Texas BBQ and cow pastures turned to oil refineries and shipping as we passed through Houston. Then we got to bayous and sugarcane fields, Cajun crawdads and southern cracklin’ – yep, we are in Louisiana.
Our welcome was a blinding rainstorm that reminded us we aren’t in the west any longer. Instead of elk or cow crossing signs, we are seeing bear crossing signs (not really sure about that one). While oil is important to western states like Texas, we saw a growing volume of oil related businesses from Houston into Louisiana.
Our Louisiana adventure was going on a swamp tour with Ron Guidry and his Cajun Man Swamp Cruise. They need four customers to break even, and since Katrina, the tour is often cancelled. Our tour ended up with 12, a big group these days. So, Mr. Guidry took us to some spots he’s not visited in a while.
Bayous are the rivers that run through swampy land. Here in Houma, the oil companies have added canals to these in order to get their oil barges to the refineries that seem to pop up everywhere. The equipment we were seeing was mostly from the 1940’s, but much of it was still working. I was surprised to see so many pumps and pipelines amidst this seemingly pristine environment. Beautiful cypress with hanging Spanish moss, blue heron, egrets, alligators and even bald eagles came to greet us. Cajun Man (CM) called to one bald eagle who responded immediately by squawking at him and then swooping down for some chicken skin he threw. The eagles come in to the area for the winter and this one returned just this week. CM seems pleased to see her (he called her MommaBird). He’s also named and somewhat trained a couple of alligators to come to the boat and jump for chicken. They obliged and then eyed Mark’s teasing hand when he hung it off the side of the boat. At one point, CM stopped the tour to share some local music, which he played and sang with either accordion or guitar.
Cajun Man is quite a celebrity in that he’s been featured on TV, has toured outside the US to promote Louisiana, and is starring in a series of upcoming KIA commercials. He’s done the swamp tour for the past 20 years. Before that, he was in law enforcement, with other careers in between. When I asked him which is his favorite, he said he’s the happiest now. So look for him!
There’s water, bridges, boats and seafood everywhere. Many of the wooden houses have metal roofs and big porches. While waiting for our swamp tour, we sat on a porch with big swings where I decided the best porch swings hang from very tall ceilings so the rocking is long and slow. Mark can’t understand the Cajun accents and keeps asking me what they are saying. I don’t always know.
Food and Drink: Big Al’s in Houma, LA is the place to go. Not a fancy place – Big Al appears to be an alligator – we found the menu requires digging in and working for your meal. We ordered gumbo, shrimp and corn soup, and sweet potato fries to start. Then dug into 6 crabs. Mark wasn’t happen with the amount of work required to get the small amount of crab (he’s used to the larger Dungeness crabs in San Francisco). But I enjoyed it. The soups were really authentic with great flavors you get only from homemade versions. And, how can you mess up a boiled crab – they were messy, but good.
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