American Queen New Orleans - February 2017 - Baton Rouge

We started our day by eating in the J.M. White Dining Room.  Once again the buffet was delicious.  They have excellent selections.  After eating we headed up to the Pilot House for a tour.  This was extremely interesting.  The equipment they have is unbelievable.  At the same they steer the boat with two sticks that control rudders.  This is all manual.  No auto-pilot on a steamboat.  There are two pilots in the pilot house when the ship is moving.  It was interesting to find out that the smokestacks can be laid down if there is not enough room to pass under a bridge.  The pilot house can also be brought down 9 feet.  When that happens the pilots move to an outside location to steer the boat.

You can see the black smokestacks.  Right behind them is the pilot house.

 

A boat like a train, whistles when it sees another boat, needs to alert others that there is an issue, or just want to have a friendly hello. 

Whistle not being blown.

Blowing

Blowing louder

When two boats meet on a river, the boat going downstream has the right of way.  Most of the boats stay to the right like cars on a highway but if the downstream boat wants to stay on the left the upstream boat must follow those wishes.

We then walked over to the USS Kidd destroyer which was named after the admiral that lost his life on the bridge of the USS Arizona when it was bombed by the Japanese.  The USS Kidd first saw combat in WWII.  329 sailors manned this destroyer.  I could not believe the small locker that each enlisted sailor was allowed.  Then they each had a cot.  They cots were stacked 4 or 5 high.  Not very much space between them. 

Then we boarded a bus for a tour of Baton Rouge.  It was interesting to hear some of the history of the capital and the home of Louisiana State University.  There is an old capital building and a new one.  It was designed by Huey Long.  He wanted his capital to have the tallest capitol building in the United States. 

The old capital building.  Looks like a castle, doesn't it?

This photo shows the top of the "new" capitol building which is behind a shorter building.

Next stop was the J.M. White Dining Room.  Once again we chose the lunch buffet.  I should have taken a photo.  I had shrimp and grits, prime rib, salad, cheese, and a delicious bread stick.  This was followed with banana pudding and a piece of Key Lime pie.  It will be so sad when we return to Lawrence and can’t have all this delicious food.

After lunch we listened to the history of one of the musicians on board.  Very interesting.  Then a few more precious moments sitting on the bow of the boat just enjoying the mighty Mississippi.

We felt like today we finally learned the ins and outs of being on this boat.  If we ever take another steamboat cruise, we will take more advantage of the onboard activities.

Supper this evening at the Front Porch Cafe.  Much more relaxing atmosphere.  Even though it's a buffet and not a 5-course meal, I believe I eat more there.  Some last photos of food.  I had my second piece of Key Lime Pie today.  I cannot get on the scales for at least a week.  I need to have some time to drop these excess calories.

James's plate.  Salad, prime rib, steamed broccoli, mashed potatoes, roll, a tomato soup with crayfish.

My plate. Panfried trout, prime rib, steamed broccoli, and salad

Key lime pie

We return to New Orleans by morning.  We will disembark shortly after 8 am.  We are then going to take a driving tour through New Orleans.  This concludes at the airport where we will catch a flight back to Kansas.