Yet another wonderful road trip with Beth and Henry. Plenty of sun. 77 degrees. Gorgeous.
Piled into Beth's car (almost 50 mpg!) at 9 am. First stop, Middendorf's in an attempt to feed the kitties. The little scaredy cats wouldn't come anywhere near us. Nor would the rabbit. The pet gator was no where to be seen. Stupid stop. LOL
Next stop was “Taste of Bavaria Bakery and Restaurant” for brunch. http://www.tasteofbavariarestaurant.com/ Cute, cute place. I felt like I was back in the Black Forest of Germany. Food was “ok”. Service was horrid. And to top it off, you had to stand in line at the counter to pay your bill. ($2.50 per coffee????). Glad that I finally went, but probably won't return.
Onward to the Springfield Cemetery. I was knocked out by the MANY Confederate Soldiers buried here. Also saw something different. Their graves all had new CSA stones in addition to the original headstones. Also, many had Iron CSA Crosses with the Rebel Flag. One of which caught my eye. Rather than a flag, this one read: “DEO VINDICE”. A short bit of research found that this was the motto of the Confederate States of America. It translates as: “(With) God (as our) defender/protector.”
I was a bit surprised that a few of 'em had the American Flag flying on the grave. I would have thought that the Confederate Flag would have been more to the deceased's liking. Henry commented that the families might have feared that Rebel Flags would have been removed.
There was another big draw to this cemetery. The grave of young Michael Brown. The kid was killed by a drunk driver. The night before he died, he made a drawing of the events of that fateful event. The carving on the back of the headstone has the names of the driver that hit the boy as well as the people who drove past him while he laid on the side of the road.. His mother had his drawing etched onto the back of his headstone. How sad.
Next, we made a brief stop at a boat launch on the Natalbany River. Was tickled to see that it was a Manatee area. Saw nothing but a floating LSU purple basketball and a couple of dead fish discarded on the banks.
Then, off to ROSARYVILLE. http://www.rosaryvillela.com/ We walked the beautiful grounds for quite some time. Stations of the Cross were all over for the resident nuns. One of the burial sites was for the nuns of the Dominican Order. The gate read: “In Te Domine Speravi”, which translates to “In Thee, O lord, I have hoped”.
Also spent some time in the Dominican Friars Cemetery on the grounds.
Really, a pretty and peaceful spot.... also hung out with some of the ground's pet turkeys!
Headed back into Pontchatoula. Stopped at the Berry Patch for a soft drink and an order of Strawberry Beneigts... picture a plate with strawberry preserves, topped with powdered sugared beneigts with a mountain of bavarian cream in the middle. Sinful. Decadent. Gotta have more!
Final stop was Berrytown, a neat little produce market that I'm growing quite fond of. I picked up some Habanero soaked garlic cloves which I introduced to Tito's Handmade Vodka that evening for a kick-ass martini!
**I should note that many of these road trip photos are courtesy of my traveling companions!
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