Rural Life Museum

The main exhibits in the museum, both in the visitor center and on the grounds, center around life on sugar plantations in the 19th century. Excellent exhibits in the visitor center describe the lives of owners, overseers, and the slaves who were forced to work long and hard hours to grow, tend, and process the cane into sugar. The buildings on the grounds positioned to form an example of a working plantation, include the overseers house, rows of slave cabins, outbuildings, and a sugar house.

        

The museum also has an assorted collection of tools, toys, household items, carriages including several hearses, and usual cast iron caskets. Buildings on the grounds are grouped together to represent an Arcadian settlement and life on pioneer farms.

There's also a statue of an elderly black man that stood in the center of Natchitoches, Louisiana until 1968 when it was removed because of its racist depiction of a "good darkie" avoiding eye contact as he tips his hat. For years the original plaque was covered with a wooden box but that has been removed and a sign erected to explain the reason for the statue in the first place and the reasons it was removed and why it now stands on the museum grounds.

The visitor center is accessible. The buildings on the grounds do not have ramps. It's possible to peek in the doors of some of the slave cabins. The ground is rough grass and difficult to push through without assistance.

To get to the museum follow the directions on the website as your GPS may lead you astray. The parking lot is large enough for any RV. The accessible spots are not long enough for RVs but park as close as possible to avoid the rough gravel of the parking lot. Museum  30.41193, -91.11633

Lake Pontchartrain Basin Maritime Museum

The museum is located south of Madisonville, Louisiana where the Jahncke Shipyard once stood. The shipyard was established in 1900 and won a contact in 1917 from the US Navy to build six wooden-hulled ships. Part of the contact included painting the hulls with a razzle dazzle pattern. This was a form of camouflage with highly contrasting colors, not to hide the ships but to make it hard for German submarine commanders to estimate a target's range, speed, and heading. A very detailed diorama gives visitors a birds eye view of the shipyard during this time period.

Lake Pontchartrain has a connection to the Gulf of Mexico through Rigolet's Strait so it's not really a lake but a saltwater estuary. The strait allowed ships built in the towns along the shore to sail out to the ocean. It also allowed the exportation of goods such as lumber, charcoal, bricks, shells, cotton, and oysters. Exhibits in the museum cover life on the bayou; the steamboat era on the lake; the Pioneer, an experimental submarine built in 1862 and tested in Lake Pontchartrain; lighthouses in Louisiana; and the recovery of a Spanish ship that wrecked in the Gulf of Mexico in 1766.

The dioramas of the ship yard, the bayou, and the lighthouses are amazing.

The museum is mostly accessible. A couple of videos have buttons that are too high. A mock-up of a river pilot's wheelhouse is accessed by steps only. The wooden boardwalk along the steamboat has a dangerously steep ramp at one end. The ramp at the other end is not as steep but use caution.

The parking lot is large enough for any RV. Museum  30.39824, -90.15637

Fairview-Riverside State Park

From the 1880s until the early 1930s, the park property was part of a sawmill community. A large house built by the first mill owner, W.T, Jay in 1885, is the only building still standing. It's usually open for tours but is closed until the damage from recent storms can be repaired. Visitors can walk along the property outside the white picket fence and also read about the steam engine that powered the mill.

The campground with 101 sites takes up most of the park property. The campsites have three designations - premium, improved, and unimproved. Unimproved are mainly for tent campers and have picnic tables and fire rings; improved sites have water, electric, tables and fire rings; premium sites have water, electric, tables and fire ring, are closer to the water and some have sewer hookups. All the sites are fairly close together. We camped in site 60 which is one of the roomiest without any neighbors on the picnic table side. This campground is super quiet, Most of the people stayed inside all day even though the weather was beautiful. The rates are low during the winter plus we were given a 50% discount for being over 62. The park information says "Holders of the Passes, whose state of residence also honors the America the Beautiful pass, are entitled to a 50% reduction on camping fees at Louisiana State Parks." but the discount was given to everyone over 62 during our visit. Amenities include restrooms with showers, two dump stations, a boat dock, fishing pier, playground, and two very short boardwalks.

None of the sites are designated as accessible but most are usable. The house has a ramp so the ground floor is accessible. The ground around the house is rough and lumpy grass making pushing difficult. The steam engine exhibit is accessed by a concrete walkway but the sign is too far away to read. One of the boardwalks is closed for repairs; the other does not meet flush with the ground and has a rough gravel pathway to access it. Park  30.41047, -90.13897

Big Biloxi Recreation Area

The campground has 25 sites, all with electricity and water. A dump station is located opposite the check-in booth. This is a national forest site and America the Beautiful passes are good for a discount of 35% instead of the standard 50%. - no explanation for that. Amenities include tables, fire rings, restrooms, and showers.

The main loop, which is on the perimeter of a large field, has widely spaced sites with little shade. The weather was cool so we camped in the main loop. The other loops  are shady with more vegetation. 

The site we chose isn't accessible but it is usable. Most of the other sites are usable. Several are supposed to be accessible so I assume the picnic tables have extended tops and the parking pads are larger but I didn't check them out.

The sites in the main loop are large enough for any RV.    Campground   30.56861, -89.12989

Vulcan Park and Museum

The 56' tall statue of Vulcan, the Roman god of fire and forge, was created for the St Louis 1904 World's Fair. After it served it's purpose of showcasing Birmingham's booming iron industry it was returned to the city where it welcomed visitors to the Alabama State Fairgrounds until 1935. The Kiwanis Club, wanting a more spectacular setting, raised money to build a park and move the statue to Red Mountain, the highest point in Birmingham.

The statue is mounted on a 125' pedestal with stairs or an elevator to get to the observation deck. There's also a little museum with exhibits on the the making of the statue, the World's Fair, civil rights, and the many soft drink companies that operated in the city. The park has a large patio with interpretive signs and a great view of the city. The park itself is free however there's a fee for the museum and the observation deck. The observation deck is made of metal grid so the ground (very far down!) is visible through the grid. I couldn't stay out on it long enough to take a picture. :D

Everything is accessible but the walkway to the statue and the museum is long and uphill. The parking lot is sloped so that's an uphill trip too.

RVs will fit if parked across the spaces. Park  33.49088, -86.79488

Sloss Furnaces National Historic Landmark

James Withers Sloss chose Birmingham, Alabama for the location of his furnace company because all of the ingredients needed to make pig iron -  deposits of iron ore, coal, and limestone - were nearby. Twenty years later, in the early 1900s, three more large iron and steel companies built in close proximity to the city and Birmingham's rapid growth earned it the nickname The Magic City. But by the 1970s the large mills were shutting down because stringent air-quality requirements, foreign competition, and aging infrastructure made operations economically unfeasible. 

Sloss Furnaces shut down in 1970 so the fact that it is still in intact and open to visitors is remarkable. It operated for 91 years and underwent an extensive renovation between 1927 and 1931. Most of the buildings and machinery are from this time period and have been stabilized for safety. All visitors must stay on the paths and behind the yellow handrails. Even with these restrictions, it still feels like you have free run of the area - a cool place to visit! The only building off limits is No. 2 Cast Shed which houses the Sloss Metal Art Program. A self-guided tour map is available at the visitor center. A small exhibit about the iron and steel industry is located in the visitor center. 

Sloss Furnaces is partly accessible.The paths are a combination of concrete, gravel, and iron grid. The are several sets of stairs so we did miss some stuff. Following the map was a little confusing because we couldn't go up or down the stairs as shown. Steep ramps and the uneven meeting of the different surfaces could make navigating difficult without assistance.

RVs will fit in the lot if parked across the spaces. Furance  33.5191, -86.79418