Blue Dog Cafe in Lafayette

Some really great Cajun Cuisine at the Blue Dog Cafe in Lafayette where we stopped for lunch. Our small group met on the 2016 South West Adventure Caravan and we have crossed paths many times since then, some in Alaska and some in the wilderness of Death Valley! All the paintings are by George Rodrigue and all feature a blue dog somewhere in the painting. You might recognize Cajun chef Paul Prudhomme!

Drone view of our roof!

With many thanks to Bob Martel for the images he took with his drone.

Friends!

One of the greatest gifts of Airstreaming is discovering new, like-minded friends- John and Victoria, Bob and Lisa from the Southwest Adventure Caravan and the larger group, including our CCC leaders, in the second photo, from this summer's Alaska Caravan.

Acadian Village

A colorful, bilingual Acadian descendant peppered his tour of this village created from original structures with stories of daily life and traditions. Again we heard of the Acadians plight at the hands of both the French and the British and their deportation to Louisiana. Their resilience and ingenuity shine on!

Live Oaks

How do you photograph one of the largest live oaks in the country? We loved seeing them, but David suffered badly from their spring pollen.

An alligator purse?

Victoria and I skipped a church tour to visit the Mark Staton factory store outside Lafayette. We had a great tour from the owner's daughter and learned the process from alligator catching and tanning through dying and product creation. But no, we couldn't find a reason to INVEST in new purses, however lovely!

Crawfish 🦞

Plenty of learning and eating during our week in Cajun country! David's first plate came from Rouse's supermarket, freshly boiled and seasoned, still warm. The best were served at Jane's Seafood and Chinese Restaurant in New Iberia. The freshest were harvested in front of us, boiled, then served at Crawfish Haven Barn where the process described below was illustrated. How curious to discover the symbiotic relationship between growing rice and cultivating crawfish!

Visit to Tabasco on Avery Island

Visit to the Tabasco plant, peppers grow upwards and are only picked when they are the right shade of red, mashed and put in barrels for three years, add vinegar and product variations then bottled! Delish! 

New Iberia

Interesting house with an impressive front door on Main Street in New Iberia. Note the flaming gas torch in the background- almost a mausoleum!

Crawfish heaven

Checked in at Jane's Seafood Restaurant last night in New Iberia and was told an hour wait! So saddled up to the bar and ordered half a dozen absolutely delightful charbroiled oysters lightly dusted with Parmesan followed by 3 lbs of medium spice crawfish! Meat ratio is approx 15% so I figured about 7 ounces of actual delish seafood. One of our better dining experiences in Cajun Country in an effort to avoid the myriad of deep fry shacks!

Airstream SkyDeck

Airstream made a few dozen of these SkyDecks and about 15 are still around and in service. This one is owned by our caravan leaders Peter and Judy. It's pretty impressive! Can accommodate about twenty on the upper deck. Intended for horse racing or car racing entertaining in style!

Champagne Swamp Tour

Wildlife at the swamp tour

The Champagne Cajun Swamp Tour on Lake Martin in Louisiana taught us so much about swamps!

“Swamp" literally means "flooded forest." It's different from a marsh, which is made up of tall grass and mud. It's also different from a bayou, which is a slowly flowing river. In a swamp, the water is clean from the hydrilla plant (which filters the water). There are trees that grow out of the water, which are often bald cypress trees and tupelo gum trees, which repel mosquitoes, so (contrary to popular belief) you will never get bitten by a mosquito in a true swamp. When a bald cypress tree gets older, a hole will start to form near its trunk. This is not a sign of sickness--Mother Nature creates this purposefully so that mammals will have a place to stay during hurricanes. They can also live to be hundreds or thousands of years old. Alligators, not crocodiles, live in the fresh water of the swamps. Swamps are one of the cleanest environments in nature. Everything is filtered, and nothing is extra. Even the "rotting" tree trunks are home to woodpecker food. And woodpeckers are vital to the ecosystem as well, because the wood ducks follow into abandoned woodpecker nests to make their own homes. And more things follow them. It's all the great cycle of life. As our tour guide put it, "Mother Nature never does nothing extra, never makes no mistakes, and surely doesn't have no bad intentions.

The arrival of the Acadians

Everywhere we heard the sad history of the Acadians and their arrival in Louisiana where they were forbidden from speaking their native French and struggled to figure out how to survive. How profoundly they've influenced the music, culture, and cuisine of Cajun Country!

Huey Long Assassination

The Huey Long assassination took place in the new state capitol in Baton Rouge in 1935. The police report on the murder was not published until 1992! Check out the bullet holes in the marble columns in the elevator lobby! There is still a complete mystery as to who was the perpetrator!

Artwork in the Louisiana Governor's Mansion

Spotted history of Louisiana Governors

The entrance lobby to the Governor's Mansion opens on a beautiful Louisiana setting captured on canvas in an original mural painted by Auseklis Ozols. Depicting scenery from the four corners or the state, this work of art took the artist six months to complete, working only on weekends. Hidden discreetly in the cabin of a shrimp boat, lurks Blaze Starr, stripper, girlfriend of Louisiana's 1950's ungovernable governor Earl K Long brother of Huey Long. The relationship was featured in the Paul Newman movie Blaze. Check out the fishing boat in the mural lifting cargo onboard. Look carefully and you will see the cargo is actually a cleverly painted thermostat. In the second photo you can see the general scope of the murals.

Bourbon Street

A little madness along Bourbon Street after the conclusion of two parades on the last night before Fat Tuesday Mardi Gras.... fortunately we had a res at GW Fins just half a block away which was the most peaceful haven and outstanding fish dining!

Solar system shakedown

Becoming familiar with the solar system, controllers, inverter, converter, battery banks is a learning curve! Four solar panels deliver quite a healthy charge either camped out or driving down the road, even if the sun is not bright! Balancing the drains on the system, excluding resource hungry appliances, switching to propane when appropriate and running the Honda generator to fill the energy holes. After six days off the grid we think we have finally figured most of it out!

Sunrise over the river

Our sixth free night using solar power found us alongside the Pascagoula River in Gautier, Mississippi. Hickory Hill CC's founder greeted us on his golf cart and drove us next door to see his family property while recounting his experiences as a member of his college's national championship football team, his family's roots in the community, and the ravages of hurricanes during his 75 years.

Another very quiet night and we awoke to this view! We're loving the freedom of this new way of traveling, with most of the comforts we've come to cherish in our rolling silver home, and new perspectives on the places we're staying.

Harvest Hosts

Another first: using our Harvest Hosts membership to schedule a free night at one of their thousands of participating country clubs, wineries, farms, or museums.

This one in Spanish Fort, Alabama, provided a quiet night on the opposite side of the parking lot and an excellent breakfast in the full- service dining room of the Timber Creek CC. We could not have asked for a warmer welcome, and it was a treat to see another Airstream pull in at sunset!

Solar Explorations

So much to learn! For our first solar camping experience, we chose 4 nights at Grassy Point, Escribano, FL, a small, reservable, free campsite managed by the Wildlife Management Authority, 20 minutes down this red dirt road. It was just what we'd imagined: peaceful, scenic, plenty of room under the large trees and Spanish moss. A great setting for grilling too!

We continued to run the fridge and water heater on propane. We figured out the coffee maker and milk frother worked well through the inverter but not the microwave. No problem! The Dish receiver picked up both the Oscars and the Six Nations rugby matches. When the sun was out, the batteries stayed charged, then, when rain came, the generator did the job.

Yes, it was the relaxed life we've so enjoyed, experienced in a new way! We'll keep finding new places to stay off the grid!