Supersaturated Solution-A Suspended Tourist Landscape

“Southern Louisiana exists in its present form because the Mississippi River has jumped here and there within an arc about two hundred miles wide, like a pianist playing with one hand-frequently and radically changing course, surging over the left or right back to go off in utterly new directions.”(1)Southern Louisiana’s geographical and cultural setting is a ‘terra viscus’: a super-saturated soil, one that is never completely solid or liquid, one that is never in stasis but in a continuous state of being made and being removed. This ‘terra viscus’ provides a unique medium for tourism for it is able to hold in suspension numerous and seemingly contradictory tours. If the value of a tourist economy is to provide an alternate, or other experience from the norm, Southern Louisiana has great value. As the pace of the American lifestyle increases, so does the need for temporary escapes into the opposite. People save money and accrue vacation time for the momentary opportunity to travel and experience a distinct landscape. One of the greatest commodities of the lower Mississippi river valley, from Natchez to New Orleans, is its distinction from the normative.

Volume Editors
Marilys R. Nepomechie & Robert Gonzalez

ISBN
0-935502-54-8