October 30 - Swamp Tour and Uncle Hubert

Another action-packed day, this time in Cajun country, beginning with a wonderful tour on Lake Martin, near Breaux Bridge. The lake was like a mirror, and gliding among the cypress and tupelo was like passing through a dream. According to our guide, we saw just about every kind of bird and animal that lives in the lake.

Our swamp tour guide, Norbert LeBlanc,
speaks excellent French but with a
strange accent, according to our cousins. 

Ready to tour

LeBlanc and Lloyd.

We saw an alligator sunning on a log
soon after leaving the dock.

Cormorants

Herons

The mirror-like surface of the lake.

Breaux Bridge - Café des Amies

After leaving the swamp, we ate lunch

at Café des Amies in Breaux Bridge. 

The food was delicious.

Chicken with dirty rice

Pasta with chicken

Shrimp alfredo

Shrimp gumbo and turtle soup

Our cousins were introduced to bread pudding. They at first seemed a bit skeptical about eating bread for dessert. Lloyd ordered a serving for himself and asked for five spoons.

This is what the plate looked like
about five seconds after it hit the table.
No time to take a photo!

And this is what our cousins looked like. 

After this experience, bread pudding was a regular order in most restaurants!

We were pleased. :)

Across the street from the café was a school. Lloyd and Bernard braved traffic to get a photo of Bernard by the sign. I stayed on the sidewalk and took this shot.

From Breaux Bridge, we drove to nearby Lafayette, to visit with Uncle Hubert Dobard and Valli. Bernard presented the first copies of his book, Le Voyage Baronnais: Le Genealogie, l'itineraire d'un affranchi de D'Albardaubus, a Daubard, a Dobard. This is an exhaustive study of the origins of the surname and a report of the family in France and in Louisiana. 

Presenting the book to Uncle Hubert.

The author explains.

Bernard was never without a pen
during his visit. It came in
handy several times. A mini
version of Pictionary often
bridged the language gap.

Rodney Trahan dropped by and presented
Bernard with a bottle of muscatine wine
that he'd made from the vines in his back yard.
Bernard was delighted. "I now have," he announced,
"the only bottle of wine in all of France grown and
bottled in Lafayette, Louisiana."

On the way home from Lafayette, we spotted
a truck emblazoned with the letters TMI.
It was too perfect not to memorialize it
with a photo.