Traveling with Michelle: June 30: Down in the bayou

Sunday: Today we woke up and scheduled the swamp tour we decided on last night. We were able to get in the 12:00 tour. We also found out the location of a Walgreens clinic nearby to go to after the tour because Anneliese has been having severe ear pain for a few days and despite advil and warm compresses to deal with the pain, it hasn't cleared up.

We expected the swamp tour to be kind of cheesy, but it wasn't. We all really enjoyed it. Our captain lives in the bayou himself and has that kind of accent. He was friendly and shared many stories with us. We saw a lot of alligators. He knows of three big 10 foot ones that he has named Big Boy, T-bow, and Queenie. We got to see Big Boy and T-bow and a ton of medium sized ones and got to pass around and hold a very young one that they raised from an egg. She will be going back to the DNR soon. They have a special license to get eggs from them to raise, then trade in the young alligators for more eggs.

An alligator next to the boat!

And another!

The bayou--they have to clear it out after each hurricane

And another (I only put a small percentage of them on here!)

the captain is on a little ledge with food (I think frog) on his pole, and the alligators jump up to get it.

On of the alligators took his pole too and he had to maneuver the boat and use another pole to get it back

This is a re-creation of a swamp dwellers cabin around 1915--they had historians come out and help them to get it right.

The bayou

Several alligators (around 5 were circling the boat

More of the bayou

A snowy white egret

Joshua holding the young alligator

Randy's turn

My turn

Shelby's turn

Anneliese's turn

Cypress--they make it through the hurricanes because they have such massive root structures. Some of these are 200 years old!

Allegedly this a cemetery from the 1915 hurricane. The survivors of the village that was here came back to pull the others that didn't make it out of the water and bury them--without caskets.

Joshua needed another turn!

After the swamp tour we found a clinic at a Walgreens. We talked to the Nurse Practitioner because we were having trouble finding out health insurance in their automated sign-in. He said that if it's not in there, we could just pay the $95 fee and try to get reimbursed from Health Partners. Then he asked Anneliese her symptoms and asked her some questions. He said we could pay the money for him to lookin her ear, but he suspected either a cold or allergies (both of which are common in New Orleans now) and suggested getting Sudafed and Allegra and continue with the Advil--taking three at a time. So that's what we did. We've already been doing warm compresses in our hotel room, we'll add the drugs and hopefully she'll feel better soon.

After the clinic, we went to our hotel room and Anneliese and Randy napped for several hours, then I woke them up at 7:30 to walk around a bit and find dinner before it got really dark. New Orleans is not the safest city after dark to walk around in. We walked and it was cooler and less humid--beautiful for walking. We heard bands playing everywhere but walked over the the market area and found a restaurant, Montrel's Bistro with "Authentic Creole Cuisine." The maître d' told us that most our their customers are locals because they used to be located further out, but Katrina wiped them out so they moved to the French Quarter so they won't serve us that watered-down crap the other restaurants serve to tourists and call gumbo; they have to cater to the locals and have good, authentic food. Even the chef came out to talk to us, answered questions about the menu, then checked back after we were done! :) Very friendly staff, we even met the maître d's neice--what a cutie! Anneliese and Joshua had gumbo and salad and I had jambalya--pretty good, except for the huge intact crawfish on the top--it looked like the creatures in Alien--couldn't eat it! The gumbo and the jamblaya were both good!! The area was very cute--lots of fairy lights and a neighboring cafe had a jazz combo playing outside so we had music as well. What a nice last night in New Orleans!