St. Francisville, LA 4/16/08 Rest Day
14.7 miles today
2167.6 total
Each rest day of this trip has taken on a different flavor. This one was the first that I actually used my bike for transportation as the plantation is a few miles out of town. After doing a wonderfully restorative hour of yoga in my room this morning (there’s so much more floor space here than in a motel room), and doing my laundry, I took a tour of the main house here on the grounds. This place was built in 1796 and is still owned by the same family. Many of the items in the house are original and yet the house has been lived in all these years, and continues to be, by family members. One woman inherited it when she was 20 years old and married to a judge who traveled a lot. She lived many years, even through the yellow fever epidemic, and managed to keep records before, during and after the Civil War. The papers are now held at LSU where they are considered very valuable. I found it especially interesting that the huge live oak trees out front were planted from acorns in 1799. Wow. If only those trees could talk…
I rode my bike into town to where the other members of our group are staying to use the internet briefly to post my blog from yesterday. I ran some errands, toured around town on my bike, had a soulful lunch at the Seven Sister’s Café and rode down to the ferry landing to see it from this side. Again, the road was closed because of high water which I hope you can see in the pictures. Apparently, the river isn’t expected to crest until Sunday. I am awed by the amount of water.
I met a woman in town who gave me a free coupon to visit the Rosedown Plantation which is nearby. I rode over there and walked the grounds, the gardens and outbuildings and peeked into the windows of the big house. I decided not to take the tour as I wanted to spend more time back at our own plantation.
It was a very relaxing afternoon, writing, reading, visiting with friends and trying out the Jacuzzi. I listened to some music and felt the stress levels melt away.
Tomorrow, our itinerary has changed because of a bad motel in Franklinton. Instead we are going 20 miles further east to the town of Bogalusa. That’s 127 miles in one day. Dreaming of tailwinds.
