Journeys

Farewell, Acadiana

July 8, 2013

We are back-roading it as we jog north and eastward for a couple of nights in Vidalia. We have in mind to meet up with some kin near there; however, their schedule may not allow it within our time frame. I do hope we can see them; these are folks we met because of going to their town doing genealogy research and have had the pleasure to visit them several times. We shall see.

It seems that we miscalculated where would be the best area in which to land in Acadiana to do the things we had in mind. It looked right on the map; however, the reality was more marshy than swampy, so I think next time, we will settle a bit more towards Lafayette where we have stayed previously just because I love the swamp country.

Swamp tour . . .

And speaking of swamp country, we drove over that way to go on a swamp tour - a beautiful but relatively disappointing excursion. We managed to pick a tour operator who was a crabby curmudgeon; he spent nearly the entire two hours grousing about mismanagement of the swamps. It is a known fact that the wetlands are being destroyed, as much by so-called management as anything, and although I can grouse right along with the best of them, I didn’t necessarily want to pay to hear it. I’m much more interested in hearing about the exploits of alligators.

A morning excursion seemed just right to avoid rain showers, but in our case did not help: the last part of our time on the water was also in the rain. We got pretty drenched but managed to save the camera under the poncho. What is it about us, boats and rain???

Marcus, our boatman, was accompanied by his two Catahoula hounds and one tiny puppy. Besides being astute about alligator danger, these are also hog dogs; the older one, Jesse, has the scars to prove it. Fortunately, as a senior citizen, he is retired.

It is fun hearing the lilly pads in a breeze. Their edges flop up and back down and sound like a herd of elephant ears softly flapping back & forth (not that I have much experience with elephant ears, but I am pretty sure that's what they sound like.)

It was surprising how few birds we saw out there, but later viewing a nearby rookery was another matter, and when we walked through the Cypress Island Preserve, we got an even better look at them. It was fun to see black-bellied whistling ducks high up on a tree limb. I don’t believe I’ve ever seen ducks doing that. They, and others, nest in the trees, obviously a trait that prevents them from being alligator supper. Besides that, other new birds are little blue heron, boat-tailed grackle and wood stork.

Tricolored heron

Two wet bedraggled passengers and one crabby curmudgeon.

Black-crowned night heron

Snowy egret

The three domestic ducks that reside at our Hidden Ponds have no problem with their chosen haven; no gators there.

Cajun food, humidity, dillos . . .

We dined out once and had some mighty fine vittles at The Boiling Point, touted as “Cajun food at it’s (sic) best”. Truthfully, it was a top quality feed. Chris enjoyed their gumbo, fried okra, and something we had not heard of - a pistolette. I was sated by my dinner of catfish, hush puppies, sweet potato and cole slaw. To top the sweet potato, they served a cinnamon honey butter - yuck. Why can’t people just learn to enjoy a sweet potato? They are delicious all by themselves, but we seem inclined to bury them in things that disguise their true nature. Needless to say, my beverage was sweet tea, the standard throughout the South, and my favorite.

Our first couple of days there were relatively low humidity, but when those storms moved in - look out - it’s kind of like swimming on land, not terribly unpleasant, just vastly different than what we are accustomed to. One just sweats all the time . . .

I checked the Cajun dictionary thoroughly: nowhere within it is the word “crisp”. That is a concept that does not exist in Acadiana as far as I can tell. Crackers are not crisp, chips are not crisp; even paper just kind of hangs there soggily.

Not once in our six months in Midland nor anywhere else in Texas did we see an armadillo, although they have been common there in the past, but in Louisiana, we are seeing occasional road-killed dillos,. I hope we are not the only people who try to identify road kill; surely our oddness is shared by someone else.

That low country is filled with crepe myrtle in full bloom - very showy. I planted my crepe myrtle at home after a trip to the South; the flowers are stunning. We also saw lots of sugar cane and rice fields. It felt like visiting an old friend to see Bayou Teche again, so named for its serpentine nature. It’s interesting that the historic houses along it all face the water with their backs to the road because
when they were constructed, the bayou provided the only access.

Rip Van Winkle, Grover Cleveland, disaster . . .

Nope, can’t be passing up a sign for something called Rip Van Winkle gardens lest we be forever wondering just what that might be about; a quick turnaround led us up a long, very long, entrance drive lined by oaks. And before I go futher, I have to mention some about oaks and trees in general. Texas has some of the most impressive stately oak trees I have ever admired, but I do believe Louisiana’s take the cake - awesome gargantuan trees that spread so far they cannot hold themselves up; their gigantic trunk-size branches come to rest on the ground with their huge weight and then just keep on reaching.

Okay, so the R. V. W. gardens is the landscaped grounds of the 1870 Joseph Jefferson house. We toured the house and hiked the grounds up and down and all around. The residence is constructed on the bank of Lake Peigneur atop a salt dome.

Mr. Jefferson was an actor and playwright who almost exclusively portrayed Rip Van Winkle, as odd as that sounds. Seems the play was so popular that he just wrote a new version and performed it every year for 40 years. Wherever he got his fortune from, it must have been substantial judging by this property. It is the kind of place where I exclaim over and over at the beauty of it. What an architectural feat to design that acreage - phenomenal! And the house isn’t half bad either: Jefferson designed that himself.

President Grover Cleveland was his good friend who visited often. I had to laugh about the plaque that showed his favorite oak tree under which to nap. I’m thinking if he had spent less time napping and more time trooping up and down that 70-foot high salt dome, he could have trimmed off a few
pounds.

The pirate Jean Lafitte hid and left booty here to be found later.

In recent years, a really astounding event occurred there. Oil drillers in the lake hit a connection to the salt mine under the house. The result was like a Paul Bunyan-size drain opening up. In short order, it swallowed the entire lake, two oil drill rigs, 11 barges, a tug boat, a large house, 65 acres of Jefferson’s property, gigantic forest and all. Amazingly, no one was killed: all got to shore in the nick of time and the 55 salt miners managed to escape before their caverns were inundated,. There are videos online of the catastrophe.

Cardinals are the bird of choice in those parts. Ma & Pa were often at our feeders, the only birds to show up there except for house sparrows that came to clean up the spill; nary a single hummingbird did we see the entire week.

A planned afternoon of swimming at the Lake Charles beach was rained out, so we hightailed it to the Isle of Capris casino instead. Interesting: we hadn't been in a casino for years. Sticking to 1-cent and quarter slot machines, we doubled our money; my $10 grubstake became $20 and Chris turned his $1 into $2.