Dec 30, 2011

Relaxed at home today. John has had a horrible cough for 3 weeks now. He decided to go to an urgent care-before the long weekend and get checked. He of course is fine, just has a virus and had to wait for it to go away. We checked out the fresh sea food at the end of the bayou here by the campground, lots of fishing boats there.  He relaxed the rest of the day. I sat in my lawn chair in the sun-75 degrees and read my book. Went biking in the late afternoon light.

fresh crabs, they were all trying to climb out of the box. Gigantic shrimp-too big for jumbo

Sue’s seafood-of course I don’t even like seafood, and the fishing boats

Segnette Bayou and a smokey sun. Not sure what was burning, but the sky was pretty

a pair of egrets in the smokey light, and another in the sunset light

sunset looked like the fire under the smoke.

Dec 28-29 2011 N’awlins still

Two beautiful warm days. Weds we took the ferry to the city and went to the insectarium-we got the combo ticket for the Insectarium , the zoo, aquarium and Imax. We only went to see the insects, had lunch in a fancy restaurant in an old historic building. The saw  a powerful exhibit about Katrina.

Sunny day over the ferry coming to pick us up. Huge bugs at the Insectarium.

The underground bugs, 100 x normal size. Phew

 

Japanese garden butterfly garden. This on looks like a leaf.

colorful butterfly and one on John’s hat

John took this photo of one in my hair, Snacks at the tiny termite café.

we passed on the cooking show. An art exhibit at the beginning of the Katrina exhibit. A bunch of messages in  glass bottles and glass hands reaching out.

Sunset on a paddleboat thru an arch waiting for the ferry, A brilliant sunset while we were on the ferry

Sunset Weds. Thurs  was a warm, 70’s kind of day , live music and not crowded at the French Quarter.

Nola’s (New Orleans, LA), an Emeril  Restaurant. Johns favorite in the city

John with his Grilled Gulf shrimp and my vege flat bread

a crème de Brule trio, warm , sunny river walk

John in the coral reef exhibit and stalking a big fish in the aquarium

Amazon river exhibit and two huge macaws

John at the Amazon river and ooohhh, piranha’s steel trap bite

Piranha feeding frenzy, penguin skeleton. I don’t think the bus has that kind of skeleton.

HUGE rare albino alligator, and the jellies

Parakeet point- a room with 100’s of parakeets. You could buy a popsicle stick with bird seed attached so the parakeets would sit on your hand.

December 27 2011 Swamp tour, Lafitte, La

It was a beautiful sunny day. We took a drive down to Lafitte and went on a swamp tour. On air boats. John did not want to go, but he humored me.  The boats are loud, but the swamps are huge and you need a big boat to see much. We went on the last tour of the day and got beautiful late afternoon light. We saw gators and tons of birds. The guide even caught a huge catfish at the end of the ride.  Even John liked the ride when it was said and done.

The tours are off. The airboats went to fast they blew up our jackets.

Here we are , air boating, the first gator sighting

The second gator sighting, and I could not resist riding this one

views of the swamp

met another boat , and a shot of overhead

swamp views

the marsh is farther out from land, closer to the ocean. The vegetation grows on floating mats that rise up and down with tides and floods. The guide says you can jump up and down on them like a water bed.

Our guide, Captain Jim caught this catfish on the way back. When you live in Lafitte you expect floods-houses on stilts.