Day 24 - Travel Day to New Orleans, Louisiana

Submitted by Karen and Speed Henning #8

First of all, Speed and I, and we are sure the whole group would like to thank Skeeter, Pat, Spence and Madi for an excellent Cajun Crawl trip through Louisiana. We have never laughed and had so much fun, and it's not quite over yet!  So, we have 4, 3 day left no?  Right Pat?

Today was a travel day from the beautiful Houma area to New Orleans!

Since it was a travel day I'm going to share a few pictures that we took when we were in Lake Charles and had some free time and went down to Cameron and Holly Beach.

We certainly had a variety of weather.  I was able to catch a nice sunset and a rainbow on our travels.

We had our morning briefing in Houma and then Speed, Jim, Sharlet, and I took off for Cocodrie where we saw some beautiful homes and shrimp boats!

We then headed for New Orleans. We have come to the conclusion the highest elevation in the state is the bridges over the Mississippi River!

We ended the day with the delicious Cajun shrimp and crawfish outdoor picnic with beautiful weather and of course our  great group of people and Pat teaching Speed and Sharlet the proper way to peel shrimp and crawfish!

Happy happy and safe trav'ling everyone!

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.

Day 22 - Travel Day to Houma, Louisiana

Submitted by:  Fred and Mary Dahm #6

Laissez les Bon Tempo Rouler.  The good times continued to roll as we met for 9 a.m. briefing and Carolyn passed Foxy to Joe.

Lush forests, wild flowers and bayous alternated with farmland and beautiful homes.  We enjoyed the awesome view of the Mississippi River as we crossed Gramercy Bridge.

The City of Houma is a designated bird sanctuary.  Our lagniappe was a short walk on the Mandalay Nature Trail in the federal Wildlife Refuge.

Joe awarded Foxy to Marion during Social Hour and another day of adventure was concluded.

Yesterday we returned to the new State Capitol grounds and located a number of historical plaques and monuments honoring George and Martha Washington.  Later, we also crossed the great river on the Plaquemine ferry for $1.00!