Feb 16-19

Monday morning we woke to warm weather (65 deg) which was the same as we went to bed the night before. This was soon to change as Mardi Gras – Fat Tuesday was around the corner. We left Cajun Palms  around 11 not having too far to go and took a lesser travelled route south through St. Martinsville and New Iberia ending up in Abbeville for the next couple of nights. We arrived around 1 and the weather was still sunny in the high 60’s with a warm breeze. By dinner time the temp had dropped to the low 40’s and went into the mid 30’s over night.

We had a reasonable internet connection, so that allowed us to catch up on a few things. Without cable, Breaking Bad episodes for that night and the next was our evening “TV” entertainment. The aerial did pickup a couple of channels, but none of the shows we were interested in.

Tuesday we awoke and stayed in for the morning until around 12:30 waiting for the temperatures to rise. Fat Tuesday is basically a state holiday which we found out once we had walked 1.5 miles into town. As Tuesday tourists, we were pretty alone in town as most had gone to other nearby towns and cities to watch the many parades occurring. We walked around the downtown area for an hour or so, saw some of the tourist sites and fortunately the one restaurant we wanted to go to was open – Shucks! (that’s the name of the restaurant as they are known for their oysters). This was to be our big meal for the day and it was. Oysters “shuck-e-fella”, gumbo (Kathy’s seafood, mine smoked duck and andouille sausage), pan fried shrimp and crab cakes. Yep this filled us for the night. Back home by 4ish for a few games of Rummikub.

Wednesday, we woke early as we had a couple of planned sites to visit nearby. We would relocate to a new park for 2 nights in New Iberia – about 15 miles away. After picking up some supplies at Winn Dixie, we headed to Jefferson Island. This is not precisely an island but it’s one five salt domes in the immediate area. This one is several thousand feet deep and rises above sea level by about 75’, unlike the rest of Louisiana. I will try to keep the following history short. Joseph Jefferson in the mid-1800’s was well known for portraying the character Rip Van Winkle. He was a playwright and actor using Washington Irving’s short story. For 40 years he toured the US, UK, Europe and Australia with his play. He bought property and built the 10,000 sq ft house in the picture in 1870. After his death in 1905, the next owner purchased the property and soon after realized the salt dome could be mined. Jefferson Island Salt mine was opened shortly after and remained until 1980. Shortly before that time, the owner of the day had constructed a new lakeside home beside Lake Peigneur very close by to the Jefferson Estate. In November 1980, Texaco Oil was in the immediate area drilling for oil or gas(??). Drilling deep, they found and open vein of the salt mine and shortly after the small lake began to sink with a brand new 150’ waterfall occurring. This was the last day for the mine as the water soon left the lake taking down barges and 65 acres of surrounding property including the owner’s new home. Water from a neaby lake filled the new lake up to soon have a much larger lake,  see the chimney that remains sticking out of the water with the house below. Fortunately there were no losses as miners were in the mine at the time. Something to google if interested. We had a great tour of the grounds and a private tour of the mansion as no one else was there – just us and the guide. The property was really nice with flowering camellia bushes all around the property. Lunch in the RV at Jefferson parking lot before the P.M. tour.

Heading back towards New Iberia, we now were enroute to Avery Island. If you have a bottle of Tabasco nearby, take a look at the front label. This is where they come from.  Tabasco has a fascinating history. First of all, Avery Island is another one of the salt domes mentioned above and was the first salt mine in the United States and continues to operate today. This is the one and only Tabasco plant in the world. They supply over 100 countries from here producing 700,000 bottles per day, four days a week – so the math – 130 to 140 million bottles per year!

Edmund Mcllhenny invented it here in 1868 and the company continues to be owned and run by direct descendants to this day. How do they make it and keep up with those volumes? (I’ll keep it short). It started with Edmund using peppers he grew on the surrounding property. Now they only grow around 30 acres of peppers here strictly for seeds. They have many farmers in Central and South America that they send seeds to and Avery Island salt (part of the recipe and process) that supply 99 % of the peppers needed. The farmers are supplied and the pickers us a Le petite Baton Rouge – a little red stick which is painted the red that the pickers match to the peppers to insure they are picked at the exact right colour. There strict process is to grind the peppers into a mash on the same day they were picked with Avery Island salt. The mash is shipped to Avery Island from the south and put into used wooden barrels obtained from Jack Daniels and other whisky makers where it is aged for 3 years! After this it is blended with vinegar (and ??) for a 28 day mixing period. They are then bottled and ready to shipped around the world. They now have many types of pepper sauces, steak sauce, chili sauce, etc.. We even sampled some Jalapeño ice cream and another one was a chipotle flavor – interesting….

Thursday morning was cool again with sunny weather in the mid 50’s expected by noon, which it did. Today we got the bikes out and biked into town (less than 4 miles one way). First off was a visit to the Konriko Rice Company, which is the oldest rice mill in the US still operating as it did when it began in 1912. The same process’s, techniques and equipment (most of it) remains unchanged. One change is they now us electricity which they didn’t have in the beginning when they used steam power. They have rice growers within a 40 mile area from the facility that supply enough rice during season so they produce about 40,000 per day during high season.  During the tour we learned that these farmers actually have two crops on their land – rice and crawfish…..whaaaaa?!!?! Yep, they seed their fields in  April/May using a crop duster airplane. Shortly after, they flood their fields with more than a foot of water. The rice crop takes about 4 months to grow, when they drain the fields and allow the rice plants to dry and brown (like wheat) then it is taken off by combine. I’m not sure of the timing of the next crop – crawfish, but the season peaks with the largest crawfish in April/May. The crawfish live deep in the wet soil under the rice crop and then the farmer uses baited traps to harvest the crawfish. Very interesting. Now we know what all these coloured tops throughout flooded fields where when we entered Louisiana last week! We continued on to the Historic downtown area looking at all the old and larger homes.  For those that read mystery novels, James Lee Burke with his Dave Robicheaux mystery series uses this area as inspiration for his books. He spent summers here with his cousins who lived on Main St., fishing in the Bayou Teche.

Now that’s something to Squawk about, eh!

Off to New Orleans tomorrow to meet up with our long time friends, John and Wendy flying in from Toronto for some Jazz, Blues, Cajun food and good times! (not to mention some warm weather)

Oh, by the way, once we are in New Orleans we have to pronounce it as “ N’Awlins”.