Trying To Beat the Heat, New Tattoo, and Vacation

So it is my least favorite time of year...mid July.  I don't do well with the heat and we have even had a mild summer this year actually by comparison.  So I haven't blogged much recently and for that I am sorry...hope you missed me :)

So what do you do when it's hot out?  You stay inside, get tattooed, and go on vacation!

On July 10th I had a standing appointment to get a new tattoo with artist Adrian Berry at 7th Street Tattoo who in my opinion, and those of many others, is just about the best black and grey tattoo artist around.  He had done my other tattoo about 4 years ago and I met a lady at the farmer's market that had some great work done by him.  So he was my choice certainly.  The design that you see is the second of two that he did for me and it was perfect...completely what I wanted but didn't know.  After 3 hours and 15min it was done and I had a piece of artwork I will enjoy forever.  That is the thing that I love about them...you have an experience that is unlike anything else and you have the result forever. 

The next day I headed out to Lake Rosemound which is near St Francisville, Louisiana with my mother.  We went to have a family reunion of sorts at my great-aunt Becca's lake house there.  On the way down we stopped at Afton Villa and I got to take pictures even though it wasn't opened for tours.  The home burned some time ago but the gardens are still there and the entrance is beautiful.

My brother, sister-in-law, and nephew would join us the next day.  It is a gorgeous lake and on the small side which would be great for me as I am always worried that I would get lost at lake when I am at Lake Hamilton in Hot Springs.  It was great to relax and see family but the fact that there was no cell service and no internet at the house made me very anxious.  I can relax but I gotta have my connection to the outside world.  So I did the next logical thing...I ate constantly. 

Friday before my brother and his family arrived we went into St Francisville and had lunch and did some sightseeing.  It is a beautiful little town and full if historical old homes.  Here is what wiki has to say:
The town of St. Francisville was established in 1809 and a number of historic structures from that period still exist. Called the town "two miles long and two yards wide" because it was developed atop a narrow ridge overlooking the Mississippi River, it was the commercial and cultural center of the surrounding plantation country. Below St. Francisville's bluffs, another early settlement called Bayou Sara had been established in the early 1790s and was at one time before the Civil War the largest shipping port on the Mississippi River between New Orleans and Memphis. Destroyed by repeated flooding and fires, nothing exists of Bayou Sara today, but a few of its structures were hauled up the hill into St. Francisville in the 1920s.
Years of contention as to exactly where the eastern boundary of the 1803 Louisiana Purchase was, depending on which treaty was cited as France and England and Spain shifted the territory among themselves, allowed Spain to continue to claim St. Francisville and territory on the eastern side of the Mississippi River which is today called the Florida Parishes. In 1810 St. Francisville served as the capital of the Republic of West Florida as the local planters ousted the Spanish government and set up their own independent republic for a grand total of 74 days before being annexed to the rest of Louisiana as part of the United States.
After the American Civil War, a number of Jewish immigrants escaping religious persecution in Germany arrived and made important contributions to commerce in the lean years, providing credit when the banks failed, building impressive Victorian homes like the Wolf-Schlessinger House, now operated as the St. Francisville Inn B&B.
In recent years, community efforts have focused on restoration and preservation of the town's historic homes. St. Francisville is currently a popular tourism destination with a number of restored historic plantations open daily for tours, including Rosedown Plantation State Historic Site, Audubon State Historic Site, Butler Greenwood Plantation, The Myrtles, The Cottage Plantation and Greenwood Plantation, as well as several antebellum gardens

My favorite place there is Grace Episcopal Church and the surrounding cemetery.  Such a beautiful place!

After several days it was time to come back and get back to work but was such a nice to time to unwind.

All photography rights shared by Brian Kelley/Imagine Photography