Along The Way: Jungles, Hot Sauce and Rip Van Winkle

We started the day at Mel's Diner. It is a nice breakfast spot. It is designed to mimic the 80s sitcom.

Louisiana has some great back roads to travel. There are stretches of wide open spots with farm land. Anything from rice paddies to sugar cane fields can be found. The "don't blink or you will miss it" little town centers are reminiscent of days gone by.

After about an hour of travel time we arrived at Avery Island. We stopped at the gate and received our pass and drove over the two biggest speed bumps ever.

We stopped at the little country store and got our pass to enter the Jungle Garden. The three mile long trail through the garden let us experience the best of everything of the south Louisiana typical vegetation. We stopped to pose in our cars with the azaleas in bloom. We drove around a pond and saw several alligators, turtles and ducks. The massive live oaks were dripping with Spanish moss.

We traveled over to the Tabasco plant for a tour and lunch. We toured through each building starting at build 4. We viewed the vats that are two stories high. The Tabasco could be in the vats for 2 or 3 years. The vats had automatic system for stirring. Barrett found a button you could push and it would stir the vats and send the smell out at you.

In another building they were bottling. That was cool to see two of the four lines in operation. One worker on the line held up a hand made sign that said welcome cruisers.

The McIlhenney family has made Tobasco sauce for 5 generations. They have made the same recipe from the beginning and have added eight more varieties.

Lunch was a sample of the menu from the 1868 restaurant, red beans and rice, gumbo and etouffee' along with hot bread pudding.

After lunch we drove over to Jefferson Island. We entered the area through the long live oaks corridor. As we went up the hill to the Joseph Jefferson home we viewed the home through the many flowers in bloom.

When we got out of the car we were greeted by peacocks, lots of them.

The island has a unique history that includes the actor Joe Jefferson who played Rip Van Winkle in the 1800s.

We all discovered we were not in as good of shape as we could have been. The walk to the house was a bit steep. We learned about the family and had the chance to see as authentic of home belongings as we have seen.

After returning to the hotel a "few" of us headed to Borden's Ice cream for the Buzzard Breath meeting.