Longfellow-Evangeline state park and Olivier plantation: rather unprepossessing entrance on the road from Lafayette to Avery Island; and the impression isn't enhanced by tacky little signs saying things like "WARNING - stop and pay fee!" every hundred yards or so. You
go into the interpretive center, which is just like a thousand interpretive centers in parks all around. Cash register unmanned. Or unpersoned: after you wander through displays of Acadian furnishings and personal effects, Atchafalaya wildlife, and whatnot, you're
about to leave, and the ranger - a pleasant youngish woman - says, "can I help you," and you are forced to pay the fee, which is either $2 or 3 per adult, I forget, free for children and senior citizens. "Remember to take your ticket," she says, because you need proof
of admission to see the Olivier house! This is a much smaller plantation house, a couple thousand square feet, with the usual outbuildings and slave quarters (these last now gone), a nice little garden, and some of the biggest oldest live oaks around. And a nice old
lady as tour guide - she's the great-granddaughter of the man who settled the plantation in the mid-19th century. A lot of stories to tell, some of them a bit smudged together (she's quite old), which annoyed my professor-host a bit. And guess what, she didn't ask for
the tickets. Met an amusing and pleasant couple from Vancouver on this trip; gave them a map of St. Francisville, encouraging them to see the Myrtles. The guide steered us to a place called Possum's for lunch. So we went there and found it to be a quintessential
tourist trap, with buses clogging the parking lot and all. So we forgot that and went to Foti's Oyster Bar, St. Martinville.

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Cheers
Michael *G