93) Jean Lafitte National Historic Park and Preserve

Visited Tuesday, July 22nd, 2014; Thursday, July 24th, 2014

While this is a single NPS unit, there are actually _six_ sites, spread across the state.  We had the opportunity to visit three of them.

The headquarters for the site is in the French Quarter, and is small, but a nice typical visitor's center.  Nothing to write home about.

The Chalmette Battlefield and National Cemetery is quite impressive, with a good overview of the Battle of New Orleans and a nice - if short - ranger talk.  The ranger argued that, while peace talks were underway, the peace treaty had not been accepted at the time of the battle, and therefore the War of 1812 was not truly - as usually reported - over when the battle took place.  The one-sidedness of the battle is truly impressive.

But the highlight was the Barataria Preserve.  It's a swamp location, which Lafitte was certainly through if not directly tied to.  The most interesting aspect of our visit was the ranger's answer to Ben's question about Lafitte; he noted that the NPS decided not to use his answer on their brochure.  Essentially, the Barataria Preserve exists because a local decided that it shouldn't become yet another drained swamp; it was tied to Lafitte, to get it into the NPS.  But as the ranger noted - it's odd that there would be an NPS site named for a known illegal slave trader (the importation of slaves from Africa having been outlawed shortly after 1800).

But - the gem of the park is the walkways through the swamp.  It's very loud, in a peaceful way, between the frogs, dragonflies - and apparently the occasional alligator, though we didn't see any.  (We barely saw any frogs, in spite of hearing them constantly, and Megan discovered that all of the larger frogs were camera shy.)

92) New Orleans Jazz National Historic Site

Visited: Tuesday, July 22nd, 2014

Hmmm... unfortunately, there's not a lot to the site itself.  It's just a small performance hall, with almost nothing else - and our timing wasn't right to make one of the concerts.  This unit also runs a second performance hall, at the old New Orleans Mint.

To be honest, the New Orleans Mint itself - run by the state - is more interesting, if a quick site to tour.