Mary Ann Sternberg

In River Road Rambler Returns: More Curiosities along Louisiana's Historic Byway, Mary Ann Sternberg follows up her successful River Road Rambler with new delightful histories from Louisiana's most famous route. Her latest explorations include a trip on a towboat as it pushes a fleet of barges down the river; the true story behind the Sunshine Bridge, fondly called the Bridge to Nowhere; a tour of one of the last working sugar mills along the River Road; stories about how two iconic plantation houses were saved; and much more.Well researched and engagingly written, River Road Rambler Returns provides keen observations on unappreciated places and offers rich histories of unusual attractions along the winding road that lines the Mississippi River between New Orleans and Baton Rouge.

Few thoroughfares offer as rich a history as Louisiana's River Road between New Orleans and Baton Rouge. In this third edition of her extremely popular guide, Along the River Road, Mary Ann Sternberg provides a revised introduction, new images, and updated information on sites and attractions as well as tales and local lore about favorite and overlooked destinations. Featuring background information about the area and a detailed guided tour- upriver on the east bank and downriver along the west- the book gives an overview of the River Road, serving as an accessible and definitive companion to exploring the corridor. Sternberg's abiding appreciation of the area's allure- garnered over twenty years of visiting- produces a must-have travel companion to a place that far exceeds its common reputation as only a parade of elegant antebellum mansions. In this new edition, she again encourages travelers to experience the many treasures of this wondrous byway for themselves, seeing how much it has changed over the last decade.

Few thoroughfares offer as rich a history as Louisiana's River Road between New Orleans and Baton Rouge. In this third edition of her extremely popular guide, Along the River Road, Mary Ann Sternberg provides a revised introduction, new images, and updated information on sites and attractions as well as tales and local lore about favorite and overlooked destinations. Featuring background information about the area and a detailed guided tour- upriver on the east bank and downriver along the west- the book gives an overview of the River Road, serving as an accessible and definitive companion to exploring the corridor. Sternberg's abiding appreciation of the area's allure- garnered over twenty years of visiting- produces a must-have travel companion to a place that far exceeds its common reputation as only a parade of elegant antebellum mansions. In this new edition, she again encourages travelers to experience the many treasures of this wondrous byway for themselves, seeing how much it has changed over the last decade.

The River Road between New Orleans and Baton Rouge hosts a fascinating mix of people, traditions, and stories. Author Mary Ann Sternberg has spent over two decades exploring this richly historic corridor, uncovering intriguing and often underappreciated places. In River Road Rambler, she presents fifteen sketches about sites along this scenic route. From familiar stops, such as the National Hansen's Disease Center Museum at Carville, with its octogenarian guide, and the sui generis perique tobacco area of St. James Parish to the less well-noted yet highly distinctive Our Lady of Lourdes grotto in Convent and the gradually disappearing Colonial Sugars Historic District, Sternberg presents a new perspective on some of the region's most colorful places. While many of the places remain easily accessible to any River Road rambler, Sternberg also presents others closed to the public, giving armchair travelers an introduction to these otherwise unreachable attractions. Throughout, Sternberg captures the ambiance of her surroundings with a clear, engaging, and sometimes quirky examination of the relationships between past and present. In a poignant piece on the Valcour Aime garden, for example, she delves into the history of this lavish, nationally acclaimed planter's garden, created and abandoned in the mid-nineteenth century. Her visit to the now private and protected site, which has never been altered or replanted since its origins, reveals an extraordinary landscape- the relic of what Valcour Aime created, slowly overwhelmed by nature. The essay-like stories brim with insights and observations about everything from the fire that razed The Cottage plantation to the failed attempts to salvage the reproduction of the seventeenth- century French warship Le Pelican from the bottom of the Mississippi. River Road Rambler takes us along to River Road treasures, linking us to both past and present and bringing some delightful and unexpected surprises in the process.

Once considered one of the most important waterways in the American southeast and a vital link in a shortcut from the Mississippi River to the Gulf of Mexico, Louisiana's Bayou Manchac rests in virtual obscurity today. Few now notice the bayou- which runs for eighteen miles, forming the boundary between several south Louisiana parishes- or remember that everyone from French explorers and steamboat captains to modern-day loggers and fishermen have plied its waters and lived along its banks. Even fewer are aware that the bayou remains a place of striking, intense beauty in spots untouched by development and pollution. In Winding through Time, Mary Ann Sternberg interweaves the bayou's history with tales, anecdotes, and personal observations, creating an entertaining and educational introduction to this overlooked natural haven.With the tenacity and skill of a historical detective, Sternberg uncovers Bayou Manchac's rich and colorful past. She reveals that the waterway that most know only by weathered highway signs on the parish line served, several times in its history, as an international border, forming part of the northern boundary of the ""Isle of Orleans."" She recalls the flourishing Native American cultures that occupied sites along the bayou as early as 250 b.c. and describes the many unsuccessful schemes over the years to make it navigable and thus provide a major commercial artery connecting the Mississippi River with Lakes Maurepas and Pontchartrain. Bayou Manchac survives still, she shows, as a somewhat frayed relic of our natural past valued mainly for its drainage capacity and abused by polluters.More than simply an environmental history, however, Sternberg's Winding through Time offers her personal narrative of ""discovering"" Bayou Manchac a few years ago and her growing awareness of its untamed beauty, historical significance, and threatened well-being. She traveled the bayou, meeting some of the people who live along its banks and who shared many of their stories. Through her engaging prose and lively commentary, she succeeds in providing a life-history and, indeed, a personality, for this geographical feature.Sternberg shines a long overdue spotlight on Bayou Manchac, questioning how such a valuable resource could have become so diminished. As she eloquently illustrates, the wandering tale of this little waterway, though unique, also strikes a cautionary note for other small historic American streams.

The Pelican Guide to Louisiana: 2nd Edition is divided into sections that focus on distinct areas of the state. Bayou country, alligators, Cajuns, the Crescent City, old plantations, and local fairs and festivals are just a few of the many places and attractions featured in this extensive guide to Louisiana.