Louisiana Vacation

Over spring break in March, my husband and I drove down to Louisiana to visit his family. It was a 10 hour drive to his parents house which we did all in one go over night arriving at their house around 6:3o Saturday Morning. This was our first visit in about 7 years.

That Saturday happened to be my birthday and the next day was one of hubby's aunt's birthday so we all went out to dinner that evening. The little place we went to had all you can eat catfish. I didn't think to take a group picture of all of us, but I did remember to take a picture of the fish.

Yum! I ate a ton of catfish it was so good!

The next day we went over to Shreveport to the Boardwalk which is just a shopping are on the Red River. It was a lovely day. My favorite shop was a little place called the Chocolate Crocodile. They had all sorts of chocolate truffles and other candies. I spent a bit much there.


Floating Casino on the Red River. The river is red because of all the red soil it travel through.



I think only in Louisiana will you find a Crawfish on a Carousel.
After Shreveport we headed south to Avery Island where they make Tabasco sauce. The McIlhenny family founded the company on the island and there is a beautiful garden to drive through.


Lots of Cypress trees with Spanish moss hanging from them in the garden.

A cute turtle sunbathing.

The alligator sitting just a few feet away from the turtle. I was about 10 feet away taking the picture. This is actually a fairly small alligator at may be 5 feet long.

This is a bloom on some of the palms that were all over the place.

Bamboo everywhere.

This Buddha statue was in a lovely temple on the grounds.





"E. A. McIlhenny, or “Mr. Ned” as he was affectionately known, founded a bird colony in the 1890s — later called Bird City — after plume hunters slaughtered egrets by the thousands for feathers to make fashionable ladies’ hats. Mr. Ned gathered up eight young egrets, raised them in captivity on the Island, and released them in the fall to migrate across the Gulf of Mexico. The following spring, the birds returned to the Island with others of their species — a migration that continues to this day, as thousands of snowy white egrets and other water birds return to Bird City. This vast, protected rookery owes its existence to Mr. Ned"
I took a lot more pictures of the gardens but many came out blurry as I was taking them from a moving vehicle. I almost wish we had been there closer to summer as a lot of the plants were not in bloom yet.

After driving through the garden we went over to where the Tabasco plant is actually located. We didn't go through the plant but we went through the small museum and ate at the cafe. Every dish in the cafe is made with one of their many Tabasco products so it was interesting to taste.

My lunch was a corn and crawfish chowder made with a garlic pepper Tabasco. It was really good!

This was hubby's lunch. Red Beans and rice, etouffee (pronunced a-too-fay), and gumbo.
After Avery Island we headed to Baton Rouge for the evening to visit hubby's brother. We didn't do much other than that so no pictures.

The next day was on to New Orleans where we visited the zoo and drove around town while my father-in-law pointed out interesting land marks and places he knew growing up.

This is the only picture of the zoo I'm going to share as I love this fountain. Many of the animals they had are the same as my local zoo and I've shared tons of animal pictures before.

Mardi Gras beads hanging from the trees where they were left after the parades.

Where we had lunch. The building is a large pink house.



My Half-loaf shrimp Po'Boy. What you see is half a french loaf stuffed with fried shrimp. It was HUGE. I ate the whole thing too!

We did not get to eat at Cafe Du Monde but I had to take a picture as we went by just to show we were there.
We spent that evening visiting one of hubby's aunts and the next morning headed off to visit an uncle. Along the way we got to see some lovely plantation houses. We only drove by them so all my pictures are from the car window, but they are worth seeing.














After being down south we headed back to the in-law's house for a few days and explored that area a bit more.

One of the interesting things where they live is the site where Bonny and Clyde were captured. One of hubby's relatives was on the Sheriff's department and helped bring them in. The memorial is made of stone and people keep taking hunks of it home with them for some reason. I'm told this one is the 4th or 5th one that's been put up and they finally put up a metal sign with it.




We also spent some time visiting the college he went to and just doing some general exploring before having to head back home. So I will end this with a lovely picture of the Kansas Sunset with wind generators.