St. Francisville and Baton Rouge (October 20)

Under threat of rain, Pam departed by bus at 9:00 AM for a tour of St. Francisville.  Battling a head cold and having read the tour description, I opted to stay aboard and rest. 

The tour continued on to Rosedown Plantation.

Pam returned describing the town as picturesque and the tour uninspired.

We pulled away from the landing about noon, soon passing Baton Rouge on the eastern side of the boat having passed under a bridge that was intentionally build low enough to prevent ocean-going ships (other than a special-built one like ROSCKETSHIP) from going further upriver.  This prevented Louisiana from losing revenue.

refineries upriver from the city (and downriver ship-blocking bridge)

Louisiana state capitol building

LSU stadium

Continuing down river, we passed antebellum mansion Nottoway Plantation where Pam & I stayed in 2015. We saw AMERICAN EMPRESS tied up just upriver of the plantation.  We discovered the plantation is an exclusive destination for American Queen Steamboat Company.

unfortunately, had to shoot also directly into the sun

Further on, we passed AMERICAN HARMONY headed upriver...to St. Louis?

Tempo of river traffic steadily increased + barges all along both shores both shores and chemical plants, grain elevators, refineries, etc.

Linda, Carol, Pam & Nancy

Somehow while we were in Memphis the topic of of baked beans arose and there was a mention of brown bread.  At our table were Linda & John from New Zealand.  They had never heard of such a thing - bread in a can?  Eyebrows were raised, which of course I took as a challenge.  

Fast forward to this evening at dinner.  Covered bread baskets on the table. Since what was in the baskets is a foregone conclusion, lets reverse back into the middle of the story.

After John & Linda left the table, out came my cellphone.  The goal was to find Burnham & Morrill brown bread, because it is the best. I found it on Amazon.  The Prime delivery window worked.  This being the night that waitress dropped the tray of drinks on me, I had no trouble flagging down a manager.  A few minutes later, I had the the address of the Beale Street Landing in Memphis.  

Two days later, returning to AMERICA, I found a box containing two cans of brown bread awaiting me in our room. Somewhat ironically, the box had been opened for security reasons even though we were never checked for ID coming aboard.  

The bread in hand, the next step was to arrange to have it served.  Before dinner, one of the other members of our table, Roy, made the arrangements.  After dinner, a manager stopped me to explain that the chef had never heard of brown bread and by extension had no idea how to prepare it.  The instructions were on the can.  I contributed one of the two cans to the chef and waitstaff for them to try.

Back to this evening. Table members casually navigated the baskets to John & Linda. John opened one of the baskets, saw the bread and said, "That looks nasty, I don't think that I'll have any."  (Table member Nancy called this "sight-tasting".)  We had to tell them what it was.  After smell-tasting it, they both tried and enjoyed it. Victory!