Baton Rouge

Making our way east!  The best thing about this year is that going east via the southern states is that it is warm.  ;)  The other nice thing is that the people are super friendly.  I love that you can make eye contact with people, smile and say hi and the greeting is returned. 
We pulled into our RV park and loved it from the get go.  We are parked right next to a little lake that has little boats you can peddle across the lake with.  There are 2 HUGE swans, Boudreaux and Thibadeaux.  :)  Such a tranquil place!  It made us excited to see Baton Rouge. 
Baton Rouge is a city with a population of about 275,000.  It's built along the Mississippi River and has a lot of beautiful, old, oak trees.  It also has an ample amount of billboards for one certain lawyer who much think a lot of himself.  ;)
We spent the first day here visiting the LSU campus. The grounds are absolutely gorgeous with giant oak trees, brick buildings and a larger that life football stadium that houses 100,000+ people.  It also has a habitat for Mike the tiger.  The tiger is the mascot for LSU and they have had various Mike's through the years, choosing to rescue tigers instead of just buying one as they pass on.  Stay tuned as LSU builds a sand volleyball facility to enter into conference play.  SO exciting!
In addition to visiting LSU, we headed into downtown Baton Rouge where we visited the state capital.  It is a very impressive 34 story building that is the tallest capital building in the entire USA.  We learned some state history and visited the observation deck located on the 27th floor.  You can see the entire capital campus from there and the Mississippi River. 
Speaking of the Mississippi River, we visited the banks of it as well.  While not beautiful (since it's brown), it is still impressive to think of all the commerce that happens because of it. 
The next day we visited a plantation named Oak Alley.  It is named this because it has a line of 28 oaks leading to the house, all exactly 80 feet apart, planted in the 1700's but nobody knows by who. At the end of the tour you are given a chance to purchase a Mint Julep!  So Southern!  :)  I highly recommend a trip out to the plantation. 
On the way home from there we saw a sign for "Garyville" so we had to check it out.  I was not disappointed!  I was pleasantly rewarded with a few buildings bearing the name and even a sign welcoming all to Garyville.  :) 
Baton Rouge is a very nice city.  I look forward to visiting again in the future.