New Roads or Poste-de-Pointe-Coupée, Louisiana

I've got still so many pictures still from the road trip! It was an amazing trip!  I'm back in Geneva and I know I haven't written anything! My school started as soon as I got back and then one of my professor offended me really badly and I just didn't have any will to write.

New Roads is a cute little village somehow in the middle of nowhere. We only found it because we got lost! But the greatest adventures begin that way.

Walking around the village was super nice, it was quite calming and a pleasant way to spend the day just walking around. They have a lot of shops there and restaurants. 

The False River used to be part of the Mississippi River gradually turned into a lake.  

I really want to post more picture of the trip but I have as well some new make up that I really want to show so I'll probably gradually post everything and just try to go with the school flow.

St. Stephen's Episcopal Church (Innis, Louisiana)

One of the things we were looking forward to see on our road trip were things we didn't know about. Almost secret places that we could walk around and discover without a tour guide. 

The St. Stephen's Episcopal Church by Innis Louisiana was one of these things, we saw it when we were driving by the Mississippi and decided to stop to walk around. There were two guys there cutting the grass and one of them let us in the church and told us about it quickly before going back to his job.

The church is the oldest brick edifice in Pointe Coupee Parish. The cemetery has a monument to a Confederate Unknown Soldier. It was erected in 1901. The guy told us that during the American Civil War the soldiers would bring their dead comrades over the Mississippi river and bury them in a mass grave there. 

The cemetery is as well where Dr. Tichenor was buried. Dr. Tichenor is known for his antiseptic formula called Dr. Tichenor's Antiseptic. We didn't see his grave so I couldn't take a picture of it. But all the graves there were well taken care of as the entire church.

On the monument there was a quote from the Bivouac of the Dead, a poem written by Theodore O'Hara. The quote on the monument is:

On Fames eternal camping ground,

their silent tents are spread,

and glory guards, with solemn sound. 

The bivouac of the dead.

But the in the poem it's:

On Fame’s eternal camping-ground 

Their silent tents are spread

That Glory guards, with solemn round

The bivouac of the dead.

I'm not sure if it is something they did on purpose or if they just had a different version of the poem.

Natchitoches, Louisiana

Since the second day of the road trip started super early in the morning I needed some good rest to be able to continue. We decided it wasn't a smart idea  to try camping again so we drove to Natchitoches. We didn't really know what Natchitoches was so we just stopped at the first hotel we saw. We got there around 3 pm and I was ready to sleep. We took a nap and when it got dark we decided to grab something to eat. We figured out where a Burger King was decided to go for it. We had directions to get there and the plan was just to go the same way back. 

You would think that that would work perfectly fine. Well, for us it didn't. All one semi-wrong turn and we were lost! We didn't have the address of the hotel we were staying at and we didn't have a clue where we were! We turned on the GPS and tried to pinpoint where the hotel was, after some time we figured out how to get back and luckily we got there while the french fries were still warm! 

The day after we woke up early and went to the Bayou Pierre Alligator Park. When we got out of the park it was still some time before lunch and we didn't want to eat lunch on the road. We headed back to Natchitoches and decided to take a look at the old town there. 

The old town there is mostly just one street that's called Front Street and then River Walk. While the Front Street has only shops and restaurants, the River Walk has two historic houses that were moved there.

In a week and one day I'll be heading back to Geneva! It's strange how fast this summer has gone by! 

Pendleton Bridge and Toledo Bend Lake

The first night on our road trip we camped - it was hell. Well, it was hell for me. We got there right before it started being pitch dark, barely managed to put up the tent, didn't manage to put it up right. The pump for the air mattress didn't work good so the air mattress was just 25% filled with air. Oh, and don't let me forget it was hot hot hot. I was as well scared, I'm used to camp but there are always quite a lot of people around me when I do, that night it looked like we where the only ones there. All night long I was worried that a serial killer (or just a regular killer) would come and kill us. I kept on hearing dog barks and twigs being broken. 

Therefore I barely slept, at 4 40 am I gave up. I was sticky from my sweat and my hair was glued to my skin. I woke up N. and we packed out stuff together and drove away. The only picture I took from there was this one:

I took this picture right before we left, the sun is about to rise and the scene was just gorgeous. 

We didn't want to stop again until Louisiana so we drove and drove. After we crossed the Pendleton Bridge (connects Texas and Louisiana) we decided to make a quick stop and stretch our legs. 

   There was no one else there except for us, it was quiet and peaceful. They had some pick-nick benches around so it's possible to stop there and have a lunch. 

I just have 13 days until I arrive back in Geneva, time has gone so quickly by!