Day 5, Downtown Breaux Bridge

I spent the day in downtown Breaux Bridge. Its a nice old town, with antiques shops, cafes and artist's shops. I visited the visitor center and they pointed me to a little park on bayou Teche. I walked to the park and there was a giant statue of a snake. It was about 75' long with a plaque that gave the story of Bayou Teche. The legend says that hundreds of year ago there lived a giant snake. It wasn't measured in feet but in miles. It's head was in Morgan City and the tail stretched here to Breaux Bridge.  The snake was very dangerous and killed many indians. The indians decided to attack it and kill it. The warriors prepared their great battle with arrowheads made of gar (fish) bones as there are no stones in the bayou. The battle lasted many days, but the serpent was mortally wounded. The legend says that the snake writhed for several days as it died. As it coiled and twisted in the last few days of it's slow death, it wallowed out the narrow bayou. Teche means snake in the native Chitimachas language. The back porch on my little cabin sits over the site of that dying snake.

There were some people fishing near there so I walked over to see if they were catching anything. Nothing but gar they told me. The alligator gar is a local fish that gets to be several feet long, but it's not very good to eat. I've been fishing twice since I've been here and we caught several gar. I caught a nice sized Gaspergoo and was pretty excited, but unfortunatly it's not good to eat either. The Lousiana trifecta of trash fish is the Gar, Gaspergoo and Choupic (shoe pic). One more and I'll have the set.

I visited one of the above-ground cemeteries in town. The earliest cemeteries were underground burials, but there were problems with the coffins bursting up through the ground and floating away in times of heavy rains and floods. After some unfortunate incidents, the cities began using above ground crypts for burial. Many of these seem to be only big enough for two coffins, yet there may be half a dozen or more names on the memorial stone. This happens as after a year and a day, the crypt may be opened and the old coffin and body broken up. The remains are then stored in a hollow area under the lower crypt. There is little left after only a very short time due to the extreme heat in the tombs.

These cemeteries are very pretty and make for great pictures. I had a great time just walking around and reading the markers. The cemetery is full of old french names like Landry, Cormier, Leblanc and Bergeron.

I had dinner at Point Breaux's. The stuffed crab and bread pudding was good, but the cajun music was great. Guess what? The first song they played when I sat down was Jole Blon!

On my way back to the cabin, I filled the rental car up with gas... $3.33 a gallon! Heck I might let he car idle all night with the A/C on so it's cool in the morning.

I killed the evening sitting in front of the cabin and trying my best to describe California to a couple from France.