Bayou Plaquemine Lock and Dam

Last weekend we attended the Fiber Arts Festival in Plaquemine, LA, and discovered a state park! 

While we spent the majority of our time at the festival, we could not resist going to the Lock Museum to find out what we could learn.  Turns out there's lots to learn about how Louisiana (and other places) controls the water and makes shipping more efficient.

A couple of map cabinets, which apparently visitors can access. (That hand below is Richard's.)

An interesting replica of the town with the lock and dam.  Check out the locks part of the model...looks pretty real and makes seeing the entire works quite easy.  The park ranger is very good at explaining how the locks work.  

Smaller ships would run through this canal to Plaquemines Bayou which eventually runs into the Intercoastal Waterway and the Gulf of Mississippi.  If you note the hairpin curves in the Mississippi River, you can imagine how much time and fuel boats can save.

One of the many maps that are available.  This one shows the section of the Mississippi River close to where we are.  Note the curves in blue--that's the Mississippi's fuel sucking route.  

These photos are of the outside of the Lock building.  Note the interesting architectural details.

The photo below is of one of the pavilions in the city park.  I realized that it has a few copied details from the Lock House: the unusual stair-step roof line and the rounded doorways.    

If you ever get an opportunity to visit Plaquemine, you should definitely visit this state park.  You'll see lots of interesting antiques, learn about how water is controlled, and see a different perspective of the Mississippi River.

Fiber Arts Festival!

When you wake up to a beautiful, sunny day that just happens to be the perfect temperature, you just have to do an outside thing.  I have plans this week to give a quilt presentation for a guild about an hour's drive away and spoke to the coordinator yesterday to make sure everything is still on.  She mentioned the fiber arts event, so I did just a little googling and easily found enough information to encourage me to go.  

Mother Nature sealed the deal with a lovely, have-to-go-outdoors day, so I made the suggestion to Richard, and in no time we were on our way.  Since the festival was in Plaquemine, it didn't take long to get there, so we spend the better part of a few hours just walking around the huge pavilion and enjoying ourselves. 

  We picked up a few handmade gifts, some delicious cookies (and a beautiful scarf for me) and watched several demonstrations on spinning and weaving before settling down to listen to a great little high school band.

After all of that, we walked around the park where the festival was held.  It's very pretty and well kept up.  Since it's on the banks of Bayou Plaquemine, the planners had plenty of opportunity to build beautiful hardscapes and to soften it with trees and shrubs.  

They had the good sense to leave some of the older structures and to honor them with architectural interest.  For example, instead of taking out an old concrete overpass retaining wall, they left it in and planted some graceful palm trees and Indian Hawthorne shrubs, leaving a second "story" to the park.  Notice that while there's enough greenery to add interest, the wall is not hidden.

They also added a small pavilion to the center of the park.  The front of the structure mimics another building not far away.  That building is now a museum, which we visited, but I'll save those pics for another day since this post is already long.

You know how I love churches, this one is up the hill and across the street from the park.  We ran out of time and didn't get to visit, but I wish we could have.  How was your day?  I hope you had the same lovely weather that we did and that you were able to enjoy it.

YEAH! Retreat!

I am so excited about the possibility of our guild having a retreat in July.  I decided that my experience as the La. State Beta Sponsor would be enough to plan a three day retreat.  I figure that putting on a convention for 5,000 teenagers should enable me to plan a retreat for 10-15 quilters!


I spoke to Cotton Quilters' Guild president, Donna Mayeux, last week through email and we settled on a date--July 27-29, 2011 at the Palmetto Island State Park just outside of Abbeville, La. 


After our guild meeting, I called the park service and booked one cabin and the meeting room.  We'll have time on the way Wednesday for some shopping at Borne Quilter and some lunch.  We should arrive at the park around 2 or 3 and take some time to unpack and take a walk.  Thursday will our day of sewing.....I expect that we'll fill the meeting room with lots of fun and laughter and quilting.  


Friday we'll head home with a stop along the way at Ginger's and perhaps another LQS if we're able to find one.


I suggested that we bring WIP's and UFO's to work on while there are others to give advice and suggestions.  I also hope to have a new table runner designed so that each person can complete a small project to take home.  











If you have suggestions or ideas for fun games, please share them.  I'm open to all suggestions since this is my first quilting retreat.  Please leave a comment or email me at mary.marcotte@gmail.com. 


The park photos on this page come from 
the La. State Park website at http://www.crt.state.la.us/parks/ipalmetto.ASPX