Tabasco factory at Avery Island, La.

We had a busy day today.  We got up and headed for Avery Island this morning.  We wanted to see the Tabasco Factory.

Avery Island is home to the famed Tabasco factory.  It also is a salt mine.  Mr. McIlhenny was an explorer, writer, business executive, naturalist, conservationist and half a dozen other "ists".  He authored many books on nature, such as the "Autobiography of an Egret", "Bird City" and the "Life History of the Alligator".  He saved the snowy egret from extinction and he manufactured Tabasco sauce.

 This is salt from the salt mine.

 This is the bottling portion of the factory.  These bottles were headed for Germany.  This is the only place that makes and bottles Tabasco sauce.  If you buy it in Germany or China, it came from La.

This is the count for the day while we were there.  She said they bottle around 700,000 a day.

After looking at the factory, we went into the store.  I didn't know there was so many different kinds of Tabasco sauce or so many products with Tabasco in it.  We even had Jalapeño Ice Cream!

 We left the store and went over to the Jungle Gardens.  
 Of Course the first thing we saw wasn't gardens, it was an alligator.

 The moss draped live oaks were huge and beautiful.

 This pathway led to a 800 yr old Buddha. It is suppose to be one of the finest in the states.

 The Buddha sits in the Pagoda on top of the hill.  He is surrounded by 7 hills.

 Here he is.  He is sitting on a Lotus blossum.

 We ran into this fellow along the way.  You can't tell but this turtle is about 12-14" in diameter!

More oaks.

By the time we left Avery Island we were hungry.  we stopped to eat at. Duffies Diner.

As you can see it was a 50's style diner.  I had a fried shrimp po-boy and it was delish! Doug and Libbie had hamburgers and Jim had fried chicken.  All was good.

 Doug and Jim finished off with a dipped ice cream cone.  Yum.
Since this is such a long post I will finish it with part II.  Our trip to New Iberia to see Shadows on the Teche!

Lafayette, La.

We arrived in Lafayette around 2:00 this afternoon.  That was 85 miles.  I hate these long driving days!

We drove around looking at the area and found this place.  We were told by some of the locals that it was a good place to eat.  Around 7:00 we headed that way.  This restaurant has been around for 30 or so years.

 This is the Seafood platter.  There is a piece of catfish, fried shrimp, stuffed shrimp, catfish jambalaya, fried oysters,stuffed crab and a frog leg.  I passed on the frog leg, gave the oysters to Doug land enjoyed the shrimp and catfish.  Just didn't have room for the crab or stuffed shrimp.

There was a cajun band playing.  I guess they were singing in cajun french because I couldn't understand a word they were saying.  There were 2 bus groups there tonight.  One group was from Iowa and the other was an international group from Australia, Malaysia and England.  They were fun to watch.

They were up dancing.  It was funny to watch them get in a circle and "dance".  I use that word loosely.  It was a combination of the twist, a line dance, and just standing there and shaking their hands and legs.  LOL They were having a good time though!  As they were getting back on the bus, one of them waved and said, "goodbye America"!  I hope they continue to have as much fun as they did tonight.

 The band playing was Jay Cormier and Cajun Born.

We really did enjoy watching them.  On the wall were some of the posters from the Crawfish Festival they have every year.  It is the first weekend in May.
We are headed into New Iberia tomorrow.  We will see what all we can find in this area.
Later

Actually cooked twice today!

Ok to most people that wouldn't be such a big deal, but for me, it's almost a miracle!

We had brunch around 11:30 today.  Eggs, biscuits, sausage and sausage gravy.  Yum... Then Libbie and I got our swimsuits on and hit the pool.  We were there al afternoon. I mostly swam and Libbie sunbathed.  I tried to be careful but I still got a bit of sunburn.  We didn't get back til after 4:00 so we rested and then cooked supper.  We had Tacos and cheese dip. I said we cooked I didn't say it was gourmet or anything.  It was good and that's all that matters.
We had a bit of a storm last night and Jim's awning landed up on this motorhome.  He will have to zip tie it down tomorrow before we leave.  Yep, tomorrow we leave for our next adventure.  We have a long day planned.  We will travel a whole 85 miles to Lafayette, La.  It seems there is a few things to see and do there.
My hips are killing me so I think I will go to bed and hope they feel better tomorrow. No pictures today. Sorry  but really you would have thanked me.  Me and bathing suit isn't a pretty picture! LOL

Moved on down the road

We left Monroe, La. yesterday and headed south.  Marksville, La. was our destination.  There is a casino/Rv Resort there called Paragon.  This is an Indian casino.  It is very nice and very large.  They have over 200 rv sites.  There is a cinema here along with several restaurants.  There are even alligators inside the casino.  They have a large "indoor cement pond" with fish and gators!
I sat down at one of the slots and put $1 in and won $100!  Not a bad return.  Then the guys came in and we ate at their buffet.  It was very good with some of the best prime rib I have ever had.  The crab legs were good also.  After eating, Doug wanted to try his luck at the slots.  He wanted to know where the one I had played and won was.  We found it, which wasn't an easy task in itself.  Well this machine was HOT now.   He put $20 in and I think spun one time and hit Win 15 spins.  He sat at that slot for about an hour and very seldom had to do anything because he kept hitting free respins.  By the time he finished he had won $450 in that hour!  Really not a bad return!!  $550 won total, we can fill the tank on the RV now!  LOL
Today we cooked some hot dogs out on the grill for lunch and are now headed out to see what there is to see.  Will add more later..

From Duck Dynasty to the First Bottlers of Coca Cola!

A busy day today.  We of course started with the "Duck Dynasty".

If you haven't watched Duck Dynasty, you need to experience it at least once.  These beard wearing, duck hunting men are not to be missed.  They are a hoot!  Doug is standing by Si's Vietnam era miltary vehicle.  There is definitely only one person like Si!

Jim and Doug shopping and posing with Willie, CEO of Duck Commander.  Of course it was just a cardboard Willie.

 A little "duck dynasty" humor!

 Happy, Happy, Happy!

 These are their "good" calls.  There were some really pretty ones.  These were around $65.

After buying our t-shirts and coozies we were ready to leave.

When we left there we headed for the Biedenharn Museum and home.  It seems that Mr. Biedenharn was the first person to bottle Coca Cola outside of Atlanta.

 Of Course, the way the  GPS told us to go, was CLOSED!  Kind of hard to cross this bridge.

One of the original delivery trucks.

Now that is a small engine!

 I must say we learned a lot about bottling Coke and how it was marketed.

If you will, look at the red bottles on the left.  These are the new "aluminum" cans.  Did you know that the round cans out there have a different metal on the lid, bottom and tab? These new red "bottles" are all aluminum. Yes, they are smaller.  They are 6.5 oz.  Yes, they will probably cost the same as the 12 oz. cans.  That seems to be the way of things.

After leaving the museum, we toured the home of the Biedenharns'.  This was the glassed in porch that was added when their daughter moved home from Europe before WWII.  They wouldn't let me take pictures inside the house.  Though the house was nice the gardens were beautiful.  Their daughter was a well known (in Europe) opera singer.  When her parents asked her to move home because they feared for her safety.  She came home.  When she did, she found a nice home with a yard of chickens and pigs. She wanted to add the beauty of the gardens she had in Europe.  I believe that she succeeded.

It seems that gardens were her passion.

 She decided that the gardens needed a statue.  She went looking for one and brought back five.  

The other four and on each corner.  You can see the top of one on the left.  The other three and hid in the lush greenery of the gardens.  This truly was well worth the $6 it cost for the tours of the museum, the home, and the gardens.  There was also a Bible museum.  If you get a chance you should visit these places, they were enjoyable.  We finished off the day by eating BBQ at BBQ West.  Delicious!

Tomorrow we head south.  Where are we going? I guess we will know when we get there.  LOL

Later

We're "On the Road again!"

Well after delay after delay we are finally on the road again.  The weather was not wanting to cooperate with us.  Last night there was a bad storm and our traveling buddies got 4 1/2 inches of rain in a 45 minute period!  They thought they were going to have to get a boat to get out this morning.  Luckily we didn't have any bad weather today as we were traveling.  I think we stayed a step  behind it.  We are now in West Monroe, La.  at the Pavilion RV Park.

It's nothing fancy but the people are nice and we got to use our Passport America membership for tonight.  Unfortunately you can't use it on the weekend so we will use Good Sam discount for the remaining days we are here.  With Passport America our cost for tonight was $20.  They have pull-throughs which makes it nice.  The park is an easy on, easy off of I-20.  (Exit 112)  Even though we are not a city block away from the interstate it is very quiet here.  I hope that the weather stays good for tomorrow.  We plan to go see Willie and Jase from Duck Dynasty!  Hey, Hey, Hey hope the weather is good so that we will be Happy, Happy, Happy!
Later!

Been busy, busy, busy

I have been pretty busy with appointments,  cleaning the RV, doing some upgrades in it too, and finally getting around to applying for our passport.
First off, Doug had a flare up on his eye.  I don't know if I ever mentioned it but Doug had a cornea transplant a few years back and every once in a while he has a flair up of infection.  So far he has not had a problem with rejection but that is always a possibility.

Here is his eye on the screen.  It doesn't show up very well but you can see the redness.

When they pushed some button and the screen turned all blue you could see the infection.  It is that T shaped green spot on the lower left side.  They put him on some high potent steriods and we went back the next week and it was all gone.
Next we have been working on some changes in the motorhome.  I have always hated the lamps in the bedroom.  I found some that I liked at camping world and Doug installed them for me.

This was the hated ones!  

Here are the replacements.  I love them!  Notice that the new ones are brushed nickel.   That of course made me have to do something about all the other hardware in the bedroom.

 Oops its brass!

 I got a can of spray paint and starting painting.  

Now it all looks great!  I love my new lights!

We also hung our new sound bar under the TV.  I didn't get a picture before Doug took it down.  I will get one later and post it.  Now all we need to do is give the old girl a bath and she will be ready for our next trip.  We will leave Tuesday for a short trip with some friends that are building a new house.  They need to go look at appliances.  Any excuse for a trip is good for me.

Later!

Happy Mothers Day!

I want to wish a Happy Mothers Day to all the mothers out there.  It's a beautiful day here.  It's in the low 70's with not a cloud in the sky.  Best of all, low humidity!  Humidity is a bummer down here in the south.  We will have to be elsewhere this summer when the high temps and high humidity hits.  Not looking forward to that.  The older I get the harder heat is on me.  Another one of those nasty aging things.
When we got home from our last trip, we had a list of things to do in the motorhome.
1. Change out the water filter under the sink.

 This is the old one.  It is suppose to be all black at the top.  

 The new one installed

We wound up changing the whole system out.  The one that was there was original to the MH and was leaking.  I think it was just the filter getting loose but it looked so bad we replaced it.  It wasn't a hard job, it was just inconvenient.  Of course it was in a hard to reach area, with little room to work.  I think the designers of these motorhomes look for ways to make it hard for the layman to do repairs.

2.  The bracket on the closet sliding door had come off.  It looks as if it is just wedged onto the frame.  There are no screws holding it at all.  Hummm   I wedged it back into place but we are putting some glue on it to help hold it in place. (Sorry the picture is so bad.  I used an old mirror I found in the drawer to take the picture since the bracket is on the back side.  Didn't notice how dirty the mirror was till I looked at the picture.  LOL)

3.  Adjust the outside mirrors.

 
  It came to our attention (while trying to get through the toll booth) that one mirror sticks out a lot more than the other.  We moved that one in a little so that it doesn't stick out so far, but he can still see well. Notice how far this mirror sticks out?

See how close this mirror is?  We didn't move the other one in that much but enough that we should fit in toll booths better.  LOL
We have a couple more things to get done but this is all for now.  If tomorrow is as nice as today maybe we can get old Betsy washed!
Happy Mothers Day!!!
Later