The thermometer was registering 91 degrees at 10am in Vermilion, LA today. Let me tell you it was HOT! I loaded up the kids water packs and we headed to a Creole Heritage celebration anyway. The festival had so much to offer from, river rides to live zydeco music. The setting was in the historic Village of Vermilion. The village itself is open year round for tours but today was special because throughout the whole village were creole people ready to share their heritage with you and show you hands on demonstrations. We learned about old forms of medication such at add a little cream of tarter to your water and it will keep your body cool as a cucumber all day. To ward off a tooth ache boil some cloves and drink the broth. Have a little UTI, boil some pumpkin seeds and drink the broth. The best one though was if your baby cant sleep rub some whiskey on the bottom of its foot and the baby will sleep all night. We saw demonstrations of creole cooking and craftworks. For me the coolest thing was the river ride. Our guide was just a wealth of knowledge and was so happy to share it with us. I quickly discovered that there is a great deal our history books fail to teach. After the boat ride we dared to conquer the unknown and try the true creole lunch that had been prepared just for the festival. It included delicacies such as backbone stew, shrimp creole, corn maque choux, smothered okra, eggplant dressin with shrimp, syrup cake, and banana pudding with vanilla wafers. Some of it was quite tasty but I must admit that it took some doing to get past the idea of backbone stew. I wont likely be trying it again anytime soon. There was some great dancing to the zydeco music happening in pavilion and as ready as mema was to get to two-stepping my kids just cant handle real loud places. Sorry Mema! From there we headed out to Henderson for what we hoped would be a jaw snapping good time. Magees Landing was our destination and swamp touring was our game. The kids were siked as was I. Mema.....uummm not so much! We set out with several other people in search of gators we were told would be called out by name to feed. As we crossed a huge lake we saw beautiful cypress trees covered in Spanish moss every where we looked. Ski boats went flying by us along with jets skis and even tubers. I began to wonder what type of swamp they were referring to, because I felt this to be just to....... shall we say...... unspooky to be the gator and snake invested swamp I thought of. The boat, whose captain did narrate but couldn't be heard because of the crappy sound system, pulled into a wide little alcove of the lake. The captain began clanging on the side of the boat and low and behold there appeared a single small alligator swimming towards our boat. A sandwich bag full of chicken bones later we set off for the dock. Let me say that there are tons of real swamp tours to take but this is definitely the one to avoid. I did ask for a refund but that's a whole norther story so stay tuned and Ill let you know if I win. Disappointed we headed to Baton Rouge in search of Bravos which was recommended to us by a fellow swamp tourer! After a ridiculous amount of searching we finally found the place and it was well worth it. Great Food! Its getting late and New Orleans is still and 1.5 hours away. Its a very cool drive between Lafayette and New Orleans as you are driving across huge expanses of bridges for lack of a better term which rise out of swamps, rivers, and lakes. Some of them seem to go on for 6-8 miles at a time. We arrived in New Orleans around 9:00pm. headed for our hotel which we were all rather excited about as it was a true representation of the French Quarter. What we didnt so much count on was the frightening things we would pass on the way, like falling down neighborhoods, gangs in the streets, prostitutes, clear drug invested areas, and homeless digging in trashcans. There was more but I have shared enough. Imagine my reaction when i pulled into my hotel and was asked for my keys and told my car would be taken to an upper location that I was not permitted to access without the valets bringing my car back to me. I wasnt feeling very happy as I dont scare easily but I found myself tied up in knots over this city. Our hotel was a huge sigh of relief for us all I think. It is beautiful! I hope the daylight brings with it a new perspective.
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