We started at the farmer's market in Del Combre on Saturday morning. It was a little nippy at the market right on the water, but it was a great place to find some local treats accompanied by local Cajun music. What a fun way to start the day!
We then headed down the road to New Iberia, because we read it was the first day of their Azalea festival. We followed the provided map, but decided that this cool morning meant the flowers were still in the bud. No pictures of glorious flowers, because we really didn't see many glorious flowers. But driving around town, we did find a soup-cook-off. We soon learned that visitors are supposed to taste as many soups as possible so they can make an educated vote for the best one. A few bowls of spicy cajun soup warmed us right up! We cast our two votes for the asparagus and shrimp soup and the creamy shrimp gumbo as our favorites.
Driving around New Iberia, we saw lots of cars parked at Shadows-on-the-Teche, a historic house that was once part of a sugar cane plantation.
Today the gardens are filled with booths of local artists, so we wandered the grounds on this beautiful day. We were glad to see that some of the local artists use sweet treats as their media, and we bought several pieces of tasty art.
Right next door is a public sculpture park, that was picturesque.
We could look out over Bayou Teche from that red sculpture chair or from Mark's long-chained garden swing. This river winds for 230 miles across southern Louisiana, including its course through the town of New Iberia.
We struck out with the azaleas today, but that doesn't mean that Denisa won't take pictures of the local flowers. We found this bright spiky bloom on a local tree,
and this bright yellow water iris in the sculpture garden. Whoo! It feels better to know that we weren't skunked with pretty spring flora here in Cajun country.
With all our unplanned stops today, we were late arriving to our planned stop. We read that the Volunteer Fire Department was having a Wild Fish, Fur, and Feather cook-off (no, we had no idea what that meant either), so we headed toward the tiny town of Herman next. We would soon find that locals had spent the day cooking up their favorite recipes that used either wild fish, wild mammal, or wild bird in them. We arrived at the worst possible time, as the tasting was finished. So we didn't get to try the duck tacos, the bacon-wrapped-back-strap, the crawfish gumbo, or any of the other entries. We were too late for the food, and too early for the line-up of cajun music that started in the evening. So after our long day of touring, we headed back to the state park.
We were in church the next morning, a little disappointed that we didn't have a local Cajun preacher. We love to listen to these people talk, as their french-like language mixed with their southern Cajun accent sounds almost like music. After church we went to lunch at the park ranger's favorite local dive. We should have taken pictures of the gas station that was converted into Suire's Cafe. We shared a combination plate that included shrimp etouffee, shrimp gumbo and rice, potato salad, roll, and lemon cake. The only thing better than hearing a Cajun talk, is eating the food that a Cajun cooks!
We are really enjoying our time in the heart of Cajun country. We love the food, the music, and the special language that is found only here in southern Louisiana.
Note: Isn't it crazy to think that a week later, probably all of those fun activities would have been cancelled--including church?!?
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