Jan 2008

Our primary objective for today was to get to my cousin's house so we could spend the weekend visiting. It rained last night and throughout the day, mostly a heavy rain.

This morning we had a chance to see a little more of the Sam Houston Jones State Park we had stayed in last night. This part of Louisiana still has a lot of bayou's and cypress swamps. This is listed as a pond on our park map, but looks more like a swamp or bayou to me.

After taking a picture or two and loading up, I did a quick walk around the RV before heading out as I often do. To my surprise and dismay, we had a flat tire. This was especially surprising because I had stopped for over an hour in New Iberia yesterday and had the tires checked (forgot to put that in the blog though I think). It was the left rear outside tire, and since there are two tires on each side, I decided to limp along to the nearest tire store rather then try to mess around with jacks and the spare. Two hours later (maybe it just seemed that long, I think it was more like an hour), the flat was fixed - but the tire store couldn't find any reason for it to go flat. There weren't any nails, holes or visible damage, it was just flat - so they refused to charge me for fixing it!

This was at Service Tire & Auto Center in Moss Bluff, LA (near Lake Charles). It's too bad I don't know anyone in that area, they definitely deserve the business. Makes me feel kind of guilty at how jaded I get sometimes when I feel I've been given a bum deal, that maybe all small businesses are shady and out to get you. However, on this trip we continue to run into honest, fun, decent people and businesses. I may have to reassess my 'poor me' attitude.

The tire store wasn't so sure, but I suspect the cause was the terrible roads we'd been driving on in Louisiana. At least one trucker's survey rates them the worst in the country. VT had bad roads, as well as a couple of other places we've been - but Louisianna's were clearly the worst. I tried hard to slow down and miss the worst of the potholes, cracks and bumps, but it wasn't always possible and I had hit some really, really hard. The RV is also heavier than a regular car, so when I hit a bump, it really hits hard. Yesterday I had knocked some things around in back that don't normally get knocked around, so my guess is I must have hit a bump so hard that it knocked the bead loose. Maybe, maybe not - but it's my guess.

Anyway, I kept a careful check on the tire for the rest of the trip, so far it seems to be holding up. When you read about some of the problems and breakdowns the early pioneers had to face, this seems relatively mild. If you break a wooden wagon wheel while crossing the Rocky Mountains, now that would be tough (and it happened, a lot).

So we lost some time to the bad tire, plus the hour I spent before leaving the campground trying to find someplace willing to work on my propane tank - so effectively used up all our sightseeing time for today. Given the bad weather, maybe that's just as well, I pretty much got soaked every time I got out.

We did take a couple of pictures as we drove along - this one is an oil refinery in the Lake Charles area, it's hard to believe how massive these things are - it was on both sides of the freeway with large pipelines crossing over & under the road.

The rain continued and was quite heavy. Driving visibility was terrible, combined with frequent roadwork so we often had concrete barriers right along the lane edge on the right, then big semi's passing us on the left - quite a challenging drive. Mom got stressed out by it all and she didn't even have to drive! I asked her to put a smooth jazz sampler in the CD player, which helped calm things down a bit (for me at least).

I stopped at the Visitor's Center just after we crossed into Texas ("The Lonestar State") - thought this giant star was cute.

The staff there was very helpful and when I explain we were on an eight month trip to circumnavigate the country, they suggested we were welcome to spend our eight months in Texas. I picked up a fairly large sack full of brochures and maps - probably more than we'll have time to do even in eight months, but I think we'll enjoy our stay here regardless of the weather.

The rain got a little lighter as we got to Houston, then thru the toll loop (ugh - very pricey) and then state highway down to Lake Jackson. It stopped raining sometime along the way and is beginning to dry out a bit. It is much colder here than I expected for this time of year (all along the gulf coast really). I guess I looked at the atlas and figured because the gulf states are so far south, it would be more like the LA/San Diego area. But maybe because the weather patterns curve south eastward across land, vs the ocean, it just is colder in the southeast then the southwest. Too many new things to learn...

Mom & I enjoyed spending some time with my cousin & his wife last night, I lost track of time and didn't leave enough to update the blog - so am doing some catch up this morning. Great Internet signal here (I guess Sprint was right this time, their network problems were limited to Louisiana and eastward). So, time permitting - I'll go ahead and try to get some video's uploaded from St. Augustine.

BTW (geek speak for "By The Way") - If you want to check out any video's I've uploaded for the trip, without having to wade through old blog entries, you can go to YouTube and type my user id in the search box: jl98584

Logistics:

Miles Driven - 212, Cumulative 14,241
Camped at - My Cousins house in Lake Jackson, TX

Provisions Secured:
Gas - 11.239g for $31.46 at 124057 (Baytown, Tx)
Afternoon Snack, Crackerbarrel at Baytown, Tx (mostly to get off freeway for a bit)

Animals Sited:

Domestic - Cattle, Horses
Wild - Deer, Various Hawks, Black Vultures, Egrets

Other Observations:

Oil Refineries in both Louisiana and East Texas - lots of them
Rice fields in both Louisiana and East Texas

Heavy rain all night and most of the day, cold also - but we didn't let it slow us down this time!

Avery Island was only short distance from where we camped, so we made it there fairly early. This is the only factory in the world where Tabasco Sauce is made.

They offer a free factory tour, which includes a couple of small sample bottles of Tabasco Sauce. As tours go, it wasn't all that impressive - but we learned some interesting things about both Avery Island and Tabasco Sauce. The Island is the largest of five salt dome island's along the Louisiana coast. In fact, there is still an active salt mine on the island. The salt is very pure, but is more in the form of a large crystal or rock when first mined.

Edmund McIlhenny was living on Avery Island with his wife and started growing pepper plants from seeds given to him by a friend, believed to originate from somewhere in Mexaco. At that time, the island was used for a sugar plantation and salt mine. But Mr. McIlhenny loved spicy foods, so grew the peppers in his garden also. He started experimenting with making sauce from the peppers and developed the recipe for what we now call Tabasco Sauce. At first, he gave some to friends, using empty cologne bottles. However, so many people wanted some of "that wonderful sauce Mr. McIlhenny makes" that he started to make the sauce commercially beginning in 1868.

The McIlhenny family continues to make all the Tabasco Sauce sold throughout the world here on Avery Island, although they have moved most of the farms to Central and South America where they have a a better climate for frowing the peppers. The original sauce still uses only the type of peppers Mr. McIlhenny started with (now called Tabasco peppers of course), although they have branched out and make other hot sauces from different peppers also. They also still keep about 30 acres cultivated in pepper plants, since most of the seed plants come from Avery Island.

Once the peppers are harvested, they are sent to the factory on Avery Island to be processed. First, they are mixed with a little salt from the islands salt mine (convenient, isn't it?). Then the are ground into a mash and loaded into white oak barrels to age for three years. The barrels come from Jack Daniels Whiskey. Jack Daniels only uses each oak barrel once, so once they're done with the barrel, Tabasco buys them and uses them for another 21 years. Once Tabasco is done with them, at least some of them get chopped up and sold for use in barbeque grills. Anyway, after the mash has aged for three years, it is mixed with some vinager and eventually turned into the famous hot sauce (it takes another 28 days in total after being removed from the barrels, so I presume there's another aging step involved).

Mr. McIlhenny chose the name Tabasco, which was an Indian word meaning 'Land of the hot and humid'. That certainly seems appropriate to me!

By-products from the process are sold for use in other products such as Bengay, Denteen and Jelly Bellies (from the seeds I think, which are removed during processing).

The tour consisted of some information from the tour guide, watching a video, and a short walk along part of the factory where the bottles are filled, capped and labeled. Samples of the barrels and mash are on display in a 'museum'. This is generally what the bottling part of the tour looked like.

Once we left the factory, we visited what they called a 'Country Store'. At least it was built to look like one. Avery Island was essentially a 'Company Town' in its earlier years, so the concept of a country store was probably valid in the past.

Today this is really just the gift shop for the Tabasco brand, including clothing, coffee mugs, and of course lots and lots of Tabasco Sauce. Unfortunately however, the prices were much higher then I was comfortable with so I abandoned my usual practice and didn't buy much. It did have a really nifty light fixture made out of empty Tabasco bottles however.

We also were planning to visit another part of the island which includes a garden and bird sanctuary. However, I didn't like the price they charged for that either - and there wasn't much to see this time of year (Louisiana actually does have a winter, and we're in it). It was still cold and stormy out so we decided to skip the 'jungle' part of the tour.

The rest of the island looks like an interesting place but isn't open to the public - so that was pretty much the end of our Tabasco journey.

I had hoped to spend a little more time today learning more about what cajun is all about - since this part of Louisiana is called the heart of cajun country - so didn't mind leaving Avery Island with a little more time on our hands. We had learned about an old rice mill from the Visitor's Center yesterday, so decided to give that a try.

This is also a regular tourist destination, but is the real deal. Mom and I both really enjoyed it (and also spent plenty of money in their 'General Store' gift shop.) The Conrad Rice Mill was started in 1912 by Phillip Conrad, one of the local rice growers who was tired of the time and effort it took to ship his rice to New Orleans for processing. Of course, once he'd set the mill up, other growers in the area took their rice to his mill also. By 1975 the mill was getting pretty old when it was purchased by Mike Davis and his wife, who still own and operate the mill. Sometime just before or just after the Davis's bought the the mill, the name was changed to Konriko - from Conrad Rice Company, but changing the "C"s to "K"s.The Davis's added the store (in 1978 I think). They also were able to have the mill placed on the National Register of Historic Places. It's pretty easy to identify the mill in these shots - it's the really old buildings!

This tour also started with a presentation, but about "Cajun" culture. Our guide for the presentation and tour ws Dynell LaBiche, who can trace her roots back to Nova Scotia. We learned that the "Cajun" people, or Acadian's, were living in Nova Scotia when the British decided they didn't want the French Catholic's in their Colony, so deported them in 1755. They confiscated their homes, land and possessions to pay for the cost of deporting them against their will. The boats they used were too small and did not have adequate provisions, which caused extream hardships and health problems for the deportee's. Some Acadians were shipped to the British colonies in America, but the American's weren't too happy about taking in sick, French Catholics either. Finally, many found welcome in French Louisiana, where they were given land and able to start rebuilding their lives again.

Longfellow's poem "Evangeline" is roughly based on a true story of a couple who were separated during this dispersal, however it doesn't capture the magnitude and extent of the hardships these people endured. Partly because of the rural and isolated geography of this area and partly due to the nature of cajun society, the languages and customs have survived and evolved to a larger extent then some other ethnic groups in the American melting pot.

Hm, a whole new chapter on American history I'd never heard about. Was I really asleep in all those classes?

Anyway, Dynell also showed us how rice growing got started in the area. Louisiana and Texas share the honor of being the third and fourth largest rice growing states - behind Arkansas and California. Seeding is done by aircraft. Rice tolerates flooding, but doesn't require it except for germination. But the fields are flooded three times during the growing season here. The first time is to help the rice sprout. The other floodings are to control weeds and pests which aren't able to tolerate flooding. The fields are then dried out in late August or early September for harvesting.

It takes 162 pounds of rice to fill a barrel. Most fields yeild about 36 barrels per acre. Once harvested, rice is stored in silo's with special equipment to dry the rice until it has about 11% moisture. Then it can be shipped to the mill. When a truck brings a load of rice to the mill, it is weighed on a scale (in the upper left part of the photo below). Then it drives over a hopper and dumps the load of rice into the hopper (in the lower right part of the photo below).

There are several steps to get the rice ready for market. Since I've got a video where Dynell describes all of these, I'll hold off until I can upload the video. In the meantime, here are some of the machines still in use at Konriko.

The finished products can be ordered online or bought directly in the store. The primary products are brown rice (with brown lettering on the bag), Long grain rice (with red lettering), and medium grain rice (with blue lettering).

We also sampled some of their specialty products. Today they had cooked up some Rice with Garlic and Herbs, which was quite good.

By this time it was early afternoon and we were quite hungry. I had asked around a bit about where we could get some good cajun food and was told to try the Bon Creole Lunch Counter. Mom helped navigate from the tourist guide map and we found it without a hitch. We both ordered roast beef poboy's (I wimped out on the crawfish, sorry). They were pretty good, but the 1/2 size poboy's we got were about twice as big as either of us needed. Maybe we should have gotten one 1/2 size and split it? Nice little lunch counter however.

We have both decided to skip supper tonight, maybe a few carrots but we're too full for anything else.

A few final observations on our little foray into cajun country. This is a far cry from the glitzy tourist attractions - it couldn't be more different than the Fort Lauderdale type sections of Florida then if they were both in different countries. Louisiana is promoting tourism in this area, but it doesn't appear to have changed it much. This is pretty typical of the types of buildings we saw in both Lafayette and New Iberia. Of course, we just scratched the surface, so other parts of these towns may look completely different - but what we did see looked like there's not that much money down here.

Another big issue down here is oil. It is such a mixed issue - it brings in jobs and money, but also causes serious environmental issues (depending on who you talk to). As we were driving back to I-10, we passed many businesses that support the oil industry. This one was catching - it's an office building, but if you look close - it is built to resemble an offshore oil rig!

As usual, there are more things to learn about and enjoy down here then we have time for. We need to move on to Texas next and leave these nice folks behind. Given that we didn't have much time to spend in Louisiana, I'm glad we skipped New Orleans and made time to learn about the cajun history, rice and Tabasco.

Logistics:

Miles Driven - 135, cumulative 14,029
Camped at Sam Houston Jones State Park in Lake Charles, Louisiana (about 32 miles from Texas border)

Provisions Procured:
- Gas ($38.06 for 12.69 g at 123887)
- Lunch at Bon Creole Lunch Counter in New Iberia, LA

Animals Sighted:

(a) Domestic - Lots of cattle, some sheep, horses, and a cat
(b) Wild - Crows, Killdeer, Osprey

Today we drove to Baton Rouge. There were several interesting places to see (lots of plantation homes). We did not go to much as we are expected at my nephew's place in Lake Jackson, Texas on Friday.

However, while Jeanette was on the computer looking for a shop that could repair our propane connection, I went to the Enchanted Mansion Doll Museum. The ladies there were very sweet and had delightful Louisiana accents. A big (4') tall teddy bear introduced me to the museum and a talking clock also welcomed me. I passed through a my size doll house front and door into a room full of glassed in cases of dolls, big and small. Then there was a small room of story book dolls; Sleeping Beauty, Snow White, etc. Then I went into a room of President and First Lady dolls. There was a room full dedicated to African American dolls because February is Black History Month. The last room had a large collection of lovely, old dolls.

The gift shop was full of more beautiful dolls. Very expensive. I got three post cards for the school and we drove on to Lafayette and stopped for supper. Then we drove to a campground on the road to Avery Island, where we will go tomorrow.

Having stayed put for two days, we are all caught up and ready to move out. An occasional break is good, but this isn't a trip where we like to sit around in RV parks - we could do that at home, so we were both itching to get out and start enjoying sightseeing again!

My propane tank was almost empty, so I stopped to fill it on the way back to the freeway. Ugh, the canoe leaks (well, Lewis & Clark didn't have propane tanks so I tried to think of an analogy - they certainly had equipment problems). The new valve they installed in Virginia is stuck and won't allow any propane in (It probably wasn't in good shape when they installed it or may not have been the right valve for this tank). We tried an RV service place about 40 miles down the road. After spending a couple of hours running in circles, we finally determined that the part needed to repair the tank isn't in stock anywhere in that area. I am not willing to sit tight for two or three weeks waiting for a part to come in, so we finally drove on to Baton Rouge. (OK, I'd stop if this was a safety issue, but it's just an inconvenience, we can work around it.)

Any thoughts we had about slipping down to New Orleans first before starting west again were eliminated by this delay. Both of us have been to New Orleans before, albeit pre Katrina. Since we have a limited amount of time for this trip, I felt I'd rather see some other parts of Louisana, specifically Avery Island - home of Tabasco Sauce. For Mom, she wanted to see a doll museum in Baton Rouge and really didn't want to see any more hurricane damage anyway.

So, with one almost empty propane tank - we drove on to Baton Rouge. We found the museum, with a little help from a phone call, but I decided not to go through it so I could work on the Propane problem. Mom did go through the museum and really enjoyed it - and has even written it up for the Blog! So you'll get two entries for today.

In the meantime, I fired up the laptop and - ugh - bad internet connection, yet again. This time, I finally bit the bullet and called Sprint. They confirmed that they are having network problems down here and there wasn't anything wrong with my data card or laptop. However, while the service rep didn't quite resolve the problem - she did get me to a screen where I was able to force the data card to use the slow dial up connection. While this is slower, it works. The faster connection doesn't. So for the time being, I'll use the slow dial up speed. The service rep also assured me that the problem shouldn't persist once I get past Louisaina.

Mom got back from the museum as I was finishing up with my Sprint call, so I'll work on the propane issue again tomorrow - try to call ahead and set up an appointment somewhere farther out, so the parts & service can all come together at the same time. In the meantime, we'll stay in RV parks where we won't need propane for heat or cooking and eat out a little more often. Not my ideal choice, but we should be fine.

There were more things in Baton Rouge we had thought of visiting, but it was getting late and we needed to get going if we wanted to spend Thursday at Avery Island. So we went directly back to I-10 and had just started west again when I saw something I just had to pull off for - a Great White Pelican, just swimming around in a pond in a city park just off the freeway. Not knowing whether it was worth the delay or not, I got to the pond and started taking pictures. Mom was looking through the binoculars and noticed that there were more on the other side of the pond (the one I saw was in the middle and quite far away). We couldn't see whether there was a road or not, but decided to give it a try anyway. There was a road, we got to the other side of the pond just fine and the flock of six Pelicans just kept going about their business. They swam in a group, then all of a sudden, would all pop their heads into the water for a minute to feed, then come back up.

This was really a treat. Great White Pelicans are not that common in the US. We had seen one in NJ. Then we saw more at Flamingo Bay in the Everglades - but they were too far out to get any pictures. So here we saw seven (one in the middle plus the group), and got to enjoy them for quite a while.

There were several other types of waterfowl around this pond. Here are shots of a Snowy Egret and Great Egret I also took today at the same pond.

The Snowy Egret is smaller and has a black bill, black legs, and orange feet. The Great Egret has a yellow bill and black legs. For comparison sake, the Great White Heron looks almost like a Great Egret - but has yellow legs and is a Heron, not an Egret (although they are related). This is all from someone who was never much of a birder! I seem to recall back in ND we saw (egrets?) and I had to just call them white birds. I may never be much of a birder, but I have learned a lot.

Amazingly, it was really easy to get back to the freeway and turned out to be not much of a delay at all. Well worth it IMHO. So we headed east to Lafayette, then turned south. We stopped at a nice little RV campground just north of New Iberia, and will have a very easy drive to the Island in the morning. We are really in the heart of Cajun country now - I hope to see a bit more of it after we finish at Avery Island tomorrow - if we don't get side tracked there too long.

BTW - RV repairs along this trip haven't been too bad. In case you're wondering about earlier troubles we've had: Door repairs seem to be holding this time, I added 4 or 5 screws in addition to much glue and bigger matchsticks. Closet shelf repairs (duck tape) have also done the job - no more collapsed shelves. I might be more suited for the Lewis & Clark Expedition then you thought! Oops, I forgot I did hit the roof of the RV on a board while trying to get out of the lumber yard where we tried to get propane this morning. I don't think I did any serious damage, but forgot to get the ladder out to check tonight. Maybe I'm not quite ready for the Corps of Discovery afterall, but will keep working at it...

Logistics:

Miles Driven -150, cumulative for trip - 13,894
Camped at LaBoulaie, Broussard, LA

Shopping Stops (e.g. 2008 version of hunting trips?): Walmart & Dollar Tree (Mom's word puzzles)
Ate at Taco Bell (first time this trip).
Gas - $31.08 for 10.72 g at 123715 in Baton Rouge, LA

Animals spotted:
(a) Domestic: Cattle, horses
(b) Wild: two different kinds of hawks, weren't able to identify specific type, white pelicans, snowy egrets, great egrets, mallards, coots, comorants

You know the routine, bills are due, blog is behind, chores need to be done...

I belong to a couple of RV campground memberships and one of them had a nice campground north of New Orleans on the opposite side of Lake Ponttchartrain, so I made reservations and decided to stay here a couple of days. Originally, I thought we might take one of those days and visit New Orleans. However, we learned the parking there is really bad for RV's, I had more chores to do then I'd thought, and Mom really didn't want to see any more Katrina damage, she got pretty depressed by Bay St. Louis. All in all, we didn't leave the campground.

There were a few interesting things here - they have some Muscovy ducks, I think these are 'mules', or sterile hybreds between Muscovy & Mallards. These aren't that uncommon, however, they look really, really wierd. Mom tooks some bread out to them just for fun.

During the day, Mom spent some time in the clubhouse and got to meet other people who were out RV'ing. She really enjoyed swapping stories and meeting new people, but doesn't find these transitory friendships as fulfilling as the long term friendships she has back home.

When we got to the campground, each site had a fire pit. Someone had left some old wood in ours and Mom just couldn't resist lighting a campfire. We had some hot dogs with us, so she brought out the old camper in her and got to it. (Unfortunately, someone forgot to take the sun hood off before using the flash - obviously the ugly shadow isn't Mom's doing.) BTW - the hot dogs were quite good.

After getting the basic chores done and blog caught up, I decided to try playing around a bit more with the video editing software. I am slowly learning a few more techniques, but am still not very good (of course I could take the tutorial, but no, that might make too much sense). At any rate I found that it takes me about an hour to edit a five minute video. Ugh. Maybe that's why I upload most of the video's unedited? Well, will keep playing around with this - time permitting.

Need to thank you all for your comments & support. We both enjoy hearing from you.