St. Martinville, La

We spent a fantastic 10 days in the swamps of southern Louisiana camping with the FreeRoader RV group at Lake Fausse Pointe State Park. Driving twenty three miles down the paved levee road south of Henderson will take you to the park entrance. Alongside the levee road is the Atchafalaya Basin through which flows the river by the same name. The Cajuns used to live out in the basin and travel by boat, living off the land and it's resources. It is quite interesting to take a swamp tour and learn about the history but we did not choose that option on this trip. We would have liked to have ridden the quad up on the levee but it is private property. (more photos)

One of our first trips was to the bakery in St. Martinville. We then went around the block to the park by the most photographed tree in America, the Evangeline Oak. This is supposedly where Emmeline Labiche, Longfellow's Evangeline, found her long lost lover after they had been separated in Nova Scotia. The Acadians who became what we call Cajuns were French who were exiled from Nova Scotia and eventually found their way down Bayou Teche to this area. They are the most wonderful people to know and have a unique culture based on their history and customs which have survived two centuries in this area. (more photos)

Much of our time was spent sightseeing. Breaux Bridge, which is famous for it's crawfish festival held later in the year, is a tourist friendly small town. We stopped at Cafe des Amis on Saturday morning for their zydeco breakfast. We began our meal with beignets while listening to Little Nathan and his band perform. The dance floor stayed packed as is a custom on Saturday mornings found at many venues throughout Cajun country. (more photos)

Another fun place to visit is the Tabasco factory at Avery Island, located south of New Iberia. Fourteen of us caravanned to take a factory tour and see the peppers being processed to produce their well known Tabasco products. We saw them bottle products that would be shipped to Europe and then sampled many of their sauces next door at the Factory Store. (more photos)
We drove over to the Jungle Gardens, begun by the McIlhenny family who started Tabasco, and took a driving tour through the grounds among the giant live oaks with Spanish moss hanging from their branches. Underneath were azaleas and camelias in bloom flashing all shades of pink and red. The alligators basked in the sun alongside the ponds and the egrets were nesting in their rookery.



Lake Martin, located at Parks between Breaux Bridge and St. Martinville, is the largest bird rookery in the United States. Seventeen of the FreeRoaders took a seat in Bryan Champagne's boat for an upclose look at alligators, nutria, barred owls, yellow bellied turtles, snakes, white egrets, roseatte spoonbills, and little blue herons. (more photos)

The remainder of our time was spent eating: crawfish, chowder, Cape Cod stuffies, crawfish etoufee, gumbo, hobo stew, biscuits and gravy, and potluck dishes and desserts. (more photos) On our final night the LEOs (Let's Eat Out) prevailed and we all went to Pat's Fisherman's Wharf for a seafood feast. Between meals we visited with old and new friends, kayaked, rode the bicycles, went geocaching, watched the many brilliant red cardinals, and basically just kicked back and relaxed. We had to extend our stay for one day just to find time to ride the bikes on Trail C, a 3 mile trail among the swamp in the park. As we left town I started down to Bayou Ann, across the bridge from Pat's in Henderson, to gather a few water hyacinths for my pond. I have never seen so many large snakes in one gathering. There will be no water hyacinths blooming in my pond this summer!

There is work to be done at the dead end before we go north to Mountain View, Arkansas in one month.