Friday, February 21, 2014 – Canoeing, Sinkholes & the Tinky-Winky Tango

When we began our trip, I feared pain, weakness and walking difficulties would send me home quickly, long before we reached Louisiana.  As we’re halfway through our trip today, perhaps it’s time for some reflection.  How do I feel?  Spending most of my time in the Honda’s passenger seat instead of a wheelchair has eliminated back pain. By taking it very easy, I’ve become strangely stronger, if just a wee bit.  I rely heavily upon Tinky, my walker, both physically and emotionally.  Tinky encourages me. “We can do it,” he says.  “We are strong.” Bathroom issues keep cripples at home. With Tinky’s help, we triumphantly walk from the bed to the bathroom as needed.  Life is good.

Last fall, through the trip planning process, we uncovered a lodging conundrum.  In the States we can rent either a room with a kitchen or a place potentially handicap accessible.  The two seem as different and mutually exclusive as oil and water. 

Generally, we’ve chosen kitchens over handicap accessibility. Bear and Bloodroot have unearthed previously unknown culinary skills, much to our collective delight. They now excel at cooking under travel duress, be it strange kitchens or outdoor picnic tables.  We search for the finest, freshest yet simplest-to-prepare foods. We’ve taken to shopping at Whole Foods, going so far as to plot out when our locations will intersect.  Despite the exorbitant per item cost, we find Whole Foods far cheaper than any restaurant and certainly tastier.

Last night in Lafayette, we watched a huge thunder-boomer with lots of lightning.  Safe, snug and inside, we enjoyed a real southern rain where the sky opens and buckets of water cascade, drenching the earth below.  I miss the people of the South and a real Southern Rain.[1] The storm’s lingering humidity curls our papers.

Leaving Lafayette behind, we speed down state route 90 again today.  As eternally indulgent parents, we find ourselves encouraging Bloodroot’s sinkhole obsession.  We stop at Lake Peigneur, exit Pearl, and begin acting as junior archaeologists seeking visible remains of a large mining disaster. 

In 1980, Texaco engineers seeking oil hosed up and punched a hole through the lake’s bed, piercing the roof of a massive underground salt mine.  The lake, previously a placid shallow place visited primarily by fishermen, drained into the mine, dissolving all salt in its path.  A huge vortex ensued, sucking in the drilling platform, a tugboat, eleven barges, numerous trees and 65 acres of the surrounding terrain.   Houses wobbled, then sank.

Flooding the mine consumed so much water that the Delcambre Canal, the lake’s normal outlet to the Gulf of Mexico, ran backwards as the yawning underground caverns drank until sated. Eventually, the mine filled restoring equilibrium, nine barges popped out of the sinkhole, leaving the remaining two permanently mired beneath the lake. 

To Bloodroot’s disappointment, the maelstrom has left few traces of its fury.  While watching the whirlpool itself would’ve been very exciting, at this point only a pretty lake remains, albeit now deep saltwater (1300 ft.) instead of shallow freshwater (10 ft.).  Bear and Beaver return to Pearl, while Bloodroot embarks upon a voyage of exploration and discovery.  He finds chimneys, the tops of trees and shingles left from the time when the sinkhole claimed so many houses. 

Leaving Lake Peigneur, we drive to the Lake Fausse State Park on the Atchafalaya River.  Desiring lunch with minimum toting effort, we seek a picnic table close to both the parking lot and the river, with a view, of course. Finding the perfect spot, we park.  A sidewalk lined by shallow bayous runs between the parking lot and the covered picnic tables.  The boys empty Pearl’s hat, carrying the stove, cooler and cooking implements out to the picnic area. Keith begins concocting lunch, attaching the propane fuel tank to the camping stove and sifting through the cooler, seeking appropriate foodstuffs.

Bloodroot, for no apparent reason, rolls Tinky over to the picnic table while Keith fusses at him about it.  Bloodroot ignores Bear, intent upon performing the Tinky-Winky Tango.  I drive Sven toward the table, where I will chop vegetables, my contribution to our midday repast. 

Bloodroot decides to charge me with the walker.  He runs, forgets that Tinky has brakes, and loses control of the walker. Bloodroot trips, veering to the left.  Staggering to the right, he nearly recovers. But it’s too late. Bloodroot careens off the sidewalk, flips over and lands on his back in a shallow bayou.  Tinky flies across the sidewalk into the opposing bayou. Bloodroot emerges unhurt, outside of his pride.  We retrieve Tinky, a bit worse for wear.  Tinky never fully recovers, his legs permanently bent.

We pluck dead leaves off of Bloodroot.  He’s sopping wet before he even goes canoeing.  Fortunately, Bloodroot finds both a towel and clean clothes in Pearl. She laughs at him too, much to his annoyance.  For the rest of the day and into the evening we can’t stop laughing helplessly every time we look at him or think of this event.  Keith repeatedly mimes the adventures of Bloodroot and the walker, wishing fervently that we had videotaped the entire incident.  At times I think Bear would be an excellent playwright.  He can act out the scenes and block while I write dialogue.

After lunch, fully dry, Bear and Bloodroot go canoeing.  I sit at a different picnic table overlooking a branch of the river and write.  Spring is beginning here, sending out tentative tendrils of herself, checking the safety of the temperature before proceeding.  The green grasses surprise and delight me, so different from Denver’s arid winter. The trees haven’t leafed out quite yet, but the magnolias and some yellow flowers bloom.  I bask in the sun resurgent after last night’s storm.

The boys paddle by me, go a few hundred feet in the water, turn around and paddle by me again. “Oh my men,” I query, “are you lost?  Confused?  Perhaps going the wrong way?” “No, there are many paths,” our son mystically replies. “And many puddles to fall into,” adds Keith.

The river flows by placid and calm, riled by the wind kicking up now and again. Looking up into the tree branches I see a fishing bobber caught by someone’s poor casting.   

I spend the afternoon writing, reading and napping in the sun. Shadows fall on the river as the afternoon wanes until even my perch becomes shaded. Bloodroot and Bear pass by again proudly telling me that they have canoed four miles.  They dock the boat without incident. Outside of the puddle adventure, no one has gotten wet today.

We pack up and make ready for our journey to New Orleans.  We find our next Airbnb location, the bottom floor of a house in the 13^th Ward.  This ward flooded during Katrina, but has now been restored.  We move in. Keith and I prepare dinner while Bloodroot drives up to the airport to collect his best friend Barkley. 

Bloodroot and Barkley met in college becoming fast friends.  Both writers, they plan a website with the goal of being as important and influential as the Paris Review. (http://theunion4ever.com)  They’re undecided about being a secret front for the CIA. We consider Barkley our other son.  He’s bright, witty and charming, enough to make any adoptive parent proud. We love him dearly and are so grateful that he has chosen to spend some of his limited vacation time with us.

After hugs, over dinner, Barkley cautions us to be careful in New Orleans.  His attorney has warned him about Louisiana, saying “They use the Napoleonic Code down there, something I know nothing about. Don’t get in trouble because I can’t help you.” Duly advised, the boys swear off prostitutes, drugs and gambling for the duration.  We turn in for the night.

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[1] To understand the longing, listen to the Cowboy Junkies Southern Rain.

Thursday, February 20, 2014 - Avery Island

I have a grumpy Bear this morning, as the Beaver twisted herself up in the covers and slid out of bed last night, flopping her tail about helplessly on the floor. Poor Bear worked on righting her for quite some time, eventually setting her upside up. Shortly thereafter, she arose to visit the bathroom. Bear helped her back into bed, complaining of sleepiness while tormented by Lowly Worm, the Beaver’s alter ego. Lowly worked hard to turn Beaver onto her left side for sleeping.  Lowly failed. At long last, Bear adjusted Lowly’s blanket and pillow, turning her onto her correct side. Breathing a sigh of relief, Bear returned to slumbering.  A short while later, Beaver and Lowly got up to read their Nook, inadvertently waking Bear once more, much to Bear’s disgust.

I suggest some caffeine to Bear this morning, only to find my suggestion heartily disdained.

Whew!  Silence may be the better part of valor here. Our first stop, the Alexandre Mouton house, disappoints, reminding us of touring a random old house in South Carolina.  Heavy on mold and furniture, the house lacks any explanation of how the Mouton family morphed from poor, dispossessed Cajun refugees into Governor and first family of Louisiana. 

Ah, but the internet provides answers.  A Jean Mouton, probably not a Cajun refugee, emigrated to Louisiana early on, acquiring massive lands and a plantation.  Enriching himself by successfully exploiting enslaved African labor, his wealth funded his patrician son Alexandre’s stint as governor. 

As governor, Alexandre balanced the state budget by liquidating state assets, leasing out prison labor and flat refusing to spend one single red cent on anything.  No wonder Louisiana lacked roads before Huey Long!  Alexandre did support public education and enfranchising landless white males, two quite progressive ideas for the time and for Louisiana.

Exploring the house, we find one picture of Jean’s grandson Alfred.  The photo’s caption notes that he died in the Civil War, nothing else. Curiosity piqued, I research his life, finding him the most intriguing of the bunch.  Alfred Mouton served as a Confederate general during the war.  Aided by an obligatory draft, he recruited Cajuns and other poor whites to “The Cause.”  Stuck in the war derisively called “a rich man’s war but a poor man’s fight,” and seeing no gain in supporting slavery and the wealthy, much of his Cajun army deserted, melting into the swamps to become guerilla, Union-supporting jayhawkers.

The Mouton House displays their collection of Mardi Gras outfits accompanied by beads in the traditional colors of gold, green and purple.  The docent hands me some beads, apologizing for restricting me to the first floor (no elevator). Ascending the steps to the second floor, the boys report little to see. We depart. Outside in the parking lot, we find a thirty-foot tall holly hedge, by far the coolest thing about the house.  ”Enough Moutons!” Pearl shouts.  Trapped against the hedge and unable to open her ramp, she squirms around impatiently, finally gaining enough clearance to allow me entry. 

Today, to all our chagrin, we encounter the second poorly engineered feature of our BrawnAbility cripple van.  The BraunAbility conversion added motors that move the driver’s seat back and forth, up and down and side to side, all to accommodate wheelchair transfer.  But the D- student design engineers didn’t fasten down the Honda wiring harness controlling normal seat movement.  We run over the wire harness with the seat, severing numerous connections.

“I wish that you hadn’t burdened me with BraunAbility.  Hondas, as you well know, will outlast you,” Pearl huffs, fussing at us.  “Pipe down, Pearl!  You know full well that the Beaver can’t get into the van without the ramp.  And if Beaver weren’t crippled, we would have kept the Prius.  We would never have met – you’d have different owners, probably ones who wouldn’t talk to you,” lectures Bear.  Pearl begins to cry deep, loud, wracking sobs.

We pull into a gas station attempting to quiet Pearl.  A Colorado plated van crying loudly in traffic attracts attention, even in Louisiana.  Sitting in a Lafayette gas station we learn all about Honda fuses, but the Honda-controlled portion of the seat remains inoperable.  The boys use the cripple mechanism to move the seat back and forth, but I can no longer reach the gas pedal, for good or for ill.

Pearl recovers her composure.  Her sobs reduced to just an occasional sigh, we give up on the seat and head down Louisiana route 90.  Our brief jaunt takes us to Avery Island, a massive salt dome a few miles inland from the Gulf of Mexico and incidentally the home of Tabasco sauce.  (No, I don’t understand why an island is inland-it’s Louisiana.)

The Avery family has owned Avery Island since 1818, initially using the land as a sugar plantation.  In 1862, the Averys discovered the underlying salt dome and began massive mining and shipping operations, the Confederate Army their largest customer.  Unsurprisingly during the course of the war, the Union Army conquered the island and destroyed all shipping and mining equipment.

A banker, one Edmund McIlhenny, married into the family before the Civil War.  After the war, flat broke, banks decimated, the family mining equipment annihilated, McIlhenny found himself mollycoddling over food.  An avid gardener, bored with bland Reconstruction-era cuisine, he dreamt up a new business venture:  pepper sauce. 

Currently, a seventh McIlhenny descendant, aided by 200 workers, produces Tabasco here on Avery Island. Yeah! We enjoy seeing a food company not owned by Pepsi, Tyson, Kraft or Nestlé. Many of the workers, also second & third generation employees, appear to have the same roles as their ancestors, the majority of blacks working in the fields and whites in the factory.

We learn the McIlhenny family secret-where there’s salt, there’s oil.  The island has an immense salt mine and oil, providing all the income the family needs.  Is Tabasco merely noblesse oblige?  A good thing, whatever the reason.  By supporting, retaining and maintaining the plant on Avery Island, the family has preserved employment and local infrastructure in the rural marshlands of Louisiana.

To make Tabasco sauce, workers pick peppers at the peak of ripeness, selecting only those peppers whose color matches their “baton rouge” or red stick. On the day of harvest, workers grind the peppers into mash, mix the mash with salt and seal it in white oak barrels to age for three years. The workers cover the barrels with an additional layer of salt.  Opening the barrels at the appropriate time, workers mix the mash with premium vinegar, stir it daily for 28 days, then bottle the sauce.

The company saves seed from their peppers each year. Take that Monsanto! No terminator genes in seeds here! To mitigate farming risks, the company grows the pepper plants around the world.

We tour the McIlhenny plant, watching employees operate machinery bottling Tabasco sauce.  The manufactory uses the same bottling machinery my father used in his factory all those years ago.  Déjà vu engulfs me as I watch the bottles run along the beltway, each bottle pausing to receive its allotted share of pepper sauce from the overhead hopper.  Tossed back in time, peering through a dim, veiled mirror, I observe a different factory.  Via the same process, Dad supervises his plant as his workers bottle various cleaning products. 

Returning to now, I watch Tabasco’s machines spin caps onto the now-full bottles, affix labels and pack the bottles into boxes.  Employees watch, resolve jams, and perform periodic quality controls.

Unlike most fermented foods, people the world over love Tabasco.  I discovered Tabasco in my teens, ever seeking escape from my family’s bland white bread cuisine.  Scandinavian-Americans worship white food.  We even have official food whiteners-Miracle Whip, cream of celery soup, marshmallow cream, etc.  Besides being spicy, Tabasco was red.  I rebelled, really breaking the mold here!  I vaguely remember putting Tabasco on mashed potatoes.  I was a convert, but not alone.  Asians find cheese disgusting, while we find stinky tofu downright scary, but we all enjoy Tabasco. Long ago, the British ran a “Buy British” campaign in Guam, outlawing Tabasco sauce. The company proudly reports riots ensued, ceasing only when Tabasco became legal again. A map shows a hundred Tabasco sauce-importing countries.

Leaving the factory, we visit the gift shop. Bloodroot and I find several must-have Tabasco items, namely an apron, a magnet, boxer shorts and some bottles of sauce. The Bear finds some shirts he likes but refuses to purchase them, deeming them too expensive. This is an old argument. “How much does it cost to drive to Louisiana?” I think.  I always buy something small to remember each trip, fulfilling my obligation as a good tourist.

Snowy egrets adorn the factory.  Huh?  By the 1890s, egret populations had declined precipitously, decimated by hunters seeking egret plumage for hats.  The McIlhenny heirs became ardent conservationists.  In 1895, a Ned McIlhenny rescued the last eight egrets, bred them and created a sanctuary on the island.  Freed, the birds migrated to Mexico to return annually with others.

As we’re already on the island, we visit the sanctuary/nature preserve named Jungle Gardens. We see roseate spoon bills, snowy egrets, fluffier headed egrets, and a gray hawk. We walk amongst oak trees dripping with Spanish moss, mangroves and cypress trees.  We delight in spring’s blooming magnolias and camellias. Resting under a 300 year old Cleveland Oak, named after the president (Grover Cleveland) who visited the bird colony, we startle an alligator that actually moves, but doesn’t bite us.

 Ned was a big collector.  After establishing the rookery and saving the egrets, he included a Japanese Shinto gate, Roman Temple, and a centuries-old enshrined Buddha in the gardens. When the family found oil on the island, Ned insisted upon burying some pipelines, rerouting others around specific trees and painting any remaining visible pipeline green.

Bear and Bloodroot walk up to see the old nursery. I nod off. They return brandishing bamboo sticks that they whirl about, trying to out-fight each other like some goofballs in a kung-fu movie. Has my family morphed into Bruce Lee’s?

The boys tire.  Returning to Pearl, we drive out to revisit the Jean Lafitte National Park, desiring to soak up all the Cajunness we can.  Too late again, the park closes in ten minutes. On to Lafayette where we cook a good supper and rely on Toby for Cajun culture. 

Over dinner we raise our glasses to toast Paul Distad.   He would be 87 years old today, were he not 13 years dead.  All day I’ve been musing and reflecting that I never saw him really old.  When he passed, one month before his 74^th birthday, his hair hadn’t turned fully grey yet.  What a life we now live, where 73 just isn’t all that old.  I still cry; I loved my daddy.