Post Vacation Blues

Well, most of you will know by now that my parents came to Louisiana to surprise me. It was a fun visit. They were here for a week and we were able do some neat things, see some of the sites and best of all, eat some cultural food. If you haven’t tried gumbo with whole pieces of chicken, crab and shrimps, you are missing out.

If you check out our Flickr page, you’ll notice some photos that we’ve already posted. We plan on adding more at the beginning of next month because we’ve used up all of May’s upload time.

Okay, so here are some of the things we ended up doing. We went to Cameron Parish, a county right on the Gulf of Mexico that was heavily damaged during Hurricane Rita. The sites that we saw were very impacting. It’s crazy to realize that there had already been about 8 months of clean up work already done and it was still a mess. We saw houses that had nothing left but the foundation, cars that were completely ripped open, destroyed churches, hospitals and much more devastation. One town called Holly Beach, which was obviously a beach town right on the Gulf, had been completely wiped off the face of the planet. Upon our tour, we saw that they were already beginning to rebuild and power lines had been installed and pilings or stilts for houses were already being put up. (Because of flood waters, storm surge, etc. many people decide to actually build their houses about 8 to 10 feet up in the air to hope avoiding any such catastrophe. Dess and I have actually seen an entire elementary school that was built on stilts.)

We also went on a tour of Avery Island, the birthplace of “Tabasco Brand Hot Sauce”. The factory itself was interesting because they showed how the peppers were chosen and picked, then how the peppers were processed. Our tour guide wasn’t very enthusiastic about it though. The big deal of the island is actually the “Jungle Gardens” which is a scenic tour of various landscapes. They had bamboo and azaleas, holly and ivy, trumpeter vines and live oaks. Not to mention the living creatures. There were plenty of dear flies that wanted a piece of Dess and my meat. The coolest part was when Dess almost stepped on an alligator. It was a small thing, only about 4 feet long, sitting next to the path. It was near the “Bird City” a habitat and nesting grounds for white egrets. Dess was so excited to see the egrets from the lookout station that she was about 3 feet away from the gator before we could stop her. The gator barely flinched and just opened its mouth and hissed to ward Dess off. Mom was really bummed that the batteries on the digital camera had died and was unable to capture the moment. In fact, the batteries died right after coming out of the Tabasco factory, so she missed a lot of good opportunities.

We weren’t always on the go. We did take some time to relax together as well. Candling Dad’s ear was quite the bonding experience. So was the time when Dess offered to help Mom replace her nose piercing. Dess figured it’d be a cinch. Dess has had her nose pierced for like 8 years, so she could do her own nose no problem. But after taking out Mom’s piercing it took what seemed like forever before the new piercing could be forced into place. Talk about bonding.

Mini golf and bowling were also some of our distractions, not to mention shopping. All in all it was a great week with lots of adventure and tons of stories to tell. Now Dess and I are back in the lull of having to work and not having much fun on a day-to-day basis. We need to find ways to spice up our lives. Well, it’s was great seeing Mom and Dad. We hope to see you soon too, whoever you are that may be reading this!