This site is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. It 
includes preserved original buildings as well as some that were donated from other plantations to save and protect them from destruction and help set the scene for a working plantation.

 The slave quarters were authentically furnished with the implements they used for daily living, the food that they ate and how they prepared it, and clothes they wore. 

There is a preserved slave quarter cabin (1840) that is furnished with period artifacts. One cabin was divided half, first to show it as if occupied by a slave family and the second half to show it as occupied by sharecroppers. 

There is an open barn with old farm equipment including hand tools and mule-driven implements.

Owner and Guide Lynettte Tanner

It was interesting learning about the the cultivation, harvesting and ginning of cotton.

Steam Cotton Gin Separates Seeds Out of Cotton

In 1884 Robert S. Munger was the first person to invent suction in the gins. On the Frogmore Plantation is a Smithsonian-quality 1884 Munger steam gin for ginning the cotton.  

Baling Cotton Lint

Robert Munger was the man who revolutionized the cotton ginning industry, and this gin is patented 1884. It is in perfect condition and has all the elements, start to finish, for processing cotton into bales. A modern gin can do 900 bales per day.

Preserved Overseer Cabin (1811)

The overseer's cabin was authentically furnished and included an 1810 hand-pegged cypress dogtrot.

It Took 30# of Cotton to Fill Sack

I especially liked the demonstration of how cotton was hand picked by going to the cotton field and pick our own cotton. A slave would have worn a long bag which they filled with the cotton. 

I'm Sure He Will be Growing Cotton in Spring

We had a "hands on" experience of touching, picking, feeling the sharp edges of the pods, and deseeding the cotton.  In a small piece of cotton, about the size of a cotton ball, you could feel about ten seeds trapped in the cotton. It illustrated how labor intensive it must have been to pick cotton by hand.  

America's Original Vegetable Oil

Cotton producers do not waste anything, even the seeds are processed for oil and used in soap, cosmetics, baked goods, mayo, margarine and more. Cottonseed oil is said to be low in trans fat, similar to canola, corn, safflower, soybean and sunflower oil.

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Depiction of Plantation Life

Some slave songs were codes for slaves escaping to be free. 

Native American Mound 

At Frogmore, there is a Native American mound that measures 14 feet high and 200 feet long, one of 39 mounds along Louisiana's Ancient Mounds Heritage Area and Trails. 

DYESS COLONY - BOYHOOD HOME OF JOHNNY CASH

New Deal Relocation Colony 1930s

Back during the Depression, many farmers lost their homes and had nothing. Dyess Colony was established in 1934 under the Works Progress Administration by President Franklin D. Roosevelt.  Resettlement Colony No. 1 consisted of 16,000 acres. Men were hired off the relief rolls to make something of the snake-infested area.

It was a second chance for 500 families stricken by the Great Depression.

Families were selected on the basis of need, farming knowledge, and physical fitness. These pioneers cleared land for farms with the government-subsidized help of 20-40 acres and a mule. These families were expected to pay back the federal government in two years.

Fertile Swamp Bottomlands Were Cleared

The area in northeast Arkansas that included Dyess were known as the "Sunk Lands" after the New Madrid earthquakes. A series of shocks between December 1811 and February 1812 dropped vast amounts of land as much as 50 feet into the earth.

Small Two Bedroom Home on Site 266

The government built farm houses, chicken coops and smoke houses and expected the colonists to do the back breaking work of clearing the remainder of each tract, convert it to agricultural production, and ultimately purchase their farmsteads on reasonable terms. They cut down trees and blasted stumps to farm cotton, corn and soybeans along with maintaining a pasture for livestock.

Mama's Pantry

A town center was also created with federal offices and support services for the colony, including a community center, schools, hospital cannery, cotton gin, co-op store, cafe and other services. Colonists took their produce to the Dyess cannery where the cannery kept a portion of the canned fruit in exchange for processing the rest for the family.

The boyhood home is furnished based on recollections from family members.

Mother's Original Piano in the Front Parlor

The Cash home in Dyess, AR was built in 1935 and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. It was neat to stand in the hall and look into the bedroom where the American legend slept and hoped for better times.

Ray Cash and his wife, Carrie Rivers Cash, moved to Dyess, AR in 1936. They had seven children: Roy, Margaret Louise, Jack, J. R., Reba, Joanne, and Tommy.

J.R. started working in cotton fields at age five, singing along with his family while working.  The family farm was flooded twice, which led him to later write the song "Five Feet High and Rising." Johnny Cash was inspired by economic and personal struggles of his own family and other people facing similar hardships.  He had sympathy for the poor and working class.  

Original Linoleum "Carpet"

 J. R. Cash lived here from the age of three until he graduated high school as Class Vice-President in 1950.

At birth, Cash was named J. R. Cash.  When he enlisted in the U.S. Air Force in 1950, he was not permitted to use initials as a first name, so he changed his name to John R. Cash. It wasn't until 1955 when signing with Sun Records that he started going by Johnny Cash.

After basic training and technical training in San Antonio, TX, he was assigned as a Morse code operator intercepting Soviet Army transmission in Landsberg, Germany. He was considered a "spy" and was really good at it.

Johnny Cash was married twice, once to Vivian Liberto, with whom he had four daughters. And later to June Carter with whom he had a son, John Carter Cash.

Johnny and June continued to work, raise their son, create music and tour together for 35 years.

Administration Building in Dyess, AR

Arkansas State University is working to preserve the heritage of the Dyess Colony by restoring significant buildings that remain from its days as an agricultural resettlement community. The first phase of this plan involved restoring the Johnny Cash Boyhood Home and the Administration Building in the Colony Center and stabilizing what remained of the former theater. 

Phase Two included re-creating the former theater and adjacent pop shop for use as a Visitors Center and installing historic signage at locations of previous colony buildings, such as the school, hospital, cannery, cotton gin, and community building. 

BLUFF CITY -- WHEN COTTON WAS KING

Trading Took Place Here Until 1970s

Memphis, TN was founded on the cotton trade. The Cotton Museum displayed how time and mechanization have changed the way cotton is harvested.  The museum consists of the main lobby, a room with authentic artifacts, and a science/technology room. The exhibits, artifacts, oral histories and archival footage present how Memphis was founded as a shipping port for cotton and slaves in 1819.

Beautiful Art Deco Decor in Lobby

This building was built for the trading and exchange of cotton. Wealthy old men made and lost fortunes speculating on the price of cotton.  The Exchange was originally a private social club with a huge yearly fee to join.

Pricing Board Display Covers Entire Wall 

There is a life-size figure on a ladder "writing" changes on a chalkboard.  The room is similar to the old cotton exchange room.

Original Phone Booths in Exchange

500# Cotton Bale

Cotton was graded fair to middling. This is a Deep South term (originally used by the British and Scots) for okay, fair enough, alright that refers to gradations of quality in cotton and other commodities.

Boll Weevils Are Size of Ladybugs

The boll weevil is a destructive beetle that infests cotton plants. The adult has a long snout that it uses to puncture the buds and bolls (seed pods) and lays eggs in them. The insect crossed the Rio Grande near Brownsville, TX to enter the U.S. from Mexico in 1892 and devastated cotton crops in the U. S. until the 1920s. Boll weevils have been eradicated in most states by use of pesticides.

Symbol for U. S. Grown Cotton

"Gin" is the abbreviated version of the word engine. Photos described the cotton plant: who knew it had a white flower, then a pink flower, and finally the boll (containing the cotton) formed.

Memphis Skyline

Where Blues Musicians Gather

No Vehicles Allo

SNOWBIRDS AGAIN

We began our trek to Alabama earlier than other years to stay ahead of the snow predicted at home.  We have become "snowbirds", that is ... allergic to S-N-O-W!

Our first overnight was at Whittington Woods in southern Illinois.  It is a nice overnight stop as some sites are long enough you don't have to unhook your tow vehicle. Due to cold weather and storms in AR-TN-LA we decided to delay our trip for a few days.

We have stayed at this campground before but have never ventured into Benton, IL.  It is approximately five miles from the campground with a population of 7,100 residents.  The city is the county seat and has a downtown square on a round-about with antique shops, restaurants, and retail stores.

MISSISSIPPI RIVER DAYS

We lingered in West Memphis, AR to check out the Tom Sawyer RV Resort along the Mississippi River where you can watch tug boats and barges. The river is extremely fast moving and gets very brown after every rainfall.

To our dismay, the Mississippi River Museum on Mud Island was closed for the season.  We stopped for lunch at the Bass Pro Shops restaurant at the "Pyramid", formerly a sports arena and concert venue.  You can stay busy in the arcade, shooting gallery, or bowling alley if you don't like shopping.  

Bass Pro Shops has repurposed the sports arena into a 5 star hotel and retail space complete with a faux cypress swamp forest, Spanish moss and ponds.  There are several wooden bridges crossing the water in the swamp-like wilderness where you can view ducks, huge catfish and gar, aquariums and even alligators.

A glass elevator ride costs $10 but offers the best view of Memphis, TN and AR across the river. This is the largest Bass Pro Shop.