Tuesday, April 8, 2014

Day 23 - Touring Houma, Louisiana

Submitted by:  Ray and Lorre Dorris #7


Day 23 in Houma started out beautiful with a slight chill in the air with a few scattered clouds with the occasional breaks with bright periods of bone warming sunshine...


The evening before ended with a breathtaking sunset, today also ended with another beautiful Louisiana sunset but with a little punch from Mother Nature...


We all gathered in the parking lot for our ride share to Bob's Bayou Black Marina for our Cajun Man's Swamp Cruise. 

Joe checking out those gator teeth...















Nice to see men in a line for a change....


Our tour guide, the owner, "Black" Guidry, who can be seen and heard on several
TV stations, is a former Green Beret and State Trooper


We were awed by the sighting of a pair of bald eagles, numerous alligators ranging from small ones sunning on logs to what is probably one of the largest alligators still in the wild.

We were serenaded with tunes from his accordion and guitar while singing local Cajun and familiar country tunes, making for another enjoyable morning of touring through the swamps of Louisiana. 

















We were treated with a demonstration on how you use a limb line with a baited hook and clothespin to hunt for alligator in the wild.


Our next stop was at Greenwood Gator Farm, here we learned all about the harvesting of gator eggs, raising, processing of gators for their hide and meat for our consumption. 

Ray chatting with the owners, the Greenwood's.


















Cute when they're small. This one is almost a year old with a full set of teeth.


Salt is used in the curing process.


The sex of the alligator is determined by the temperature during incubation, incubation temperatures of 86 or lower produce a clutch of females; those at 93 or higher produce entirely males.

It was a very educational tour as well as an entertaining and hands on experience.

















They do allow outsiders to live on the gator farm...
Me and Big Mike hanging out....

















Chris giving one of the little fellows some love....


Of course I couldn't leave without my own gator...













After seeing all these alligators, we were off to Big Al's Restaurant for some tasty morsels of cooked alligator. 



I had my favorite, charbroiled oysters, Ray had the gator sandwich.


Our evening ended with a big surprise from our fearless leaders, who have taken such wonderful care of us on our meandering crawl across Cajun Country.

They treated us to all the fixings of a true Cajun boil prepared by Rouse's Supermarket but that's when Mother Nature decided to break up our little dinner party, well, she didn't stop us from filling our bellies with crawfish, shrimp, red potatoes, corn on the cob and chicken for a few.....























Mad dash to get everything put up...




Tomorrow we move on to New Orleans for the last stop on our trip....can't wait.

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