Tuesday - Airboat Swamp Tour and cemeteries

Airboats are my new favorite thing. If ever I decide to have a mid-life job change, my first choice in new vocation is to drive an airboat, and maybe give tours so that I can make some extra money.
Our tour was AMAZING. Our guide was named Stevie - a big ol' Cajun man, with a great sense of humor, who sat behind us and chain-smoked while showing us the best of the bayou. Lauren's favorite thing is that she got to hold a baby alligator, named Bud. She also got to feed big alligators - they come when you throw out big marshmallows (which Stevie calls "swamp crack"). Stevie said that they also come over for donuts! He brought chicken along, in case we got one of the big ones to come over, but that didn't work out. We saw 2 of the big ones - one of them was 12 feet long, and the other one was too scared of the airboat to let us get very close, so we're not sure how long it is. The ones that Lauren got to throw marshmallows to were 6-8 feet.

We spent the morning touring old cemetaries. All of the cemetaries here are above ground, since the water table is so close to the surface. I am fascinated by them - many of them are marble and ornate, with carvings and statues and stained glass and wrought iron gates. We went to the Metairie Cemetary, where about half of the tombs date from the early 1800s, and it is still being used today. There's a beautiful one shaped like a pyramid with a Sphinx guarding it. Lauren's excited because she bought a book at the book fair about a girl who lived in New Orleans during the yellow fever epidemic, and is buried in the Lafayette Cemetary. We drove to that cemetery, too, and Lauren and I walked through looking for the book character. All cemeteries in New Orleans close promptly at 3:00, though, and their gates are locked, so we got shooed out before we found it. However, it's kind of magical to see the actual location of a book you've been immersed in, and Lauren was thrilled with the whole experience - she kept touching things and saying "This is just how I imagined it!"
Today we are heading to the New Orleans Audubon Zoo and City Park, and then picking up our trailer from the race track and heading for Shreveport. I'm hoping that we can find something fun to do in Shreveport tomorrow before we head home, but we'll see...
Carla