diff options
| -rw-r--r-- | published/2018-01-24_eastbound-down.txt (renamed from eastbound-down.txt) | 6 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | published/2018-02-07_on-the-beach.txt | 20 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | published/2018-02-08_on-avery-island.txt | 22 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | published/2018-02-12_mardi-gras-deux-facons.txt | 60 |
4 files changed, 105 insertions, 3 deletions
diff --git a/eastbound-down.txt b/published/2018-01-24_eastbound-down.txt index 8cc0671..b5e0776 100644 --- a/eastbound-down.txt +++ b/published/2018-01-24_eastbound-down.txt @@ -1,4 +1,4 @@ -We really loved the southern Arizona desert we've called home for the better part of January, but unfortunately the desert gets bitter cold this time of year., too cold for us. We had a choice -- head further south, into Mexico, or head east and south, back to the Gulf Coast. We really wanted to go to Mexico, but the Georgia DMV lost our registration papers for the better part of two months and it was looking like they were never going to get to us. No registration, no Mexico[^1]. +We really loved the southern Arizona desert we've called home for the better part of January, but unfortunately the desert gets bitter cold this time of year, too cold for us. We had a choice -- head further south, into Mexico, or head east and south, back to the Gulf Coast. We really wanted to go to Mexico, but the Georgia DMV lost our registration papers for the better part of two months and it was looking like they were never going to get to us. No registration, no Mexico[^1]. We ended up deciding to head back to what remains one of our favorite places -- the southern Gulf Coast. @@ -6,7 +6,7 @@ We loved the southwest desert, especially the our corners area, but generally mo While Mexico still has a strong pull on our future, there are few things in this country quite as nice as spring in the south. We're looking forward to it. Especially because we felt like we had to rush through Louisiana on our way out west. -It is of course, a long way from here to there. We hit the road for some long driving days across New Mexico and Texas. We rarely do more than 200 miles a day and hardly ever drive back to back days. But from the time we left the Dragoons we cover roughly 1200 miles in five days with only one weekend as a break. +It is of course, a long way from here to there. We hit the road for some long driving days across New Mexico and Texas. We rarely do more than 200 miles a day and hardly ever drive back to back days. But from the time we left the Dragoons we covered roughly 1200 miles in five days with only one weekend as a break. <img src="images/2018/2018-01-22_123826_texas-driving.jpg" id="image-1069" class="picwide" /> @@ -50,7 +50,7 @@ We had a quick bite to eat in the parking lot and then continued on our way. The Fracking is bit like burning the furniture to keep the house warm, and all you need to know about the current state of oil in the world is to drive though an area where the old oil pumps are rusted and collapsing and water trucks are rolling by in the steady stream -- we're getting desperate and nothing illustrates that so well as a fracking field. This is the third we've driven through and by far the worst. -After a night in Fort Stockton we continued on toward Kerrville and somewhere on that drive, I can almost pin it down to single climb over a single hill, you're no longer in the west. You're also not yet in the east. Nor are you in the Midwest. You're in something uniquely Texas for a while. By Kerrville though you're more or less back in the south. I got a little giddy at the grocery store walking the aisle and seeing Okra, Collards, grits, Duke's Mayonnaise and all the other things I love about the south. +After a night in Fort Stockton we continued on toward Kerrville and somewhere on that drive, I can almost pin it down to single climb over a single hill, you're no longer in the west. You're also not yet in the east. Nor are you in the Midwest. You're in something uniquely Texas for a while. By Kerrville though you're more or less back in the south. I got a little giddy at the grocery store walking the aisle and seeing okra, collards, grits, Duke's Mayonnaise and all the other things I love about the south. <img src="images/2018/2018-01-25_084545_texas-driving.jpg" id="image-1081" class="picwide caption" /> diff --git a/published/2018-02-07_on-the-beach.txt b/published/2018-02-07_on-the-beach.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..ef08262 --- /dev/null +++ b/published/2018-02-07_on-the-beach.txt @@ -0,0 +1,20 @@ +<img src="images/2018/2018-02-03_111150_rutherford-beach.jpg" id="image-1120" class="picwide" /> + +Soft sand? Ten thousand pound vehicle? What could go wrong? + +If you want a view like this though, you have to park in places like this: + +<img src="images/2018/2018-02-03_112402_rutherford-beach.jpg" id="image-1123" class="picwide" /> + +Ordinarily I probably wouldn't have done it, but when we pulled in there was another rig parked further down and its own came over and offered to pull us out with his truck should anything go wrong. I walked the sand it seemed firm enough so we went for it and it all worked out fine. There's nothing like free ocean front camping. + +If you use the websites I mentioned in the last post, notably freecampsites.net, and you zoom in on the south Louisiana coast there are basically two places to camp, Holly Beach and Rutherford Beach. After not finding much to like about [Holly Beach](/jrnl/2018/02/hugging-coast) we were prepared to be disappointed by Rutherford a well, but it turned out to be pretty near perfect. It's also listed as one of the best shell beaches around and it definitely has more shells than anywhere I've ever been. + +<img src="images/2018/2018-02-03_111909_rutherford-beach.jpg" id="image-1122" class="picwide" /> +<img src="images/2018/2018-02-06_142435_rutherford-beach.jpg" id="image-1126" class="picwide" /> +<img src="images/2018/2018-02-03_111841_rutherford-beach.jpg" id="image-1121" class="picwide" /> + +We spent five days on the beach. It stormed a good bit and fog would roll in pretty much every night, hiding the lights both onshore and off, making it feel like we were all alone in the world. + +<img src="images/2018/2018-02-04_093500_rutherford-beach.jpg" id="image-1124" class="picwide caption" /> +<img src="images/2018/2018-02-04_093520_rutherford-beach.jpg" id="image-1125" class="picwide" /> diff --git a/published/2018-02-08_on-avery-island.txt b/published/2018-02-08_on-avery-island.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..f9b0cc4 --- /dev/null +++ b/published/2018-02-08_on-avery-island.txt @@ -0,0 +1,22 @@ +Avery Island is best known to me as the title of a [Neutral Milk Hotel album](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_Avery_Island), but for most people it's probably better known as the home of Tabasco. + +<img src="images/2018/2018-02-08_105718_palmetto-tabasco.jpg" id="image-1130" class="picwide" /> + +I love hot sauce, all kinds of hot sauce. A quick inventory of the pantry just now produced seven different bottle of hot sauce, including one home made ghost pepper sauce. Despite that I've never really like Tabasco, it's too vinegary to me. Still, people love it and it's been made more or less the same way, by the same family, since shortly after the Civil War. That's a longer, more storied history than any of the bottles in my pantry. + +My father-in-law grew up on this area and toured Avery Island in grade school, we put the kids in his footsteps. Or sort of. Back in the fifties they let you actually go in the salt mines, today you get to walk through a Disneylandesque replica. Otherwise though I doubt much as changed. For as widely distributed, and seemingly huge as the Tabasco company seems, production is decidedly down home. + +<img src="images/2018/2018-02-08_112314_palmetto-tabasco.jpg" id="image-1131" class="picwide" /> +<img src="images/2018/2018-02-08_112710_palmetto-tabasco.jpg" id="image-1132" class="picwide" /> +<img src="images/2018/2018-02-08_114010_palmetto-tabasco.jpg" id="image-1133" class="picwide caption" /> + + +Part of the reason Tabasco is on Avery Island is that the island -- which is just barely deserving of the name island -- is made mostly of salt. When Tabasco was founded everything was right there, plant peppers, mine salt and you're away. + +Avery Island also happens to be one of the tallest points in southern Louisiana, sitting at 163 feet above sea level. It doesn't sound like much, but it's allowed the structures on the island to survive over a hundred years of hurricanes. Apparently that's changing though. Rita, which hit this area hard in 2005, flooded the marshes and much of the island, and things are getting worse every year. + +The marsh that protects the island loses about 30 feet per year as saltwater from rising seas seeps in and kills off the fresh water plants. As those plants die the soil loosens and dissolves, washing out the sea. Dredging for shipping canals and oil exploration canals abandoned by the oil companies also hasten erosion of the marshes. Without the buffer of the marsh the storm surge of the more frequent and stronger storms reaches further inland, up onto the island. + +The McIlhenny family has been working hard to combat the soil loss, planting cordgrass and building its own levee and pumps system, which is not uncommon down here. There's simply too much coastline and it's disappearing too fast for the government of Louisiana to deal with, towns and companies in the area are [building their own systems](http://www.nola.com/environment/index.ssf/2017/08/levee-ing_the_odds_southwest_l.html). In the end nothing is going to stop the sea, some places will survive just fine, and Avery Island may well be one of them, but even the current heads of the McIlhenny family admit they might have to [move](http://www.nola.com/environment/index.ssf/2018/01/tabascos_homeland_is_in_a_figh.html) someday. + +In the mean time, the hot sauce is still too vinegary in my opinion, but the factory tour is well worth it, even the finished product isn't your thing. diff --git a/published/2018-02-12_mardi-gras-deux-facons.txt b/published/2018-02-12_mardi-gras-deux-facons.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..e62bf21 --- /dev/null +++ b/published/2018-02-12_mardi-gras-deux-facons.txt @@ -0,0 +1,60 @@ +When we were first plotting out a route for the spring it didn't occur to us that we'd be in Louisiana for Mardi Gras. Like most of the nation, for us Mardi Gras was just another Tuesday. Once we realized that our timing would put us there though we knew we had to go, preferably out deep in the Cajun/Acadian region from which Mardi Gras originates. + +I won't pretend to understand Mardi Gras, or where it comes from, though at least some of what we saw apparently dates from the Middle Ages when various guilds and small secret societies would celebrate, er, something? Some say it goes back to the feast of begging, in medieval France, but a good argument can be made that it's much older than that. Whatever its origins, it's insular enough that if you aren't part of the culture, I don't think you'll ever really understand it. That won't stop you from enjoying it though. + +Part of what makes it complicated is that there are so many different ways people celebrate Mardi Gras. What you see in one place often bears no resemblance to what you see in another. + +The only thing historians of Mardi Gras seem to agree upon is that at some point Mardi Gras became intertwined with the Catholic celebration of Lent. Mardi Gras became a celebration of excess in preparation for the deprivation of Lent. I think. Beads, heavy drinking and most of the other things we outsiders associate with Mardi Gras are apparently quite recent though, starting some time in the late 1940s, or '50s, or '60s, depending on who you ask. + +The basis of most celebrations these days are the parades, huge floats full of people decorated with beads marching through towns, throwing out candy, toys and beads to those of us who gather to watch. We got beads, so many beads. + +We attended two Mardi Gras celebrations, the first was a children's parade in Lafayette. It wasn't the best day for a parade, rain poured down just as it was about to get underway, but that didn't stop anyone, including us. + +<div class="cluster"> +<span class="row-2"> +<img src="images/2018/20180210_122604.jpg" id="image-1152" class="cluster pic5" /> +<img src="images/2018/20180210_123913.jpg" id="image-1153" class="cluster pic5" /> +</span> +<img src="images/2018/20180210_124216.jpg" id="image-1155" class="picwide" /> +<span class="row-2"> +<img src="images/2018/20180210_124609.jpg" id="image-1154" class="cluster pic5" /> +<img src="images/2018/20180210_125322.jpg" id="image-1157" class="cluster pic5" /> +</span> +<span class="row-2"> +<img src="images/2018/20180210_125119.jpg" id="image-1156" class="cluster pic5" /> +<img src="images/2018/20180210_125649.jpg" id="image-1158" class="cluster pic5" /> +</span> +<img src="images/2018/2018-02-10_125435-1_mardi-gras.jpg" id="image-1135" class="picwide" /> +<img src="images/2018/2018-02-10_125431_mardi-gras.jpg" id="image-1134" class="picwide" /> +</div> + +We managed to make it back to the campground in time for the golf cart parade. Like I said, Mardi Gras is all about the parades, even when they're small. + +<img src="images/2018/2018-02-10_144943_mardi-gras.jpg" id="image-1137" class="picwide" /> +<img src="images/2018/2018-02-10_145046_mardi-gras.jpg" id="image-1138" class="picwide" /> +<img src="images/2018/2018-02-10_144055_mardi-gras.jpg" id="image-1136" class="picwide" /> +<img src="images/2018/2018-02-10_145540_mardi-gras.jpg" id="image-1139" class="picwide" /> + +Before there were beads there was the Courir de Mardi Gras, which is Cajun French for "Fat Tuesday Run". As with so many things in America over the last century, "run" morphed into "drive" and (probably) this is where the whole parade thing started. The biggest home of the old style "Courir" is in Mamou, where, apparently we [might have seen Anthony Bourdain](https://www.instagram.com/p/BfJ1JZkH0dA/), but we decide to go to Iota for a Tee Mamou, or small mamou. + +There was plenty of food and two stages with various Cajun bands. + +<img src="images/2018/2018-02-13_131516_tee-mamou.jpg" id="image-1143" class="picwide" /> +<img src="images/2018/2018-02-13_122307_tee-mamou.jpg" id="image-1140" class="picwide" /> +<img src="images/2018/2018-02-13_124005_tee-mamou.jpg" id="image-1142" class="picwide" /> +<img src="images/2018/2018-02-13_123706_tee-mamou.jpg" id="image-1141" class="picwide" /> + + +Before the main run, or drive in this case, there was a children's version that led up to stage for some dancing. + +<img src="images/2018/2018-02-13_135443-1_tee-mamou.jpg" id="image-1144" class="picwide" /> + +Then the main run started, costumed people descended on the downtown area, chasing chickens, dancing, and begging for loose change. There's plenty of drunkenness, going on, but it's not the chaos you might expect. There's a Capitaine in charge of keeping people in line and he has a whip to back up whatever the rules are. + +<img src="images/2018/2018-02-13_143757_tee-mamou.jpg" id="image-1147" class="picwide" /> +<img src="images/2018/2018-02-13_143739_tee-mamou.jpg" id="image-1146" class="picwide" /> +<img src="images/2018/2018-02-13_143734_tee-mamou.jpg" id="image-1145" class="picwide" /> +<img src="images/2018/2018-02-13_143803-1_tee-mamou.jpg" id="image-1148" class="picwide" /> +<img src="images/2018/2018-02-13_143820_tee-mamou.jpg" id="image-1149" class="picwide" /> +<img src="images/2018/2018-02-13_143836-1_tee-mamou.jpg" id="image-1150" class="picwide" /> +<img src="images/2018/2018-02-13_143955_tee-mamou.jpg" id="image-1151" class="picwide" /> |