So what if there’s not snow?

On Saturday, November 18, Jake and I, along with our friends Kevin and Diana, journeyed to Baton Rouge, Louisiana to partake in a tail-gate extraordinaire. Louisiana State University (LSU) has a mighty fierce passion towards tailgating before football games, and we decided this was an affair we just couldn’t miss. Even though the game didn’t start until 7:00 pm, the party was well underway by 1 pm.

As we snaked our way through the many groups, there was fun being had in every direction. Entire families were decked out in purple and gold (LSU Tigers’ colors), games were being played, dancing, singing, eating… Oh, yes. Eating. Ever seen a cauldron of gumbo cooking? Being stirred with a paddle? Or commercial size deep-fryers rigged up at an outside picnic-esque setting for a maximum of 10? No joke. There was an endless array of food.

It was here that Jake was able to have his first real dose of boudin. Pronounced “BOO-dan”, it is a mixture of rice, sausage and spices, then served two ways. Deep-fried (of course) or stuffed into an intestinal casing. Don’t everybody rush down here at once to try it. His report (on trying the stuffed intestinal casing boudin): really good. So good, it warranted several tastings, each with the same report.

Whatever your own experiences with tailgating may be, I must share with you that I was blown away by how family-oriented and non-rowdy (but still tons of fun) the scene was. Maybe it’s the consistent weather down here that eases people into a calmer-state of relaxation and celebration, or maybe it’s just that these people really know how to stir up a good time without being crass, rude and unnecessarily rowdy.

One more thing—just when I was starting to doubt that there existed any hills or even the slightest rise of elevation in the state of Louisiana-there it was. A hill. A real hill. And, as you can see in the photograph, people know what to do down here just like they do in Minnesota. You grab whatever means you can find to zoom down the hill, with or without snow.

Lost Trees and Lazy Water

Like I said, water down here is just lazy. It tends to wander where it shouldn't, and then it sticks around for awhile, like it is too tired to try and figure out where it ought to be. Apparently the trees have a similar problem. In the picture on the left is Megan going out to the end of a pier in the Black Bayou wildife preserve outside of Monroe, LA. We met some bald cypress who wandered out into the water and forgot to head back to shore. Being from the "Land of 10,000 Lakes" it was quite surreal to look accross what looked to be a perfectly normal body of water and see all these trees standing there. How's anybody supposed to ski around here?
This was where we spent our one day off during our two and a half week disaster response adventure, and it was a fine place to spend it. Very peaceful. We saw some turtles and some lily pads the size of a large table, and no alligators. Megan was unhappy about missing the gators (a man leaving as we arrived saw an 8-footer!), I was less unhappy.
Below you can see a lily pad I would estimate to be 2 feet across floating in what is actually very clear water, not black. Next to it is the trunk of a cypress tree, useful for its strong and water-resistant wood and known for its "knees" that protrude from the root system above the water. Once thought to provide the tree with more oxygen, it is now thought the knees are more for support. I think perhaps emotional support 'cause those trees look pretty lost way out there all alone in those lakes.