Judy rose early, along with the resident roosters, and got a picture of the sunrise. It promised to be another hot, humid day in southern Louisiana, and it was. We drove to a local French bakery for breakfast, Poupart's, full of beautiful-looking things to eat. We had coffee, beignets and a croissant sandwich before heading south from Layfayette to the New Iberia, LA area.
We stopped at the local visitor's center there to try and get a feel for which of the local attractions should be visited first. There seemed to be a lot to do in the area and we didn't think there would be to time to see it all. We were right about that.
We decided to head further south to Avery Island, since that was the point furthest away that we wanted to visit; then, we would work our way back to the RV park. Avery Island is the home of Tabasco hot sauce, a venerable name in American cuisine. The company (McIlhenny) was founded before the Civil War, when Edmund McIlhenny married Elizabeth Avery and moved to her ancestral home on Avery Island. Here, Edmund and Elizabeth founded a family, a company and an empire. The extensive grounds of the island are taken up by the McIlhenny mansion, the Tabasco factory, some pepper-growing fields, the requisite gift shops, a salt mine (no joke) and a large "Jungle Garden" to drive through, filled with many different kinds of trees and shrubs collected by Edmund, who was "into" gardening and growing things besides peppers.
The salt mine is there because the island is actually the top of a geologic feature called a salt dome which reaches many miles below the surface of the earth. Salt is actually used in the manufacture of Tabasco sauce, so it's good that they have an unending supply. We found out that there are actually 6 or 7 different flavors of the sauce and that you can buy it by the gallon in the gift shop.
The Jungle Garden drive was very interesting; we almost didn't go because it sounded a little, well, hokey, but we really enjoyed it. In the lagoons and ponds scattered throughout the garden we saw more alligators than we had seen on the swamp tour yesterday. Unfortunately, these alligators were used to being fed handouts by the passing tourists; they swam right up to the edge of the ponds towards the car, showing no fear whatsoever.
A big part of the Jungle Garden was Bird City, a bird sanctuary for egrets and herons started by Edmund, who helped save the Snowy Egret from extinction in the late 19th century. We love to watch for egrets on our travels and this place had more egrets than any other place we had seen.
By the time we had finished with the tours on Avery Island, it was long past time for lunch, so we decided to skip that meal and just go for dinner. We went to another local Cajun restaurant, Paul's Pirogue. A pirogue is a Cajun boat, a sort of wooden canoe used in the swamps. (Actually, nowadays they all use shallow-draft motorboats out in the swamps.) Dinner was very good, gumbo, shrimp etouffe, stuffed potatoe and gateau sirop, a wonderful gingerbread cake.
Tomorrow we leave Cajun country several pounds heavier than whence we came and head for Austin, Texas and the regional foods there (barbeque is being considered). The diets start when we get home to California.
Wednesday Pictures - Lafayette, LA
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