French Quarter of New Orleans

In the French Quarter is historic Jackson Square, pictured above.  Pictured above is a common scene in the square of musicians, palm readers, artists and a variety of other street performers.

The street performer above startle me when, after I dropped a dollar in his bucket, he/she suddenly moved and gave me a deep curtsy!  In the background is General Andrew Jackson on his horse.

One cannot visit the square without stepping into the Basilica Of St.Louis of France, the oldest Catholic Cathedral in the United States.  The first permanent church was built in 1727, but was destroyed in 1788.  The present one was completed in 1851.  The statues, stained glass and frescoes  on the ceiling are all quite beautiful.  On the right side are flags which represent the countries which New Orleans has been under from its founding to the present.

The French Quarter is about some 90 blocks, we only covered a small portion of it.  From the square we spent some time in the French Market where we just had to stop at Cafe du Monde for beignets.  The market has gift shops, bazaars, clothing stores and a praline cookery.   We also walked on the waterfront of the Mississippi River and visited Washington Artillery.

Walking back to our car we happened to see the building where Faulkner in 1925 wrote his first novel, "Soldier's Pay".  According to the historical marker, the building was constructed in 1840 on a site formerly occupied by the yard and buildings of a French colonial prison.  It is now a bookstore, otherwise we never would have given the building a second glance!

We would have missed the Blue Dog in a store front window had not Kat drawn our attention to him.  He was created by the Louisiana artist George Rodrigue.  After Katrina devastated the city the artist painted the dog half submerged in water with a red cross on his chest.  Using the dog and a motto "we will rise again" he created an initiative called Blue Dog Relief.

New Orleans

John and I have visited New Orleans now several times.  This time we benefited greatly having our niece Kat along as tour guide.  Our first stop Monday was at Lafreniere Park, a park which Kat loves to visit because of the wildlife which can be found there.  It was a first sighting for us of the black-bellied whistling duck.

There were many of them in the park, as well as ibis and sea gulls.  A couple of nutria were also hanging around the birds.  They are a rat-like invasive pest from South America, and look like musk rats.  One other note here, Lafreniere for whom the park is named, was a leader of a colonial revolt in 1764.  He protested the transfer of the French colony of New Orleans to Spain and was executed for his treason.

Our next stop was Metairie Cemetery, one of the largest cemeteries in New Orleans which is a "showplace of tomb architecture" ( quote taken from AAA tour book).   Characteristic of New Orleans, if a tomb is not in a concrete vault it is above ground.  Many of the larger tombs contain more than one family member.  A favorite tomb which Kat likes is the Egyptian sphinx.  We could have spent the rest of our day looking at the many interesting tombstones, but we still had many more places to visit in New Orleans.

Our stop for lunch was a good one, again thanks to Kat.  We ate at Booty's Street Food restaurant.  It features food from around the world, and the menu is changed daily.  Kat had shrimp ceviche from Ecuador.  It was a cold soup of poached shrimp, tomatoes, onions, lime and cilantro served with a side of popcorn.  That was from Ecuador, I tried it and it was tasty.   John had empanadas from Portugal,  I stuck to what I knew with fish and chips- however I did try the chips with curry ketchup!  Not bad at all.

Out of all the cities which we have visited New Orleans remains the most unique.  And the massive destruction of the city by hurricane Katrina in 20005 did not quell the soul of the city.  There are still the famous iron-embroidered balconies with lush green plants draped over them, as well as many colorful buildings and interesting murals as pictured above.  We parked outside of the French Quarter and walked through neighborhoods bustling with tourists and local shoppers.  Live music can be heard everywhere, even in the middle of the day.  The French Quarter was our last stop of the day, more on that in the next posting.

San Francisco Plantation

One should always see at least see one plantation when down in the southern part of our nation.  There are 10 of them along the Great River Road between Baton Rouge and New Orleans.  As I wrote previously, we are in Hammond, about 40 miles north of New Orleans.  Saturday we drove west along Highway 10 and then south to Highway 44, the road along the Mississippi River.  We were expecting to start seeing large stately plantations with rows of live oaks lining long winding drives along lush green lawns.  No, what we saw were large grain silos with enclosed conveyors belts connected to them arising over the road and a high levee.  Cargil was the name on one complex of buildings.  Further down the road we saw oil refineries and a sign indicating that this was Louisiana Refinery District.  Gone are the days when sugar cane and cotton were the big money-makers of the day!

 

We almost missed the plantation, only a fence and a sign indicated its presence.  Walking the pathway up to the house we passed by a fountain created from two large kettles.  They were once used in rendering down the sugar cane.  A tour guide greeted us at the door.  She first commented that in the mid 1880s two-thirds of the nation's wealth was located in the south, which was made possible by the slave labor.  We later saw  by a slave cabin a memorial to those people.  The memorial noted that the slaves "contributed immensely to the economy and culture of Louisiana".  The slave cabin is pictured below.

 

Now back to the tour and information regarding the history of the plantation.  Until the 1970s, when Marathon Petroleum Foundation bought and restored the plantation at a cost of several million dollars, the plantation house was lived in by several families.  The present house was built between 1853 and 1856.  The owner, Pierre Edmond Marmillion, died in 1852, leaving the plantation to his son Valsin and his German-born wife Louise von Seybold.  Over the next 23years while she lived on the plantation Louise wrote faithfully to her mother back in Germany, 100 of her letters have been found.  In those letters Louise writes of her unhappiness pertinent to that time of violent upheaval in Southern history.  Hearing from our tour guide stories about the family (from those letters) certainly made the tour of the house quite fascinating, and brought to life the actual events which took place within the various rooms. 

The house, pictured above,  is touted as one of the most opulent plantation houses along the River Road. Bookend water cisterns are on each side of the house.  The house has Gothic windows, ornate embellishments and gingerbread trim.  Louise did not like the original dull muted colors of the French Creole house of that time.  She repainted the place in bright Bavarian colors, inside and out.  The ceilings were painted in a vivid palate of colors,  also a number of wall panels and doors had colorful designs painted on them.  The fresco designs are of birds, cherubs, jewels, and scrolls.  Various artists from around the world were hired to repaint them during the restoration of the house.   Pictured below is a view from the front porch overlooking the grounds. A sprawling live oak shades the porch.

 

It is a very large house with 17 rooms.  As most houses of the day, kitchen and bathrooms were located outside.  Valsin complained that the cost of redoing the house and furnishing it with only the finest accoutrements left him poor, so the plantation received the name of Sans Frusquin.  That is a French slang phrase meaning "without a penny in my pocket".  A later owner changed the name to San Francisco.  One final note here, this house was spared by the Union Army.  Valsin supplied the army with food and girls.  He  supported the North- his younger brother Charles was a soldier in the Confederate army.  Valsin died in 1871, Louise managed to run the property until Charles' death in 1875.   Louise returned with her three daughters to Munich in 1879 after she had sold the plantation.

Abita Springs, Louisiana

Yesterday, Friday, was one of those days when we left our home not knowing how our day was going to unfold.  We are parked in Hammond, Louisiana the home of our niece Kat.  We met her for lunch, she could not spend much more time with us because she had to work at 2PM.  We are hoping that some time while we are here we can find more time to spend with her.  Besides working full-time Kat is carrying a heavy college schedule.  She recommended the town of Covington, which has art galleries, antique shops, as well as a brew house.  After lunch we drove to that town, but only passed through it.  The traffic was heavy and we were just not inclined to stop.  John had heard of the town of Abita Springs, so thinking that perhaps there is a  picturesque spring area there, we drove out of Covington and took a road leading to Abita.  Coming into that town we followed the first signs which directed us to Audubon Park.

In the park we were immediately drawn to a sculpture of an Indian princess bent over a bubbling fountain of water.  We learned later that it was not one of the springs which are in the area.  A sign nearby indicated that the sculpture was created in 2009 and is called "Princess Abita".   According to legend she was married to a young Spaniard during the colonial period, fell ill and after her husband returned her to the healing waters of her village, she recovered.  In a museum located in the park we learned more of the history of the area, including the fact that the pavilion pictured above was part of an exhibit during the World's Fair of New Orleans in 1884.  Hurricane Katrina cut her in one- half, she has been restored since then.

In the museum I saw an interesting picture, similar to the one above, and asked where that building is located.  The staff member gave us directions and, upon my query as to the nature of that museum, she just said that it was a bit unusual and could not begin to describe it.  We gave up any more ideas of hiking in the park to search for natural springs (we did find one) and headed to the U C M  Museum.  It was now 4PM and that museum closed in an hour.   It was easy to find the vintage gas station which serves as the entrance and gift shop.  In addition to that small building, the museum is a labyrinth of old buildings (one of which is a 90 year-old Creole cottage) connected by walkways.  Another one of the buildings is an old barn built in the 1920s.  Now it is a House of Shards.  On an exterior wall is 15,000 pieces of ceramic plate, tiles, colored glass and mirrors.  Behind this building is the Patio of Compassion and the Shed of Revelation.

Guess you get the picture by now, a mystery museum for sure?  A bit strange, whimsical, and also humorous.  John Preble, the owner is an artist of many talents.  His paintings are displayed here, as well as a large collection of bottle caps, wacky postcards, vintage signs, old arcade machines, and a large paint-by-number collection.  Preble started collecting the latter in the 1970s.  He say that despite their recent popularity and inflation,  he has refused to pay more than one dollar for one.

Preble has also collected more than 50,000 recycled objects  and presented them creatively in many humorous animated southern displays, as the Martians at Mardi Gras pictured below.

That was our day Friday, certainly a very serendipitous one for sure!

Antique Rose Emporium

We have a friend, Edie, who resides in Houston.  She wanted to meet up with us before we leave Texas, and it was her suggestion that we meet at the rose garden outside of Brenham.  She had heard that the gardens had a rose festival this past week-end, so even though we missed that, we could still see the gardens.  It does seem to be an odd time of the year for roses, but cooler weather is starting up again which gets the roses blooming after they had died back during the hot summer.

As you can see in the picture above, the roses are doing well with the fall temperatures and lots of rain.  The emporium/nursery has a wide variety of roses for sell as well as many native plants, old-fashioned perennials, herbs and wildflowers.  Some are in pots ready to be sold, others are planted in flower beds located through-out the 8-acre old homestead.  There were many beautiful plants and flowers everywhere we wandered on what we later learned was an old homestead.

When the nursery was started in 1984 there were the ruins of an old stone kitchen on the grounds.  The old homestead of Mcknight- Hairston was rebuilt around that kitchen.  Outside the house there is a period cottage garden as well as perennial garden.  Mike and Jean Shoup, owners of the emporium, created the nursery with the idea of combining both historic plants and buildings.

There was another home which we could visit while we were at the emporium, a home built in 1910 and moved to the emporium.  The "Champneys Green" cottage was named for the rosarian John Champney who introduced climbing roses in the 1800s.  As a side note here, it was as early as the 1850s when commercial nurseries offered a variety of flowers and trees for sale.

The nursery also has a children's garden which features characters from the Beatrix Potter books.  Not sure which picture I will conclude this posting with, I took so many awesome pictures it was hard to choose!  I guess my favorite was a potted begonia, it was sure tempting to bring it home with me.

Austin, Texas

The picture above should give you an idea of the traffic in Austin.  And to handle that traffic Austin has developed a very complex web of highways.   Forget GPS, the instructions for highway exits and lane changes came up so fast from that lady that I literally gave up!  We did a lot of wandering and u-turns, eventually getting to where we wanted to go.  Also, traffic is bad 24/7.  Well, maybe the week-end was a bit unusual- when we made our hotel reservations many places were already filled.

Our first morning was a rainy one in Austin, a type of morning only good for museums and art galleries.  After meeting up with our niece Katie and her friend Larnell, we drove to the Art on 5th Gallery.  One of our tour brochures noted that right now is a exhibit there titled "Home of the Secret Art of Dr. Seuss".  It seemed strange to me to think of him more of an artist than a writer of children's books!  He also created  17 sculptures during the 1930s.  They are called "unorthodox taxidermy".

A staff member of the gallery explained that the above artwork was created using horns, antlers and beaks of dead animals.  Seuss's father was superintendent of parks (including a zoo) in Springfield Ma. and he would send his son the animal parts.  In the lower left-hand corner is a Turtle-necked Sea Turtle, next to him is the Two-Horned Drouberhanni the ram is a Goo-Goo-Eyed Tasmanian Wolghast, above him is the Sea-Going Dilemma Fish,  the bird is Kangaroo Bird and the last one is the Blue-Green Abelard. 

Speaking of unconventional, Sunday found us wandering along Congress Ave. with Katie.  Picture above is the store Lucy in Disguises, a costume store.  Maybe that gives you an appreciation for that shopping district.  From a food truck I purchased what I thought was a gyro.  Next time I will read the fine print, which describes the sandwich as having lamb with tomatoes and a tangy sauce and a "few french fries". What an absolute travesty of the gyro as I know it!  I picked out the few fries, ate a small portion of the gyro and threw the rest away.  The fries and lamb were good!  But I sure missed the tzatziki sauce!

From the ridiculous to the sublime...We attended church Sunday morning at Gethsemane Lutheran Church.  I have not seen that much stained glass since our trip to Rome!  The window rises 36 feet behind the altar.  It is called "Heritage of Faith" and is the story of redemption through Jesus Christ.  Additional stained glass windows continue on both sides of the altar reaching to the ceiling.  The artist is Gabriel Loire of France.  He used 150 shades of "Chartres Blue" and other colors for highlight effect. The masterpiece was completed in 1969.  Gethsemane calls itself the "Mother of Lutheranism in Austin", the congregation was formed in the late 1800s.  This is the second location for the church.

Washington-On-The-Brazos State Park

John and I were on our way to Austin last Friday when we decided to make this stop.  It was a nice break during what proved to be long slow-pokey trip on two lane highways through the cattle fields of  Texas.

I wrote of the Brazos River in my last posting.  Guess it is about time to post a picture of it and explain how it got its name.  Spanish explorers were so thankful in finding the river's fresh waters that they called it Los Brazos de Dios, or Arm of God.

The building pictured above is a replica of the place where the constitution of Texas was signed in 1836.  There are two wonderful museums in this park, we had time to visit only one and there we learned a great deal about the state's history.  The town of Washington during the 1800s was far enough inland ( a place where Santa Ana's forces would not come) and a well-traveled river town that it was chosen as the site for Texas delegates to have their convention and sign a constitution.  Texas was then a part of Mexico called Tamaulipas.  The territory extended from what is now Wyoming, to New Mexico and Colorado.  Even though Texas suffered a bitter defeat at the Alamo in March of 1836, they won in a battle against Santa Anna the next month.  They then were an independent nation for 10 years before gaining their statehood in  1845.  Texas is the only state that was a nation before it became annexed to the United States.

Back in the 1800s the town of Washington had fewer than 200 residents, only one street and commerce limited to the ferry crossing.  The path pictured above was once Ferry Street and, as we walked on it we found a historical marker with information regarding one particular ancient tree.  That is John standing by it, the pecan tree is 60 feet tall.  It is not native to our country, its nearest relatives are 900 miles away in Mexico.  The La Bahia pecan may have been planted as a seedling from Mexico, or fallen out of a saddlebag or wagon.  One other interesting fact here on the town of Washington.  During the Civil War it refused to have a railroad built through it.  By the 1880s this Philadelphia of Texas was mostly farmland.  The Civil War and emancipation totally tanked its economy.

Brazos Bend State Park

This park is located southwest of Houston, and is considered "a nature lover's paradise".  My brother Jared wanted to hike it with us, but the park was closed over the week-end because rain covered many of its trails.  Unfortunately Jared and his wife had plans for floors in their house to be laid on Monday and Tuesday so they did not accompany us.  They have been to the park before and love to hike its trails.  Until the 1980s this park was ranch land, and after the owners left it was being considered for development.  Fortuitously, a heavy rain proved the land not possible for such use and it was instead sold to the state.  How fortunate for us, we had a wonderful day in the park and saw lots of wildlife.

 

As we entered the park we saw signs warning us that venomous snakes were present in the park.  We did stop in the nature center of the park where we were able to see those snakes and identify them.  Two of them happened to cross our path during the course of the day.  Pictured above is a cottonmouth, or water moccasin.  We also saw a southern copperhead, it passed right under my feet.

There are woodlands in the park to hike in, and also wetlands.  We walked along several small lakes in the park and saw many alligators.  The park claims to have 300 of them and warns the public to stay at least 30 feet from them.  As you can see, John is closer than that to the alligator pictured above.  There were also places along our trail where they were on both sides of us and we just had to walk between them.  One time I was so engrossed in taking pictures of water birds that I almost stepped on the snout of an alligator, fortunately John stopped me in time.

And the park was so alive with the sounds of birds!  We heard the characteristic sound of many phoebes, as well as the loud deep hoot of an owl.  Egrets and herons would occasionally let out a loud and raucous call as they took flight when humans disturbed them.   We saw many little white egrets as as little blue herons and a variety of ducks.   One black-crowned night heron, pictured below, was so intent on his search for food that he totally ignored our presence.  The park has a variety of habitats which provides a home for over 300 species of birds, a great place for bird watching.

I think we hiked at least 4 miles over the course of our day in the park.  Having been sedentary for so long we could not get enough of walking!  In fact, when we thought we were done and the sun was starting to set, we got the crazy idea that we wanted to see the Brazos River which runs along one side of the park.  We found a trail which took us there and added another half mile to our day.  On our way out of the park we saw six deer feeding in a meadow.  A perfect ending to our day!

On the Road Again

Hard to believe that it has almost been a week since we left the St.Louis area.  We took a straight shot down highway 55 out of Missouri, into Arkansas and then Louisiana.  Maybe you are wondering about the last state, and I also questioned John about that.  Well, he wanted to go on a different road and claimed that it would only take us a few miles out of our way.  It was interesting being back in Louisiana, and this was the first time I think that we did not use our campground catalogs in finding a place to park our rig.  Large signs along the highway directed us to the Riverbend rv park.

We were in the Bible belt of the south, and this park had a beauty saloon.  The next day before we left I wandered around in the park and found the river, alongside of which were large live oaks and Spanish moss.  Other than dealing with the acorns which fell on our home, it was a good stop.

After the cool temperatures of  St.Louis, we were looking forward to the warm climate of Texas.  On the third day we arrived in Dickinson, Texas (where my brother Jared and his wife Sherry live).  Well, we got our warmer temperatures but had to deal with a week-end of heavy rain.  My brother figures the area received a soaking of at least 20 inches in two days.  Water filled the ditches and came up fairly close to many homes, as pictured above.  At least our home was parked on high ground.

We have heard about green parrots being in this area.  To our delight they were flying around our home on
Sunday afternoon, about two dozen of them.  Later that day the sun finally came out and we saw a double rainbow.  Monday was a dry sunny day and we hiked in Brazos Bend State Park, more on that in the next posting.  In some places of the park a high mature forest canopy of live oaks and hardwoods reach for the sky.  Pictured below is one of the trails which we followed in the park.

A Home in Ebsworth Park

One last posting from St. Louis.  We certainly had a typical cool fall day when we visited this house last Saturday.  And to clarify where Ebsworth Park is located, especially for those of you who live in St.Louis and never have heard of the park, it can be found in the Sugar Creek Valley of Kirkwood.  It is a county park which comprises the home and grounds of Russel and Ruth Kraus.   Their home, completed in 1955, was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright.  It is one of 60 Usonian homes designed by the architect during the period of time (around 1936 onward) when the American economy was taking a downturn and there was a demand for middle-income family homes.

I at first, with camera in hand, wandered around the home looking for the front part of it.  Silly me, I should have remembered from visiting other Frank Llloyd Wright homes, that there usually is not an obvious front entrance.  Pictured above is the main entrance, and where we entered the building to begin our guided tour.  Before we entered the house our tour guide pointed out the bricks, which are in the shape of parallelograms.  They had to be specially made, and the only company who was willing to do it in the 1950s was a brick company in Alton, Illinois. At that time there was also only one contractor willing to take on the construction of the home.  The home is pictured below, perhaps you can get a general idea of how it looks on the outside.  It does look like a typical  F.L.Wright house, you may remember that his buildings have an emphasis on horizontal lines.  It was the best shot I could get of the outside.

John thinks that it is somewhat in the shape of a trapezoid.  I do not remember much from my high school geometry class, but there is some kind of a connection between parallelograms, trapezoids, hexagons and triangles.  Oh, throw in right angles while you are contemplating them!  Pictured below is the patio area, which encompasses the front entrance.

Unfortunately we were not allowed to take pictures inside of the house, but all of the geometric shapes mentioned above are continued inside; in the walls and ceilings, book shelves and furniture.  The later are original to the home and designed by F.L.Wright.  There are two bedrooms in the home, in one bedroom the bed is hexagonal and in the master bedroom the bed is in the shape of a trapezoid. They had to be custom made.  If Russel and Ruth Kraus had children (which they did not) I am sure they would have aced their geometry classes!  As we were exiting the house John, ever the practical one, expressed concern that there no gutters.  Oops, that would not have been a F.L Wright house if there were gutters.  His buildings are all about artistic design, not practicality.  The house in the early years also did not have central air conditioning.  Wright's advice to Mr. and Mrs. Kraus was to open up the doors and windows.  Maybe he never lived in Missouri during the summer!

Touring Around Missouri

It has certainly become cooler now here in St.Louis, but for a variety  of reasons beyond our control, we will still continue to reside here.  Hopefully we will be heading south in another week.

Last week we rode on our bikes over the Creve Coeur Connector path which crosses the Missouri River.  The bridge, called the Page Avenue/364 bridge, connects the Katy Trail on the west end to the southwest corner of Creve Coeur Park.  There is an section of that bridge which has a variety of locks hanging from it.  This practice of hanging the locks and throwing away the key symbolizes unbroken love.  Names and wedding dates are on the locks.  It started during World War 1 in many cities around the world.   Leaders of some of those cities consider it an act of vandalism and have removed the locks, especially when their combined weight starts damaging the fence from which they are hanging. 

Saturday we made a trip down to Farmington, Missouri for John's high school reunion (class of 1959).  The leaves of some trees are now starting to turn, pictured above is a red maple tree which became flaming red with the sun setting on it.  The tree is located in the front yard of Carolyn's home.  She is John's sister who resides in Farmington.

Yesterday, Sunday, we made a trip down to Perry County, located in the southeastern corner of Missouri.  Pictured above is Trinity Lutheran church, built in 1867.  In 1839 700 Saxon Lutherans settled in the county and formed the parishes of Wittenberg, Dresden, Seelitz, Altenberg, and Frohna.  Trinity Church is located in the town of Altenberg.  We found the altar to be quite unusual with the pulpit located above it.

 

After spending some time at the museum in Altenberg we discovered that our day was about shot and there was no time to look at the other Lutheran historical sights in Perry County.  However, we did drive over to the river to see if there was a marker for the landing site of the Saxon Lutherans.  Unfortunately it would have been a difficult climb down to that site at the river's edge. While exploring the area we happened to see the Tower Rock,  a mass of limestone arising 85 feet out of the Mississippi River.  In 1696 Catholic missionaries planted a cross on that island.  In 1803 Lewis and Clark passed by this section of the river,  Lewis found the rock so interesting that he wrote about it in his journal. 

Faust Historical Village

This village is located in Faust Park.  The park was created by Leicester and Mary Plant Faust in 1968 with the intention to preserve the Thornhill house.  The Faust estate, now the home of the Community Music School of Webster Groves, is also on the grounds of the park.   An interesting side note here, Leicester Faust was the grandson of Adolphus Busch, founder of the Anheuser-Busch Brewery.

The Thornhill house, pictured above, was built from 1815-1820.  Frederick Bates was appointed Territorial Secretary of the new Louisiana Territory by President Thomas Jefferson in the early 1800s.  He was later, from 1824-25 Missouri's second governor.  In 1819, at the age of 41, Frederick Bates married his sixteen year-old neighbor from back home in Virginia.  They settled here at Thornhill and raised four children.  Unfortunately the house was not open for us to tour, but we still enjoyed walking around the estate and looking at the original out-buildings which include several barns, a distillery for the peach brandy they made, smokehouse and a corn granary.  There is also a small peach orchard and maple grove.

In another area of the park is the historic village which have homes built between 1840-1919.  They have been moved to the park from various areas of St.Louis County.  They vary from modest homes of immigrants to two-story more sophisticated buildings owned by established landowners.  A German immigrant and brick maker, Henry Hoch, built the above home in 1876.  Part of the rear is a wood framed structure.  Besides four rebuilt homes, the village also has a schoolhouse, carriage house, barn,, a mercantile, and a blacksmith shop.  Outside some of the buildings are various artifacts from the 1800s, as the dog mill for churning butter, which is pictured below.  A sign near this mill notes that the settlers used dogs for a variety of chores, besides churning butter dogs were also useful for turning the fireside spits.

Another interesting artifact which we saw in a barn was a guillotine, invented by Dr.Joseph Guillotin in 1792.  It was widely used during the French Revolution, and considered  more humane than drawing and quartering people!  Dr. Guillotin was part of a small reform group to abolish the death penalty.

We had a beautiful fall day for touring the park.  Mother Nature is still pretty with her colorful leaves which are now changing their colors, and many flowers are still in bloom as a frost has not happened as yet here in Missouri.  The trees pictured above have red berries on them, not cherry blossoms- wrong season for that!
Time for us to head south, but that will not be possible for a couple more weeks.