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February 2001

Louisiana - Lafayette and Avery Island

David Aaronson
2005-09-25 18:28:09

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strands of beads. The highlights were probably the hearts (upper left) and the iridescent brown-purple string (center but hard to see). It was all very friendly and orderly and great fun really. The parade lasted almost two hours and had probably 20 floats with marching bands from local schools in between them.

We stashed our beads at the hotel and went across town for a fine bit of Cajun nightlife at Randol's which actually broadcasts its own dance show on local TV. A combination bar/restaurant/dance club we had some good local beer (Abita Springs Purple Haze is a must if you like raspberry) and some darn spicy food. Everyone eating at the restaurant, drinking at the bar and dancing wore beads. In fact, for the entire four days we were in southern Louisiana practically every person we saw was wearing beads.

The next morning we took the scenic route to New Orleans through more of Acadiana. All the wildlife and swamp scenery pictures on this page (3-5) were taken at Jungle Gardens on Avery Island. Avery Island is actually a dome-shaped clump of land that rises out of the surrounding swamp. The foundation of the island is salt and these so-called salt domes are common in southern Louisiana. Most of Avery Island is off-limits to tourists.

There are two attractions on Avery Island. The first is the Tabasco plant. We didn't visit it but we can tell you that all the Tabasco there is comes from Avery Island. 'Tabasco' actually refers to the type of pepper used in the sauce which was first given as a gift to the McIlhenny family. In theory, there are other tabasco sauces (lower-case 't') but only one Tabasco (upper-case 'T'). The other attraction on the island is Jungle Gardens which grew out of the home and estate of the McIlhenny family.

It contains a nice driving loop, hordes of small alligators as you've probably noticed by now, an egret nesting area known as 'bird city' and quite a lot of flower gardens featuring camellias, azaleas, wisteria, and irises among others. There are also nutria in the park, described to us as 'rats the size of otters'. They are part of the rodent family, live in the lagoons, and we never managed to see one. The park also contains a Buddha statue dating to 1000 A.D. which was another gift to the McIlhennys.

After Avery Island we continued on to New Orleans. In Des Allemands, a small town near Houma, we came across another Mardi Gras parade. It appeared that nearly the entire community was somehow involved in the parade leaving only a few people to catch beads and so forth. You can't really grasp the festive community nature of Mardi Gras from the million-people New Orleans parades, so we really can't stress enough that if you plan to go to Mardi Gras in New Orleans, make plans to attend a parade in any other nearby city, there are certainly enough of them. We also passed evidence of parades going on in Morgan City and New Iberia, and the local papers have entire pages devoted to the day's events during the week leading up to Mardi Gras.