We arrived in Beaumont just after sunset, and my first thought was, “Wow! This place is huge. It looks like NYC lit up at night!” Joke was on me when we got closer and I realized that all those lights and highrises were the acres upon acres of oil refineries. Oh well. It was a pretty sight at night. What wasn’t so pretty was the smell. As soon as we opened the van doors, the unmistakable perfume of sulfur slammed into us. It smelled just like a paper mill. Later that night I googled it, only to read numerous posts from residents saying they didn’t know why anyone said it smells, that it’s just a rumor, there’s no smell at all! Sure. Driving around the next day I was floored by how many, and how large, oil refiners are around here. Of course, I knew we would see them, I just wasn’t prepared for them to be everywhere.

Ready to learn more, we started the day by driving around downtown Beaumont and visiting the Texas Energy Museum. This wasn’t a huge museum, but we did learn a tremendous amount about all things petroleum-related. I was particularly impressed by the explanations of the chemical reactions that are used in refining crude oil. Chemistry for the day, check.

We didn’t notice until exiting that the tile at the museum entrance was a Texas homage as well.

We were sufficiently intrigued after this museum that we decided to stop by a recreated boomtown in Spindletop, the location of the first major oil discovery in Texas, the Lucas Gusher. There were several old buildings full of antiques that gave an overview of life during the early oil boom. Oddly, the exhibits and descriptions in the printer’s building had the best overview of the history of paper, ink, printing, and publishing that I’ve seen anywhere.

Our last stop of the day was Gator Country, because we hadn’t seen any in the wild (it’s too cold now), and our only option was a gator farm. We didn’t know this would be a huge farm with a petting zoo and tons of reptiles. The staff were amazing and told us about many of the animals. Several of the gators were rescues that had been shot, run over, or injured in fights and would no longer survive in the wild. Feeding the huge tortoise was the most fun. This old fella followed us around begging for lettuce. He was so persistent and just adorable. The goats were equally aggressive in their begging. I am always creeped out by goat eyes; you can see clearly how rectangular their pupils are. We spent time later that night researching why different animals have different pupil shapes. So cool! Take a look if you have time: pupils-animal-vision-ted-ed-video

We were glad to see they had a sense of humor, too. The large mosquito decor was unique. Although now that I think about it, they probably weren’t kidding about the crawfish; they did have a restaurant on site.

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I am now way behind posting, so these will be short and sweet. Today we learned about the history of Acadians and what is now the robust Cajun culture of music, food, family, and bayou life.

We next decided to visit the one and only Tabasco hot sauce factory. This turned out to be surprisingly cool. What a process this is. The pepper mash is aged for three years in oak barrels. The air was full of the hot spice and caused a noticeable burn in our noses. But it was worth it, especially when we had the Cajun Sampler for lunch at their restaurant: shrimp etouffee, red beans and rice, and gumbo. The egg rolls were stuffed with pepper jack cheese and boudin, and had sweet tabasco jelly for dipping. Amazing! They also served samples in the gift shop of Tabasco ice cream and coke, neither of which tasted good, although the novelty was fun. We also sampled different versions of their sauces, most of which I had never seen. Graham even bravely tried a tiny bit of their hotest sauce, which he declared “Hot!”

The Jungle Gardens, the estate of the McLhenny family, founders of Tabasco, was next door. It is now a 170 acre garden. and wildlife preserve Full of camelias, azaleas, bird preserves, and beautiful landscapes, this was a beautiful place to spend the afternoon. They have an audio tour that you play in the car as you drive from stop to stop, and that added greatly to our understanding and appreciation of the estate.

We ended the day by driving the short distance to finally make it to the great state of Texas! I can’t belive that I have never visited Texas (I’m not counting short business trips or layovers – you don’t really get to experience anything about an area on those trips. A conference room or airport is pretty much a conference room or airport anywhere.)

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I’ve started a long post about why we decided, after much discussion, to skip New Orleans. It is still a rough draft and needs much more work. I will post once I find time to work on it more. Skipping to the final outcome, knowing that it has absolutely no effect on anyone but ourselves (and those businesses that are we will not spend our money at), we opted to simply do a drive-through of the beautiful city of New Orleans. And yes, it is still as beautiful and unique as I remembered it. I was heartbroken driving past the many museums I wanted to visit. Driving down Bourbon Street, instead of walking it. Reading the restaurant signs as we rolled past, instead of entering under them. I did my best to give the kids a taste of what a cool city this is, blasting Zydeco and telling them about my many visits to Blues Clubs when I lived in Chicago, but inside I was simply very sad. I had been looking forward to visiting NOLA again more than any other city on our trip. I was really, really looking forward to this, so deciding to skip it was the hardest decision I’ve had to make since we started traveling in August.

We decided instead to head south into bayou areas around Jean Lafitte, named after the famous pirate, and stopped at the local history museum. Irrespective of the website information saying they were open, it turned out that due to flooding, the City Hall records and furniture had all been moved into the museum. Bummer for us, but much bigger bummer for them. Driving out, I realized that what I had thought was just poverty, was in fact the remnants of damage done by Hurricane Ida. I was suddenly struck by the realization that I knew very little about Ida. We quickly googled it, and I was horrified to learn about the damage and destruction she wrought in the area. So many things clicked into place for me. As a verified life-long news addict, how the heck had I missed knowing about a major hurricane of this magnitude? Upon further investigation, it turns out that Ida hit during the second day of our first trip west last August. This was the beginning of a six-week news blackout for me. I don’t have time at all to even glance at the news during our travels, so I completely missed this. Talk about feeling like an idiot!

With this newfound understanding, we now drove north of New Orleans, passing through the middle of the enormous Lake Ponchatrain, some 24 x 40 miles long. We had checked the website to make sure it was open before driving almost an hour and a half to Global Wildlife, a drive-through animal safari park. And par for the course today, we got there and the sign said closed. We had driven around half the day and done nothing yet. Now there were tears of frustration (mine, not the kids). The gate was open with a sign stating “Deliveries Only,” but we could see the animals just inside. This place is huge! I took a chance and called the office, politely explaining the situation. The lady on the phone was so sweet and said yes, it would be no problem for us to just drive through and look. They even offered us a free pass to come and visit again in the future. They also had been badly hurt by Ida, and were doing major renovations in the park. Driving through was so much fun, even without the food to feed the animals. They were all very interested in our car (I’m sure they expected food), and herds of them followed us around. I am so glad we got to do this, and really appreciate them letting us drive through.

Not too far away, there is a row of sugarcane plantations along the Mississippi River. We opted to visit the beautiful Laura Plantation. I would have loved to have seen others, but after being in the car all day, Graham could only take so much of this. Our tour guide was fantastic, regaling us with stories of the family that owned the plantation. Talk about your family drama! We walked through what was left of several slave cabins and learned about how horrible life on a sugarcane plantation was. I was glad that this was an even-handed portrayal of life at the time; this wasn’t some white-coated celebration of Antebellum times. I was also glad the kids got to hear what a heavy Cajun accent sounds like.

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Turns out that a casino hotel isn’t that great for families, not that I’m surprised. I was, however, surprised that at 6:30 a.m., there was not one place in the entire hotel I could get a cup of coffee. We checked out at 7. After filling up on coffee and amazing donuts at a local shop, we had a beautiful morning drive along the coast to the Institute for Marine Mammal Studies.

This was a great place to visit for a few hours. It was much larger than I expected and consisted of several different buildings. We had the entire place to ourselves and spent time speaking at length with the marine biologists who worked there. We learned about dolphins, sea lions, stingrays, and other marine animals, and were also able to touch many different species. We also spent time with the herpetologist and were able to pet a snake and baby alligator.

We also attended a bird show and were able to feed the parakeets. Not marine animals, I know, but fun nonetheless.

Next, we drove on into Louisiana and caught a swamp tour in the late afternoon. We had an amazing tour guide who taught us so much during the two-hour trip. We saw several animals, although not gators because they are in semi-hibernation this time of year. We saw a huge nutria (swamp rat), but the guide said it was actually a youngster. I shudder to think of encountering a full-sized one. We saw numerous birds including herons, egrets, and an anhinga. The guide spoke the entire time about the different animals that live in the area, the swamp ecosystem, and local history. And pigs. I learned more about pigs than I thought possible. This was such a fascinating tour that we decided we might try another one after we leave New Orleans.

The kids also loved discovering this adorable raccoon family. We learned that raccoons are the second leading cause of rabies bites, however, at which point they were decidedly less cute to me.

We were all pretty tired by this point, and since the next day was going to be raining, we decided to take a day off to rest and do laundry before moving on to New Orleans.

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