Alligators – RDZ Photography

El Paso – September 2022 – Artistic Morning

With the 3 day Labor Day weekend coming up it was time to get out of town. At first the thought was to make the 6+ hour drive to San Diego, but they were in a heat wave with forecasted highs hotter than Tucson! So we went east to El Paso.

Saturday morning was the perfect time to walk around and check out the downtown neighborhood.

San Jacinto Plaza has always been the heart of El Paso. Starting in the 1950s there was a pond in the plaza that someone had let live alligators loose in. A series of alligators resided there until the 1960s, when it was decided they would be relocated to the El Paso Zoo to keep them safe from morons who abused them.

Today the alligator legacy is remembered with a sculpture.

The El Paso Art Museum, Convention Center, and baseball stadium are all located next to each other. The architecture and public art make for a picturesque setting.

The nearby Union Station train depot is home to a Saturday morning art and farmers market. While small, it had a nice mix of arts and crafts, and local food specialties like salsa.

It was time for a brief stop back at the historic Paseo Del Norte Hotel before setting out to see the rest of the city….

Virtual Travel – Louisiana

Architecture, Festival, History, Museum, Nature, Transportation, Water Features

Bonjour de la Louisiana. Our trip today takes us to the bayou.

1977 – Bogue Chitto River. This river is 65 miles north of New Orleans in a park with more than 1,000 acres.

1979 – Bayou. Much of southern Louisiana is made up of bayous and swamps.

2005

The residents of these parts are very proud of their alligators.

The bayous have a unique beauty.

1981 – Acadia. This area of Louisiana has the strongest French culture. In Louisiana the counties are known as parishes. Some of the parishes in this area are over 25% French speaking (although not a French someone from Paris or Montreal would likely easily understand).

We passed through this area in 2019, making a stop at the Tabasco Factory on Avery Island.

Acadia is rice growing country.

In New Ibiera is the Conrad Rice Mill, America’s oldest.

1984 – Mississippi River. The river is the economic driver for Louisiana.

Bridges in New Orleans.

Many overseas freighters come up the river to New Orleans to dock and offload.

The tourist sternwheeler leaves for a tour.

Upriver at the crossing from Vicksburg, Mississippi to the town of Delta, Louisiana.

1986 – 1992 – 2001 – Music

New Orleans is music, food and partying.

1990 – Flowers

With the warm weather and abundant rain, Louisiana has amazing flora and fauna.

1998 – State Capitol. While New Orleans is the center of the world for all things Louisiana, Baton Rouge is the capital.

2002 & 2007 – Food

Louisiana is known for food, primarily (photos from Wikipedia)

Crawfish

Po-boys

And Beignets

2003 – Louisiana Purchase (historic New Orleans)

New Orleans was the center of the French owned territory in the new world. The Cabildo is beside St Louis Cathedral in the French Quarter.

The French Quarter is representative of the city at that time (except for all the dive bars).

2018 – Birds

Avery Island, Louisiana has a very impressive bird sanctuary.

Avery Island, Louisiana – May 2019 – Jungle Gardens

History, Nature, Sciences, Water Features

With Avery Island’s location in southern Louisiana the main agricultural business is sugar cane.

With the year round warm, wet weather it is the perfect climate for nature to grow. In the late 1800s the son of the founder of Tabasco sauce, Edward Avery McIlhenny, created the botanical gardens known as Jungle Gardens.

The gardens cover 170 acres of Avery Island.

There isn’t a large number of different plants, flowers and trees, but the gardens are well laid out, and immaculately kept up.

As with most of Louisiana, water is always nearby.

Including this nice pond, with a warning sign to not feed the alligators (which seems like anyone would know that).

We did NOT feed this alligator.

The turtles were safely out of harms way.

A few buildings remain from the early days of Tabasco pepper growing.

This drive is appropriately named Wisteria Lane, as you make your way under the Wisteria arch.

The highlight however is Bird City. In 1895 Edward raised eight egrets in captivity, releasing them in the fall for their migration. The next year they returned with more egrets.

Ever since then thousands of egrets return to Avery Island in the spring and reside there until late summer.

When we arrived for the Tabasco tour we were one of the few who opted to purchase combination tickets for the factory tour and the gardens. It was money well spent!

Moss Point, Mississippi – May 2019 – Gulf Coast Gator Ranch

Nature, Sciences, Transportation, Water Features

The Gulf Coast Gator Ranch is located in the swamps of southern Mississippi, near the town of Moss Point. They specialize in raising alligators for commercial use, but they also retrieve ‘nuisance’ alligators from golf courses, etc.

Their ranch is surrounded by a levee and fence to keep the wild alligators away from their alligators. Because their gators get lots to eat they grow to impressive sizes.

They lurk about in the ponds and nearby grasses.

You can buy ‘gator chow’ and throw them over the fence to the gators.

They are everywhere!

Some just hang out on land enjoying the warm Mississippi sun.

Our host, and boat captain – Captain ‘Frog’ – brought out a baby alligator for us to hold.

It was time for part 2 of our morning – an airboat ride!

Just outside their ranch we found this guy keeping an eye on us.

Fortunately he was just hanging around for a snack as well – marshmallows.

As we headed out into the swamp we passed by even more gators.

The black waters of the bayous were beautiful. Captain Frog was very knowledgeable about the plants and flowers of the swamp, and the traditional uses, as he grew up in the swamps of Louisiana. He had the perfect Louisiana accent to go with it.