Lafayette/Avery Island/New Iberia

St John the Evangelist Cathedral
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Woke up today to bright blue skies. Weather.com said thunderstorms from noon on throughout the day but luckily there was no rain at all, just some gray clouds once in a while. Drove into downtown Lafayette, parked (.65 for 2 hours!) and walked to St John the Evangelical Cathedral and the above ground cemetery behind it. The cemetery was nicely kept up, very lush and manicured grass. Even better, you don't get the feeling you might be killed any minute like at the ones in New Orleans. There *was* a groundskeeper who had a chainsaw, but he seemed harmless enough even if his name was Huey.

the cemetery behind the cathedral
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From there we walked over to the courthouse to see their collection of 2000 photos but you had to go through a metal detector to get in and cameras (weapons and mace were also spelled out) are not allowed so we skipped it. For two blocks or so all around the courthouse there was nothing but lawyers offices, bail bondsmen, and prisoners wearing black and white stripes doing community service work. The streets were eerily quiet and devoid of people.

Went to Dwyer's Cafe for lunch - a local institution for the last 50 years. There was a cardboard stand up for an Iced Mochasippi so I asked the waitress if it was if it was chocolate and coffee and she said, "I dunno, but it sure is good". When she returned with it a few minutes later she said, "it's already ice cold so I didn't put any ice in it but if you want ice I can put you some, baby" (the first of approximately 20 baby's we heard in the next 30 minutes). I told her it was fine, but she seemed really excited about getting me another glass of ice so I let her. I got a grilled cheese (2.00), fries (1.50) and a small salad of iceberg (with Saltines on the side!) while Rick got the plate lunch special - carrots, pineapple, rice and mashed salt I mean potatoes. We were dying to know the waitresses name, hoping it would be something great and when we got the check we weren't disappointed- it was Lula Mae. Really, can you beat that?

Avery Island
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A bit more driving around then we headed down to Avery Island about 30 miles south. It was built on top of a salt mine - which we were later told goes deeper down than Mt. Everest goes high. Since the admission booth was on the left side of the road, you unroll your left window and the cashier sticks out a broom stick with a clothespin attached so you clip the 1.00 park fee in it and he pulls it back. Very odd.

This is where Tabasco Sauce was invented in the mid- 1800's and is still made, kind of. We took the free 20 minute tour, 10 of which was a movie and picked up some interesting info. Seeds are grown into the peppers both here (and in Central and South America) and when they are the exactly correct shade of red they are picked and mashed with salt that same day. They are then put into barrels to age/ferment for 3 years. When that's done it's then mixed with vinegar and stirred for a month, strained and poured into bottles- about 700,000 per day. The seeds are then shipped off to Kalamazoo and used for products such as Ben-Gay and Close-Up toothpaste - who knew? After that was the Country Store (i.e. gift shop) that sold at least 1000 different products with the Tabasco logo- everything from spatulas to hip flasks to "lounge pants" and Hot and Spicy Spam. They also had Tabasco soda samples - quite good! - like a spicy cola.

Avery Island
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Next stop was the 250 acre Jungle Gardens, also on the island. A circular loop brought us past lagoons, swamps, wisteria, azaleas, and more than a few alligators. We tried to climb the observation tower (where you can see 20,000 egrets in season) but a baby alligator was at the bottom step so we decided not to press our luck.

After a quick drive through New Iberia we headed back with a quick stop at Sonic, a chain that's a step up from Dairy Queen. I had a banana shake, Rick had a pineapple shake, both surprisingly good. Even better was the location: next door was the Smoke 'N Go- a drive-through cigarette stand.