2016XC: Day 9, June 23 – Berwick (Morgan City), Louisiana
CampSite: Cypress Lake RV Resort
A beautiful sunrise over Cypress Lake.
We spent the morning at the pool. Morgan had already showered and decided not to swim with us (really?!).
Turned out it was all good because when Morgan finally did give in and head back to the camper to get changed into his swimsuit, he found the bathtub overflowing with gray water. We have no idea why it happened, but he saved us from a huge flooding mess. It was about the time anyway for lunch, so headed back to the camper to eat and get ready for our first excursion for this day. Our first stop was at the “Mr. Charlie” oil rig for a tour. This rig was one of the first of it’s kind, and was in service for about 40 years. Parked on the Atchafalaya River, it now serves as a training facility for employees from all over the country. We arrived there at 2:20pm, just missing the daily 2:00pm tour. Oddly enough while we were sitting in our truck trying to decide what to do, a man came over to ask us if we were waiting for the tour. We told him yes, and that we’d just missed it. He gave us a business card for the tour guide and told us to call him. Randy, the tour guide, was glad to run down and meet us at the entrance so we could catch up with him. He was a very interesting guy, sharing lots of information about the rig, the industry, alligators, and his charmed life!
We left the rig and headed for our next big adventure, a swamp tour. The rendezvous spot was the “Bayou Delight” diner to meet up with the swamp tour guide for 4:30. Behind the diner was a small dock with a sign that said, “Caution: Do Not Feed the Alligators”, and yes, there was indeed a small alligator looking quite confident that the sign would soon be ignored.
I hate to say it, but isn’t he kind of cute? I guess as much as an alligator can be. We boarded a 15 passenger flat-bottom boat and started up the creek. I’d be lying if I said that none of this was freaking me out. We saw another alligator swimming, and then one floating upside down, dead. Joe, our tour guide, said it probably got hit by a car (there were roads on both sides of the creek). We continued upstream and under a few very low bridges, while Joe told us about the swamp, various vegetation (plantain and banana trees)…
…how and why he does what he does, and where he lives as we passed by his house. Under another bridge and through a canal, we ventured out into the Intercoastal Waterway, crossing into one of many inlets of the Mandalay Swamp Wildlife Preserve.
As we entered one of the inlets, Joe begins telling us about the first alligator we should see, and his name is Not-So-Big-Al. Then Joe starts calling, “Come ooooon babeee”, Come oooonn Al”. If I had’t seen it with my own eyes, I don’t think I’d have believed it, but here comes Not-So-Big Al! Joe jams a raw chicken leg on a long stick, entices him, and Not-So-Big Al lunges himself forward to eat it. And as crazy as it was, it was really really cool.
We saw about 7 more of his alligator “friends” as they answered his dinner call, all the while exploring some other areas in the swamp.
The last alligator, I think was “Lil Red”, was the best show of all. When Lil Red heard Joe and came swimming over to us, Joe backed the boat up on top of some vegetation (there really isn’t an actual “shore” or end to the swamp since it’s all water, all around). He began waiving the chicken leg, and once he had Reds’ attention, he lured the alligator along to the back of the boat, so that Red was completely out from the water and entirely visible. THAT was crazy, and he certainly wasn’t little!
Wow. As we journeyed back to our starting place, we saw a small alligator with his mouth open, sunning itself on a little dock. Later we learned they do that to release some of the heat from their bodies.
I have to admit, even though I was feeling pretty hesitant about the whole alligator thing after the Disney incident, this was one of the highlights of the trip by far.
We stopped at a playground for Gabriel…
…and then for a little cajun cookin’ at Boudreau & Thibodeau’s.
What item could we all eat (or at least agree to try) that could be more appropriate? Alligator Bites, of course! Yes, we all ate some, and yes, that includes me. They tasted like a mix of chicken and beef, and a bit chewy. The food was pretty good there…Steve ordered a crab and shrimp with a creamed crawfish sauce, I had blackened shrimp, Morgan had a Po’Boy, and the other boys had chicken tenders. Gabriel was at our table for the entire conversation up to and as we ate the alligator bites appetizer earlier, but it somehow all went over his head. A few minutes after we finished our dinner, one of us said something about the Alligator Bites, and Gabriel chimes in, “We ate alligator? I thought it was chicken!”
Fun day for sure, with lots of firsts for everyone!