louisiana beach

Gulf of Mexico Sunset

acadia to cajun

And extremely short history of Cajun Louisiana: The Acadians were French Catholics living in eastern Canada when, in 1755, the British beat the French in the French and Indian War. The Acadians were deported and some came to Louisiana because, at that time, it belonged to France. The word Acadian changed, over time, to Cajun. Say Acadian fast a few times and you'll see.
This is the church written about in that sign above. It says it all.

natural unnatural

Rutherford Beach, on the Louisiana Gulf of Mexico shore, is everything: water, sand, sky, and an industrial platform that probably belongs to the petroleum industry.

power

Southern Louisiana is powered by the oil industry. The highway—Interstate 10—going through Lake Charles is surrounded on both sides with refineries and who-all-knows what else. A place down the road is called Sulfur.

the dead

In areas where the water table is very high, burying people deep in the ground is not easy. This is how the Cajun French Catholics solved that problem.

wet water

According to my little Oxford American Dictionary, which lives under the front seat of my car, bayou means, "a marshy offshoot of a river." What you see here is a bayou. Cypress trees collect sediment between their knees, creating land, while the water moves with gravity, finding the easiest route down, down, down. . .eventually to the Gulf of Mexico from here.

beggar

I arrived at Chicot State Park near Ville Platte, Louisiana, to find a welcoming committee of one blind-in-the-right-eye racoon. It was relentless in trying to get me to either feed it or let it into the cabin so that it could find the food itself. A mix of cat and dog and squirrel.

This is Cajun Country for real. Wi-fi is available at all the McDonalds in Louisiana. Here I sit, listening to the old guys who come here for coffee because the local coffee places are no longer (as is true in many parts of the country), listening to Cajun French mixed with English, sometimes. Interesting place, really.