We put New Orleans, and the fabulous Ron and Steve, in the rear view mirror this morning and head out for our Big Day O’Southern Fun. With several planned stops in our day, we headed straight out to Slidell for the Honey Island Swamp Tour – a boat trip down the West Pearle River and surrounding swamp lands. First up, full disclosure – there were no gators seen on our tour. Awww…. it’s just not a Southern Day out without gators! Figure we will make up for it with Gator Ona Stick for lunch or something! 😉
Honey Creek is wildlife reserve managed by the Louisiana State government. We were both very impressed to hear that that licensing fees that hunters (there are feral pigs, alligators, as well as ducks and other game birds) and fishermen pay (they’re catching blue crab, crawfish, catfish and a pile of other fresh water foods), are used to conserve the existing territory and to purchase and extend the wildlife reserve further into the future.
We set off in a covered boat with about fifteen other becamera’d tourists, all rugged up for the 14C and cloudy, that the weather service was forecasting… and I tell you what, once that boat started moving out on the water, I was sooo glad I had gone back to the car to grab and extra coat. Chilly is not quite the word for it. We started out sedately enough, pottering through the bayou until we got to the river proper, and our guide put the hammer down. Sitting in the nose of the boat meant we were getting the best unspoiled views of the reflections in the swap, but it also meant we go the full wind chill factor.
One of the first things we saw on the river was some ‘houseboats’, and I use the term with no exactitude whatsoever! Because these are quaint little two storey houseboats with a kitchenette downstairs and a party deck upstairs like you might see pottering around the Gold Coast Broadwater, these look like something my grandfather knocked together in his back yard in Toowoomba and then decided he should float them on some kegs or something. No, scratch that, my Poppa was a pretty handy carpenter. These little houseboats belong to some industrious local who will come out and use them for fishing and hunting and well, some people apparently live in them. They have dodgy, dodgy looking electricity hooked up to their little houseboats and they look like they’re all in need of some TLC. What they really remind me of is the Southern equivalent of some Minnesota ice fishing hut… a floating man cave.
As we move further down the river we saw many more permanent (shit, I am reluctant to call them that) structures that people have built along the river’s edge that the locals refer to as ‘camps’. It sounds like anyone with a boat can access the waters edge and build themselves a camp. In the summer time, the camps are heavily used for recreational activities from hunting and fishing, canoeing, swimming and even waterskiing. There are well kept, large camps with decks and power and satellite dishes, and others look like they belong on a rubbish tip or a warzone. To be honest, they don’t look all that appealing to me as holiday destinations, though I imagine the river is far more appealing and holds many more charms when the weather is warmer.
As mentioned earlier, we missed out on the gators this tour, it’s just too cold for them to be out sunning themselves on logs or anything, but we did see two gorgeous little river otters! Very unexpected. They’re such inquisitive little guys, one of them came quite close to our boat and swam along side for a while. Mind you, they move so fast it was hard to catch a photo, but it was very cool to see them in the wild. Awesome sauce. We also saw some tortoises, grey squirrels, some common egrets, a great blue heron, some cormorants and a peacock (don’t ask).
All up the tour was really interesting and takes you through some very unusual terrain that is quite unaccessible except by boat. I’d recommend to anyone to go along for a couple of hours through the swamp. I took many of photographs that probably give the area a moody and bleak feel, given the weather was less than optimal.
After our Louisiana swamp tour, we thought we’d continue out Big Southern adventure and try out The Big Easy Diner in Slidell for lunch/dinner (we have inadvertently slipped into a habit of skipping breakfast, and having lunch/dinner somewhere between 2pm-4pm… I know, bad habits but it’s only for a while). The Big Easy Diner looked like something off a movie set – red leather booths, black and white checked tiles everywhere, neon signs and a huge menu full of typical Southern fare. I decide to try the catfish and shrimp combo (with mash and salad) and Mr K opted for a bowl of chilli and some onion rings, after assurances from our waitress that ‘they is so good, I takes the leftover chilli ho’wum alls the time’. We probably need to keep reminding ourselves about the complete lack of portion control here, because this is what we got for dinner –
FUCK. All deep fried and huge. Onion rings almost the size of your head, a small side salad that did nothing to offset the heart attack in the rest of the meal. I ate my salad and most of the mash, but only managed about half the catfish and shrimp… there’s only so much deep fried goodness you can take. By all accounts, the chilli was as good as our waitress claimed.
After lunch, we hit the road!! After being in Beaumont yesterday, we were destined to hit five states in twenty four hours – Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida. Try doing that in Australia without a jet! The country side was really interesting, so much industry down here. We also kept looking up the the local demographics as we went through various towns. Mississippi is quite depressing – has the highest rates of poverty, highest infant mortality rates, lowest rate of health insurance and highest rates of obesity. 🙁 Mississippi needs a lot of help.
We stopped in Biloxi, Mobile and a couple of other places on our way to Pensacola… where we had tickets to check out a uniquely American attraction – MONSTER TRUCK JAM! Woo-hoo! We had no idea what to expect, but were there largely to check out the locals, see how ‘into’ monster trucks they are and figure out what we think of the whole monster truck thing. First thing we noticed when we arrived was that there were plenty of locals getting around with earmuffs on. Bugger, that meant we had to find some earplugs and quick. Luckily Mr K found some at the merchandise stand and when we got into the stadium, we found out why. Not only were there monster trucks, but there were modified quad bikes running races around the arena, and they were so loud!
There were heaps of people at monster trucks, many of them quite excited and appeared to know quite a lot about the monster truck circuit, and the current year’s leaderboard. And there were a few long suffering wives and even a few long suffering children there too, watching on while a very enthused Dad cheered.
We made our way to our seats and I just abhor the way my shoes were sticking to the floor… I didn’t want to think about what was causing the gross sticky underfoot thing, but it didn’t take long to figure it out. Every other person coming into the place was carrying beers, cardboard trays of something with liquid cheese all over it that was pretending to be ‘nachos’ and/or hotdogs… you can literally buy a cup of that cheesy shit to dip your cheese stuffed pretzel into. All of it made our lunch look positively gourmet healthy. :/
The monster truck people are a bit like circus people… who are in turn a bit like the Pigeon Fanciers Club of Prague or the Redlands Orchid Appreciation Sociaty. Seems it doesn’t matter what you’re into, there are always people who absolutely live and breathe it. The Monster Truck circuit is no exception. There were obviously people here who were so enamoured with Monster Trucks that tonight was definitely a highlight for them. Mr K and I, on the other hand, as he so succinctly pointed out were a bit like social anthropologists plonked down unceremoniously amongst a new species and desperately hoping no one would notice we didn’t belong there. I’d say it was fun, but seriously? I think it was mostly just funny… and yes I know, that assessment is a long term side effect of my established snobbery when it comes to cultural expressions.
