January 8-9, 2015 Palmetto Island, Louisiana

We are in Cajun country, so we went for Cajun lunch.

We went to Shucks Oyster house. A whole lot of shuckin’ goin’ on. Oyster appetizers and John with his duck and andouille gumbo. These were the seasonings that were on the table. I liked the Cajun power garlic sauce. We are only 15 miles here from Avery Island, where Tabasco sauce is made.

 

Meanwhile back at the campground the light was beautiful on the bald cypress swamp.

 

Some mustards are blooming already. Today was one of those days that if there were not jet trails there would be no clouds.

It is the weekend, so we have neighbors. John thought they had a new kind of smoker and he visited. It on outdoor wood burning stove made from 2 washer drums and a semi exhaust pipe. An outdoor heater and they are sitting around it drinking beer. Local color. Tonight we went to Cajun claws for dinner. It is a family run restaurant that serves crawfish. This time of year they are only open when they get enough crawfish. With this cold snap the harvest is way down and they are only open Fri this week. We waited three hours to be seated and were told by many regulars that these are the best crawfish you can get.  They are bigger than anywhere else. The above photo has a king cake martini, 4 kinds of liquer , cherry juice and sprite, edged with colored sugar. The ladies next to us were drinking them.  They took us to the back where you can look in and see them boiling the crawfish. Here are huge vats of them. They showed them to us since we are from Colorado and have never been here before.

 

Leslee and Windy next  to us with their  king cake martini’s and 4 people all looking at their phones instead of where they are.  We talked to a man who said he went to Colorado once, skiing at Copper mountain. He said he liked it and all, but there was no humidity, it was too cold and he could not breath. Colorado is a foreign country to the people down here.  Other people have said they can’t fathom how people put up with that much snow. In Colorado we can’t fathom how people put up with the heat , bugs and humidity here.The menu was mostly all crawfish. John ordered a pistolette, which is some kind of crawfish with bread around it and crawfish gravy while we waited to be seated. The place was packed.

  

Finally my shrimp and John’s 3 1/2 pounds of crawfish-which I helped him eat too. Worth the wait.